Rising Up: The Most Popular Chinese Smartphones

Rising Up: The Most Popular Chinese Smartphones
Aug 25, 2014 By Benji Yang , eChinacities.com

It used to be that Made in China signaled poor quality, cheap goods and that Designed in China was synonymous with rip off, or imitation. In recent years, made in China and Designed in China, for a select few products at least, means great value. One such category in particular is the smartphone.

The following list represents a list of the most widely available and/or trendy new smartphones on the market. All phones listed below support 4G LTE with the exception of the Hongmi 1S.

Rising Up: The Most Popular Chinese Smartphones
Photo: techinasia.com

 

Screen

Processor

Storage

Camera (rear)

Price

Mi 4

5.0 inch IPS, 1920x1080 401ppi

Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Quadcore 2.5Ghz

16-64GB, no expandable SD slot

13-megapixel Sony Exmor

1,999 RMB*

Hongmi 1S (3G)

4.7 inch IPS, 1280x720 312ppi

MediaTek MT6589 1.5Ghz Quadcore

8GB with expandable SD slot

8-megapixel camera

699 – 799 RMB*

OnePlus ONE

5.5 inch IPS
1920x1080, 401ppi

Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Quadcore 2.5Ghz

16GB or 64GB, no expandable SD slot

13-megapixel Sony Exmor IMX214 BSI sensor

$299 – 349 USD*

Huawei Ascend P7

5.0 inch IPS 1920x1080, 445ppi

HiSilicon Kirin 910T Quadcore 1.8Ghz

16GB,  expandable SD slot

13-megapixel Sony Exmor IMX214 BSI sensor

2,888 RMB**

Oppo Find 7

5.5 inch IPS, 2560x1440, 538ppi

Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Quadcore 2.5Ghz

32GB, expandable SD slot

13-megapixel Sony Exmor IMX214 BSI sensor

2,998 RMB**

Coolpad S9190L

5.95 inch IPS 1280x720, 247ppi

Qualcomm MSM8926 1.2Ghz Quadcore GPU

16GB no expandable SD slot

13 Megapixel Sony lens (unspecified sensor)

1,999 RMB**

* The prices marked with an asterisk are the manufacturers’ own pricing, and also signify that the phone is not yet available for sale to the general public
** Prices represent the cost of the phone on popular ecommerce site, JD.com

1) Xiaomi
Xiaomi is a relatively new but very successful company in the smartphone space, founded in 2010. The company’s products have been very well received since the launch of their first smartphone, the Mi 1, and they have now expanded their product offerings to include routers, TV boxes and HD TV’s. Their mission statement since the very beginning was to offer consumers a well built, well designed phone with a friendly user interface at a considerably lower price point than their multinational competitors. Xiaomi is great at generating buzz for their products and creating a group of brand ambassadors much the same way Apple has done with their products.

The Mi 4 is the latest offering of their flagship phones and as we can see in the table above, the hardware that the Mi4 comes equipped with is absolutely first class; on par with its major multinational competitors like Samsung, LG or Apple, if not better. Their flagship phones seem to be very well made and do not have manufacturing or durability issues that many low-end Chinese phones are associated with.

The user interface is what Xiaomi calls MIUI, and is used on all of their phones. It is built on the Android OS and resembles the Apple iOS interface.

The Hongmi is Xiaomi’s budget line of smartphones, offering similar functionality and compatibility as their flagship “Mi” series phones but outfitted with lower end hardware. The latest release of the Hongmi, the Hongmi 1S, is very usable and generally fine for  basic smartphone usage.

2) OnePlus
OnePlus is a new competitor in the smartphone space, only founded in December of 2013 by the former VP of Oppo. Despite being a company registered in Shenzhen China, their official website, oneplus.net, does not have a Chinese site or language option, nor does the company price the phones in RMB. Judging by the design of the website, it would seem that the company is focused on selling its products in the international marketplace. The company only has one product – the OnePlus One. It is a 4G phone, which can only be purchased by invitation at the moment due to supply shortages. The company as well as the phone have been received well, and offers us a reasonably priced well built high end smartphone. Though with a screen size of 5.5 inches, the ONE kind of crosses over into the “phablet” category.

3) Huawei
Huawei is the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world, but has only recently begun competing seriously for market share in the smartphone space. With regards to their smartphone offerings, their past reputation in both domestic and international markets was that of a low quality, copycat, low price manufacturer. Like many Chinese companies who want to build the brand, Huawei is no longer only focusing on a low cost strategy and has begun designing and manufacturing smartphones with higher specifications. As we can see from the hardware specifications of their latest Ascend P7 phone, it has plenty of horse power and can definitely go toe to toe with top Android maker Samsung. Huawei’s earlier smartphone models reviewed and functioned relatively poorly, but the newer models that run on Android 4.X tend to be much better.

4) Oppo
Oppo is an electronics manufacturer based out of Guangzhou that has a mobile phone division that sells fairly well in China. In the past, Oppo was a brand that younger consumers (in particular, high school students) preferred on the basis of being relatively cheap and being reasonably well made. Like other Chinese smartphone brands, it is also trying to move into the higher value add smartphone segment, and based on its most recent offering, the Find7, has done just that. At 5.5 inches, the Find7 is one of the bigger smartphones on offer, and crosses into phablet territory.

5) CoolPad
Unlike the other brands mentioned in this article, CoolPad operates and sells their phones exclusively in Mainland China. What CoolPad does share with its other Chinese smartphone brands is that it wants to move away from being a low cost provider of smartphones and compete higher up the value chain. Even when compared to its Chinese peers, CoolPad does seem to have a ways to go – its flagship phone, the 9190 is available as a dual-SIM phone, and supports 4G LTE networks, but one glance at the technical specifications reveals that the phone itself is a bit slower and uses older hardware. At the 1,999 RMB (JD.com) price point, the phone is substantially less than the Oppo or Huawei offerings. However it costs the same as the Xiaomi 4 and one glance at the specs of the Mi 4 is enough to determine which is the better phone. In addition to its products, the company’s reputation and image is still that of a low cost provider of low-end smartphones.

Conclusion

One thing to keep in mind with all phones is that none of the above phones ship with Google Play Store (except the OnePlus ONE) as Google is blocked in China. They all come loaded with their own app store, and you'll probably be able to find most of your apps on the built in app store. However, you'll need to hunt down the APK of apps you can't find on the built in app stores.

It would seem that based on the specifications of their latest flagship smartphone offerings, most Chinese brands are starting to move up the value chain and break away from the image of being a low cost low quality copycat manufacturer. On paper at least, they offer powerful smartphones for considerably less than equally spec’d multinational competitors like Apple, Samsung, LG and etc. If you are in the market for a new smartphone and want to try something new or don't quite want to pony up for the top of the line Samsung or Apple smartphone, a Chinese branded alternative might just be for you.

Warning:The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: Chinese smartphones popular Chinese smartphones

1 Comments

All comments are subject to moderation by eChinacities.com staff. Because we wish to encourage healthy and productive dialogue we ask that all comments remain polite, free of profanity or name calling, and relevant to the original post and subsequent discussion. Comments will not be deleted because of the viewpoints they express, only if the mode of expression itself is inappropriate.

pfffill

Be cautious when thinking of buying a Chinese-made phone in China: see my comment from March last year: http://www.echinacities.com/expat-corner/Chinese-Smartphone-Buyers-Guide-for-Q1-2013

Aug 28, 2014 18:26 Report Abuse