April has been an exciting month, new phones have arrived!

Top phones only exist on paper for most of us, we will never get them in our hands. Nevertheless, we like to read about them, to marvel at the technical data, because we know that if not otherwise, in 1-2 years these values ​​will be widely available in the middle category, and we will happily spend a little of our money on them.

April has been a particularly exciting month, with many manufacturers arriving at store shelves with models unveiled around MWC 2018. Unfortunately or not, we are feeling the effects of the trend launched by the iPhone X more and more strongly, which is also clear from the fact that our current selection already includes two devices that mimic the peninsula entering the X display. It doesn’t have to be a big fortune to say there will be even more of these devices in the coming months, plus it’s not just among the most expensive mobiles.

So let’s see the top five in April 2018!

Asus ZENFONE 5

The Zenfone 5 family consists of three members, these are the Zenfone 5 Lite, the Zenfone 5 and the Zenfone 5z, and now with the middle member, we have added the still affordable but already muscular version to this list.

The soul of the phone is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636, which is an eight-core solution where the cores are arranged in two clusters, of course in four line-ups. The interesting thing about the cores is that they are not classic ARM solutions, but versions of ARM cores developed by Qualcomm, better known as Kyro cores working in proci, namely Kyro 260 cores that rotate at 1,8 GHz. In addition to the proci, Adreno 509 graphics accelerator working.

The display of the ASUS Zenfone 5 is based on IPS technology, with a diagonal of 6,2 inches and an aspect ratio of 18,7:9. The native resolution is quite high, 1080 x 2246 pixels, which means a pixel density of 402 ppi for this image size. The strange aspect ratio and resolution is due to the fact that ASUS "borrowed" the peninsula extending into the Apple X screen in the case of the Zenfone 5, on which it placed the various sensors and cameras. This formation called the notch is the reason why the aspect ratio resulted in a more squishy display than even modern 18:9 devices. Of course, this arrangement has an advantage, namely the way in which ASUS achieved that the display/front panel ratio was extremely good, when quantified, 83,6 percent of the front panel is the display itself.

Your ASUS phone has two cameras on the front and one on the back. The self-contained camera's 8-megapixel sensor works with 1,12-micron pixels, and above it is an f / 2.2 aperture optic. Interestingly, this camera also got EIS, and we could be able to take 1080p videos with it, without shaking, of course. There are two cameras on the back. One is a 12 megapixel with an aperture of f / 1.8 and an 8-megapixel auxiliary camera with an aperture of f / 2.0. Based on experience so far, the second camera is likely to help with the hardware bokeh effect, i.e., blur depth, perhaps improving image dynamics as well.

We also partially affected the radios at the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 CPU, but let's run again! Wifi is the state-of-the-art dual-channel, 2,4 and 5 GHz, ac standard solution. Bluetooth is also modern, 5.0 will not disappoint in the field of LTE radio, and satellite navigation will be available almost everywhere on earth, as we also get GLONASS and BDS support in addition to the standard GPS. We haven’t talked about one thing yet, and that is the battery, which has a capacity of 3300 mAh.

We were indebted to one thing, the price. ASUS 'new phone costs 114 thousand forints at the moment, which is not much in terms of its performance and, of course, the surcharge due to its novelty. More information and pictures will be here: ASUS Zenfone 5

AGM X2

The AGM X2 stands out a bit from the line of phones listed here. It’s a little weaker than these, but it has one feature that makes it all stand out, and that’s IP68 water and dust resistance, and of course the rubberized housing. So look at the AGM X2 as having extra strong hardware inside and a blood strap phone outside, and these virtues rarely go hand in hand.

The central unit of the AGM phone is a unit with an Snapdragon 653, an eight-core processor. We need to know about the Snapdragon 653 that it strengthens the mid-range top in Qualcomm’s offering. Eight cores are trapped in two clusters, with Cortex-A53 at the bottom and Cortex-A72 at the top. These are fairly powerful processor cores, plus their clocks are properly pinched, and can run up to 1,95 GHz depending on the load.

There are no less than 6 GB memory and 128 GB built-in storage. I think that's what's going to be all right now. The display does not look bad either, with an 5,5 colos, FHD, 1920 x 1080 pixel AMOLED panel. If that is not enough, look at the battery, which is no less than the 6000 mAh capacity. Then you will be away for a few days in the jungle without a plug.

AGM has installed cameras that would be an honor for any phone, and in a rugged phone they’re thinning their counterparts. The front camera is 16 megapixels and the rear has two 12 megapixel sensors under the optics. Of course, we can find all kinds of sensors, so you can’t miss the compass, accelerometer, gravity sensor, gyroscope, or fingerprint reader either.

We won't have any complaints about the radios either. Of the satellite navigation systems, it supports GPS, GLONASS and BDS. We get fast wifi and Bluetooth, as well as all kinds of radios for broadband internet, with which we can use LTE connection anywhere in the world, of course, only if there is one at that point. The B20 800 MHz used in Hungary could not be left out either.

You can find the interesting phone of AGM here: AGM X2

Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S

This handset became Xiaomi’s first mobile phone to be equipped with Qualcomm’s most powerful central chip, the Snapdragon 845. The device has been improved in several respects compared to its predecessor released half a year ago, so in addition to the processor and graphics accelerator, it has a completely new pair of cameras equipped with artificial intelligence.

The Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S shows nothing new in terms of design compared to its predecessor, which is barely half a year old, the main thing is the more serious changes inside and on the back. But let’s start with the things that haven’t changed. The size of the phone has not changed, nor has the size of the display. The 6,01-inch image diagonal remained, and FHD +, or 2160 x 1080 pixel resolution, remained.

The central unit is the Scdragon 845, the most powerful Qualcomm chip introduced at the end of last year, with the help of 6- or 8 GB of RAM and 64-, 128- or 256 GB of built-in storage, depending on the configuration. accelerator is responsible for displaying and moving the image, which according to tests has accelerated by 630 percent compared to its predecessor, but in the meantime it can withstand 30 percent less energy.

The camera combo on the back got a camera with a 12-megapixel telephoto lens and a companion with a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens as well. Under the telephoto lens, the Sony IMX363 chip works with a fairly large 1,4 μm pixel size. The back camera has also got Xiaomi MI features, plus it’s finally capable of effects like dynamic depth-of-field, Dual SLR Dual PD with full-pixel focus, and multi-function hardware noise reduction. By using artificial intelligence, the phone is able to recognize facial and hair characteristics for even better quality depth of field effects. Thanks to the dual camera, we also get a hardware zoom function, the user of which is assisted by the 4-axis vibration protection.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s has a 3400 mAh battery that supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0 technology.

Xiaomi currently has this most powerful and state-of-the-art phone. For this, the price must be measured, which is currently 176 thousand forints. More information can be found here: Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S

OnePlus 5T

The OnePlus phone, as its name suggests, came as the successor to the hugely successful OnePlus 5. The two phones are essentially the same in terms of hardware. The central chip is last year’s ace, the Snapdragon 835, and the memory and storage are available in several versions. The current offer includes the version with 64 GB of storage, but the RAM is already 6 GB, so we think that will be enough for everything.

In the case of the OnePlus 5, most emphasize the quality of the camera, which is no wonder, as the back pair consists of a 20- and a 16-megapixel solution, but we also find a 16-megapixel self-contained camera on the front. As you may have read, the OnePlus 5 and 5T have the same hardware, but there is one big difference between them, and that is the display. While the old version followed the traditional 16: 9 aspect ratio, the new one already has an 18: 9 panel with a resolution of FHD +, i.e. 2160 x 1080 pixels.

Although cameras are often highlighted on OnePlus phones, the central unit also deserves a few words of praise. The phone comes with the extremely powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 using Kyro cores. It works with an eight-core processor into which the cores are divided into two groups. The four cores in the lower cluster operate at 1,9 GHz, while in the faster, stronger upper cluster with Kyro 280 cores, the cores can spin up to 2,45 GHz. The graphics in this unit are provided by an Adreno 540 graphics accelerator. It is also important to know about the Snapdragon 835 that it is made with a state-of-the-art manufacturing technology currently available at a strip width of 10 nanometers. This is very favorable for several reasons. The first is that the physical size of the chip has been reduced by 30 percent compared to the predecessor model. The other is that although the processor has accelerated 20 percent compared to its predecessor, its power consumption has been reduced by 40 percent. It may be superfluous to brush up on how much such an improvement counts for a phone in battery life.

You can find out more about OnePlus' wonderful phone, which costs 181 thousand forints, here: OnePlus 5T

Huawei P20 Pro

Huawei’s phone can be known as the world’s first phone with a triple-back camera. Of course, this is not the only reason why the new device has become excellent.

The most powerful member of the Huawei P20 series is the Pro version, which features a 6,1-inch, 18,7: 9 aspect ratio display with a resolution of 2244 x 1080 pixels. It is important that this display is no longer IPS based, here a real OLED panel is hidden under the glass. The curiosity of the display is similar to the iPhone X, a peninsula protruding from the top of the image, the notch, which has a camera and sensors.

The phone's hardware isn't too much of a surprise, which of course doesn't mean it's weak, it's just that we've already gotten to know it in the Mate 10 Pro. The central unit is a Kirin 970 SoC with an eight-core processor. Of the cores arranged in two groups, the power-saving mode includes four Cortex-A1,8 cores scaled to 53 GHz, while higher performance can be expected from the four Cortex-A2,4 cores spinning at 73 GHz. The Kirin 970 also has the fast Mali-G72MP12 graphics accelerator and dual ISP, which was probably needed for the phone to get its great three-camera combo. Another interesting feature is the dedicated chip for built-in artificial intelligence, the NPU. The phone included in the recommendation includes 6 GB of memory and 64 GB of built-in storage.

Let’s see then the camera, which is the real sensation of the phone and what is said to make the P20 Pro the best camera phone available today. So here we don't find the usual double camera, but a triple unit. Of these, the main camera is 40! megapixels, and the lens system above it has an aperture of f / 1.8, which is very good. Next to the main camera we find an 8 megapixel telephoto camera and a 20 megapixel monochrome camera. The former is likely to play a role in achieving the bokeh effect and in the zomm, while the latter makes the images much more dynamic. In addition to the cameras, we also get an optical image stabilizer, hybrid autofocus and triple optical zoom, which is also a really outstanding capability in the field of telephone cameras.

So the Huawei P20 Pro has become a really great, forward-looking mobile. We would be very surprised if, in the near future, triple cameras would not appear on competitors' phones either, because all indications are that special quality photos will be taken from the combined images of the three units for different purposes.

The phone is not cheap, it is currently available for 260 thousand forints. More pictures and information here: Huawei P20 Pro

In April 2018, we rated these phones as the best of the Chinese phones, adding that ASUS is of course Taiwanese, whose affiliation we and we don’t want to decide here. Let’s just say ASUS is a little out of line, but I don’t think anyone will take our heads for it. See you in early May, then we will choose from the cheapest phones again!