Things made in China often carry a bad rep: after all, being affordable is often given as their first and foremost virtue. You can't deny that being competitive in terms of price is what Chinese companies are great at, but recently they have picked up the pace when it comes to innovation. Just look at the chart of the world's biggest phone makers in 2015: 7 out of the top 10 are from China. This is no coincidence: the Chinese market has grown hugely, but it is also international buyers that appreciate the work done by Chinese Android phone makers.
THESE ARE THE BEST CHINESE ANDROID PHONES
With rising stars like Xiaomi and Meizu working along with the heavyweights from Lenovo and Huawei, there is quite a lot of exciting new Chinese phones that you should know about.We bring you just that: these are the best Chinese Android phones in various price tiers: from the premium, top-tier phones to the affordable ones. Take a look.
Higher-end phones
Price: $400 | Review
The OnePlus 3 is the first OnePlus phones to truly feel mature: gone are the experimental sandstone finishes, gone is the extremely annoying invitation system and coming to replace them is a phone that feels well-built and very solid. The OnePlus 3 might not have any gimmicky features that would make it espcially unique, but it does have that special $400 price tag in a world of similarly-specced $800 phones, and it does feature one solid and fast performance.
Powered by the top-end Snapdragon 820 system chip and with a whopping 6GB of RAM, the OnePlus 3 runs fast and has a well-performing camera. It's hard to find a reason not to recommend it, at its outstanding price, it's one of the best phones around.
Powered by the top-end Snapdragon 820 system chip and with a whopping 6GB of RAM, the OnePlus 3 runs fast and has a well-performing camera. It's hard to find a reason not to recommend it, at its outstanding price, it's one of the best phones around.
Huawei P9
Price: $630 (€550) | Review
Huawei had phenomenal growth last year, finishing as the world's third-largest phone maker behind giants like Samsung and Apple.
The P9 is its most important phone for 2016, carrying flagship status and offering an innovative dual rear camera setup. It also features sleek metal design and huge aspirations. But there are a couple of downsides as well: most notably, the custom Huawei interface on top of Android is a polarizing feat that many will find hard to get used to. Then, the camera has a few gimmicks up its sleeve like the Leica brand (it's questionable whether Leica had much of an involvement with the lens here) and simulation of super wide-aperture, f/1.1 lens, but in reality those tricks are no replacement for great camera quality and the P9 is a step below this year's best cameraphones. Still, if you're in the search for a great regular-sized smartphone, the P9 has the performance and good looks to fit the bill. It's also much more affordable than the Samsungs and Apples of this world.
ZTE Axon 7 | 7 Mini
Price: $400 | $300
ZTE is serious about entering the US market and this year it's introduced not one, but two phones for the US market: the 5.5" ZTE Axon 7 and its slightly smaller sibling, the 5.2" Axon 7 Mini. You can already buy the former for $400, a delicious price given the generous specs: Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM and a whopping 64GB of storage, while the latter is up for pre-order at a still enticing $300 price. There is one important thing that users have to consider when thinking about getting either one of these: the Android custom skin used on both is plenty different from most others and takes some getting used to. Plus, camera performance seems to be just slightly below the like of the OnePlus 3, but is still not bad by any means. The remarkable thing about the Axon family is the dual front-facing speakers that produce clear and loud audio, great for those YouTube and Facebook video addicts, as well as for those who listen to music via the speakers.
[]
Meizu MX6
Price: $300
The Meizu MX6 is a thin and stylish phone made out of aluminum and priced competitively when compared against mainstream flagships. Still, for a Chinese phone, it is not a cheap device, but there seems to be good reason for it. It performs well, has a smooth and stutter-free interface, as well as a seriously impressive battery life, but is not particularly outstanding in terms of camera performance and has a few peculiarities in the menu system. Also, 4G LTE band support is extremely limited, so chances are that this will only work as a 3G phone in many markets. Nonetheless, it's a device worth looking for,
 |
LeEco Le Pro 3
Price: $400
LeEco is something like China's Netflix, except it also makes its own hardware, and in the past couple of years it has been making phone. The Le Pro 3 is the first phone that will actually be available in the United States, and that's a big step for the company. So what makes the Le Pro 3 special? It's certainly the value: at $400 this is yet another phone offering incredible value for the money. The phone is also thin, stylish and very good looking. It's in fact one of the first phones to come with the latest and most powerful chip by Qualcomm: the Snapdragon 821, along with 4GB of RAM and a generous 64GB of storage. Unfortunately, the Le Pro 3 has fallen victim to the no-3.5mm headphone jack trend, and you will only be able to use its USB-C port to connect headphones (if you have ones that support USB-C connection).
 |
Xiaomi, China's most talked about tech prodigy, seems to have fallen a bit out of grace in the past year or so. Its phones generally offer great value for the money, but they also have very limited 4G LTE band support and fail to deliver push notification for many messengers, both significant issues that make dealing with them a big hassle. Still, if you're interested in the Xiaomi ecosystem, its Mi 5s and Mi 5s Plus both provide the firepower in terms of adequate specs at a great price.
 |
Mid-range phones
Xiaomi Mi 4s
Price: $350
The Xiaomi Mi 4s is a somewhat strange device. It's only slilghtly more affordable than the Mi 5, but comes with the much weaker Snapdragon 808 system chip (compare against the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 820) and much less inspiring design.
Nonetheless, if you want to save those few bucks, the Mi 4s is not a bad phone: it offers a fingerprint scanner on the back and solid performance with the MIUI custom interface. It lacks the super fast auto-focus from the Mi 5 and a few other premium features, so we would really advice you to spend a few bucks more and get the higher-end Mi 5, it's worth it.
 |
Xiaomi Mi Note
Price: $283 (¥1,800)
The Mi Note is the best phone of one of the fastest growing phone companies in the world - Xiaomi.
Once known for making Apple knock-offs, Xiaomi's flagship phone is an original design that not only looks great, but seems to be the inspiration for others (that's only a theory, but just look at how similar to it the new Galaxy Note looks!). The Mi Note is an exceptional value for the money: it has that sharp visual style, but also a very-well polished MIUI skin with tons of features and a very smooth performance, it has a great camera, and very good battery life. The big issue with it is that it's not officially available in the United States - you can import it for a slight premium, though, to have a phone unlike any others.
Once known for making Apple knock-offs, Xiaomi's flagship phone is an original design that not only looks great, but seems to be the inspiration for others (that's only a theory, but just look at how similar to it the new Galaxy Note looks!). The Mi Note is an exceptional value for the money: it has that sharp visual style, but also a very-well polished MIUI skin with tons of features and a very smooth performance, it has a great camera, and very good battery life. The big issue with it is that it's not officially available in the United States - you can import it for a slight premium, though, to have a phone unlike any others.
Meizu MX5
Price: $300 (¥1,900) | Review
 |
Affordable phablets
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
Price: $190 (¥1,100)
The 5.5-inch Redmi Note 3 phablet arrived just several months after the launch of the otherwise identical in terms of specs and silicon Redmi Note 2. Unlike its predecessor, though, the Redmi Note 3 features a much better-looking metal design at the same price point, plus it comes with a fingerprint scanner.
Under the hood, it has the MediaTek Helio X10 system chip. You can get it in either its 16GB storage / 2GB RAM version, or beefed-up 32GB storage / 3GB RAM model. It's not just the processor that catches the eye in the Redmi Note 3, though. It's also got a 13-megapixel camera with ultra-fast phase-detection auto-focus, a feature previously reserved for costlier devices.
Honor 5X
Price: $200 | Review
 |
The only downside to this phone is the somewhat unusual and a bit clunky user interface, but for all else this is a really good-looking device that packs much more style than other affordable phones and is worth consideration.
 |
Honor 5X |
Meizu M3 Note (Note3)
Price: $220 (¥1,100)
The Meizu M3 Note is a re-fresh on an already familiar Meizu design. With a great-looking 5.5-inch 1080 x 1920-pixel display with the traditionally fast Meizu interface, and with a well-performing camera, the M3 Note checks all the essential boxes. Plus, it has very good battery life.
Affordable regular-size phones
Xiaomi Redmi 3
Price: $150 (¥600)
The Xiaomi Redmi 3 is a beastly lil' thing: while a 5-inch 720p display does not sound like cream of the crop, when you pair it with a massive for this size, 4,100mAh battery, the result is truly outstanding battery life. The handset also looks good: it's made out of metal, comes in a choice of three iPhone-like colors, and looks very stylish, especially when you consider its price tag.
Under the hood, it features the Snapdragon 616 system chip with 2GB of RAM, runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop with the custom MIUI skin, has a 13-megapixel, f/2.0 camera with fast, phase-detection auto-focus, and comes with 16GB of internal storage. It feature a hybrid dual SIM card slot, so you can use either two SIM cards or use it as a single-SIM phone with a microSD card.
Meizu m3
Price: $150 (¥600)
The new Meizu m3 is a direct answer to the stellar Xiaomi Redmi 3. And boy, what an answer: with a similar price, the m3 has a very refined and likable design, and adds the fingerprint scanner many Meizu phones don't have. It runs the custom Meizu skin that is particularly fluid and runs well, it offers a very good camera and great iconography. Not bad for such an affordable phone, is it?
 |
Meizu m3 |
Super affordable phones
Xiaomi Redmi 2 Pro
Price: $110 (¥500)
Xiaomi's contender in the ultra affordable phone space is the Redmi 2 Pro. It is a much needed upgrade to the original Redmi 2, as it arrives with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, and that ensures much faster performance and better experience over the original 1GB RAM/8GB storage model. The Redmi 2 Pro has the MIUI custom skin on its side - a powerful, feature-rich skin that runs impressively smoothly, and it captures great looking images. Plus, it features above-average battery life for nearly two-day longevity.
 |
Xiaomi Redmi 2 Pro |
