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Best Mid-Range Smartphones 2025: Our favourite affordable handsets

Flagship smartphones are great, but they’re also costly, often costing more than £1000/$1000. But that’s where we at Trusted Reviews come in, with our compilation of nine exceptional mid-range smartphones, ranging from £399/$399 to £699/$699, to serve up value-focused alternatives.

The mid-range smartphone market hasn’t always been competitive; it struggled to gain much traction in the 2010s, offering disappointing performance, subpar software support, and lacklustre hardware compared to more expensive options. However, the mid-range market has matured over the past few years, with the trickle-down nature of tech making more affordable phones more tempting.

Compared to just a few years ago, mid-range smartphones in 2025 can deliver premium-level features, including impressive camera performance, exceptional battery life, and powerful performance. Some options, like the OnePlus 13R, utilise a (slightly older) flagship chipset to deliver a top-end mobile experience.

We’re even seeing premium features like wireless charging and IP68 water resistance making their way into this category, although they are not yet universally available.

That all said, the vast range of smartphones available in 2025 makes finding the right phone for your needs all the more challenging. This guide simplifies your decision-making process by presenting a carefully curated list of the best options available right now.

Each phone featured in this list has undergone rigorous testing by expert reviewers, lasting at least one week. They have conducted benchmark tests and assessed real-world day-to-day performance to provide comprehensive insights into how each device compares to the competition.

Our review process considers factors such as screen quality, processing power, battery life, camera performance, design, and durability, ensuring that our buying recommendations are both reliable and well-informed.

If price isn’t your biggest concern and you’d prefer to compare the best top-end phones around, you should check out our best phones guide. On the other hand, if your budget doesn’t stretch as far as the devices listed below, you can head over to our best cheap phones page to find the most eminently affordable sub-£399/$399 handsets we’d recommend to you right now.

Best mid-range smartphones at a glance

Best flagship alternative: Xiaomi 14T Pro

Best screen: OnePlus 13R

Best camera: Google Pixel 8a – SQUIRREL_TEXT_13143817

Best for zoom: Nothing Phone 3a Pro

Best for gaming: Poco F6 Pro

Best for portrait photography: Honor 200 Pro – SQUIRREL_TEXT_13153316

Best iPhone under £700/$700: iPhone 15 – SQUIRREL_TEXT_13170011

Best Samsung: Samsung Galaxy A55 5G – SQUIRREL_TEXT_13185546

Best for fast charging: Motorola Edge 50 Pro – SQUIRREL_TEXT_13047985

How we test

Learn more about how we test mobile phones

All the devices in this list have been thoroughly tested and used by one of our expert reviewers. We don’t review a phone purely on specs or benchmark scores and we use them as our everyday device for the review period, which is usually at least five days but often a lot more.

When we review a phone our expert will put their personal SIM card into the phone, sync across their most-used apps and log into all their typical accounts. We do this so you’ll feel confident in our review and trust our verdict.

Our review process includes a mixture of real-world tests, along with more than 15 measured tests and industry-standard benchmarks.

Xiaomi 14T Pro

Best flagship alternative

Trusted Score

Pros

Outlandish performance

Exceptionally fast charging

Excellent 144Hz display

Cons

New ‘Deco’ aesthetic

No charger included

Ads baked into the OS

If you’re looking for a smartphone that brings you as close to the flagship experience as possible without dropping flagship smartphone levels of cash, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is your best option.

The 6.67-inch CrystalRes AMOLED screen is a treat for the eyes with its pixel-packed 1.5K resolution and 144Hz refresh rate, offering superb visuals with inky blacks and vibrant colours helped by support for 12-bit colour depth that makes it fantastic for both binging movies and gaming.

The latter is certainly possible with the 14T Pro, sporting MediaTek’s top-end 2024 chipset, the Dimensity 9300+, with benchmark results competing, if not beating, much of the flagship competition. That’s paired with 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage.

Camera performance is also a treat, sporting a 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide and a 12MP 2.6x telephoto, sharing the main camera with the flagship Xiaomi 14. Its Leica-powered shots look detailed and vibrant, with solid low-light performance to boot.

Throw in a 5000mAh battery that’ll last all day and support for super-fast 120W fast charging that delivers a full charge in 23 minutes and you’ve got a solid all-rounder that’s easy to recommend to most.

Reviewer: Alex Walker-ToddFull review: Xiaomi 14T Pro

OnePlus 13R

Best screen

Trusted Score

Pros

Excellent for gaming

Brilliant battery life

Improved design

Cons

Ultrawide camera is weak

No wireless charging

Alert slider could do more

The OnePlus 13R is a solid attempt at a mid-range smartphone that manages to stand out in a busy market with a smattering of genuinely high-end tech.

The display is one of the main reasons to opt for the phone. While the 6.78-inch AMOLED screen isn’t quite as pixel-packed as the flagship OnePlus 13, it boasts the same 120Hz refresh rate and, rather importantly, LTPO 4.1 tech.

Along with the OnePlus 13, it’s one of the first phones on the market to sport the tech, which allows the phone to adjust the refresh rate as you scroll. This means that the screen feels super responsive in use and, crucially, it’s way more battery-friendly.

That also means that, combined with a sizeable 6000mAh silicon carbon battery that’s larger than any other phone in our chart, the OnePlus 13R has superb battery life, easily able to last a day if not two depending on what you’re up to. Even then, with 80W SuperVOOC charging it’ll get a full charge in 52 minutes.

It’s also a decent performer with the 2024 flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, especially when coupled with OnePlus’ various software and hardware optimisations and upgraded cooling mechanisms. It’ll leave practically any other mid-ranger in the dust, both in benchmarks and real-world use.

Elsewhere, it has a solid 50MP primary and 2x telephoto cameras, though the 8MP ultrawide isn’t quite as exciting. It also won’t get as many updates as the Pixel 8a, capping out at four OS upgrades and six years of security patches.

Reviewer:Britta O’Boyle

Full Review: OnePlus 13R review

Google Pixel 8a

Best camera

Trusted Score

Pros

Manageable size

IP rating and Qi charging

Great camera (for the price)

Seven years of software updates

Clever AI-infused software

Cons

Screen is far from the best

The battery will never last more than a day

Slow charging

Google’s latest A-series device matches many of the essential features found in its pricier counterpart, the Pixel 8, while also offering several advantages over 2023’s Pixel 7a. Improvements include a boost to 120Hz, up from 90Hz, along with the flagship Pixel’s Actua display tech for a massive boost to brightness.

The Pixel 8a also sports a more rounded design than the Pixel 7a and even the Pixel 8 with rounded corners and softer edges, marking one of few ‘a’ series to diverge from the look and feel of the flagship counterpart. It also sports the same matte finish as the top-end Pixel 8 Pro in place of the glossy Pixel 8, giving it a more premium feel in the hand.

As with previous entries in the series, the standout feature of the Pixel 8a is its impressive camera array. While the main 64MP snapper is the same as the 7a, delivering exceptional images in various lighting and some of the best skin tone rendering around, it also offers high-end AI-powered photo editing tools like Best Take and Magic Editor.

Under the hood, the Pixel 8a is powered by the same Tensor G3 chip found in its higher-end counterparts, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. This chip offers satisfactory performance for its price range and handles the phone’s AI features, such as call screening and voice recording, with ease. There are faster, more capable mid-range phones though – including the Poco F6 Pro.

The Pixel 8a sadly remains a one-day device, with no real boost to battery life this time around, and with equally slow charging, it’ll take close to two hours to regain a full charge. A boost to charge speeds and battery capacity would be welcome here, especially compared to the 125W charging of the Edge 50 Pro.

Still, the Pixel 8a presents itself as an impressive choice, combining excellent camera capabilities, Google’s software prowess, an affordable price point and one of the longest software support promises around.

Reviewer: Max ParkerFull review: Google Pixel 8a

Nothing Phone (3a) Pro

Best for zoom

Trusted Score

Pros

Decent telephoto for the money

Fresh Essential Key implementation

Design still something special

Cons

New camera module somewhat ugly

Performance not outstanding for the money

Sluggish camera app

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro is the latest mid-ranger from startup Nothing, and it comes with quite the surprising feature considering its £449 price point: a 3x periscope camera. All other zoom lenses at a similar price point are fixed telephoto snappers locked at 2x, whereas the 3a Pro’s OIS-enabled snapper can deliver rich and sharp images at the 10x mark and beyond.

The primary 50MP camera also delivers performance above what you’d expect for the price, utilising Google’s Ultra XDR magic to boost the dynamic range of shots to deliver stunningly rich and vibrant results. However, it’s let down by a weak 8MP ultrawide that can’t quite match the performance of the other lenses.

It’s not just a great camera phone, either; it’s also one of the more unique-looking phones on the market. Its transparent glass rear shows stylised cables and other internal components, along with Nothing’s signature Glyph LED tech. That look also translates to the software in the form of the heavily stylised Nothing OS 3.1.

What it isn’t, however, is a powerhouse. The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is fine for day-to-day tasks and closely mirrors the performance of the year-old Samsung Galaxy A55 5G, but it’s left behind by the Pixel 8a and Poco X7 Pro.

Reviewer: Jon MundyFull Review: Nothing Phone 3a Pro

Poco F6 Pro

Best for gaming

Trusted Score

Pros

Tonnes of power

Brilliant high-res display

Very speedy charging

Cons

Auxiliary cameras are unimpressive

Lots of bloatware

HyperOS is an acquired taste

If mobile gaming is a focus but you don’t want to splash out for ultra-premium gaming phones like the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, the Poco F6 Pro serves as a surprisingly capable alternative that doesn’t break the bank.

That’s because, despite costing just £499, the Poco F6 Pro sports the flagship-level Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset – aka the chipset of choice for most flagships last year – along with a healthy 12- or 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage.

That combination means the Poco F6 Pro easily outperforms the mid-range competition and isn’t that far off from what you’ll get from top performers in 2025. For gaming, you can max out the graphics settings on practically any game on the Play Store and it’ll run like a dream, and the cooling is superb too.

You might assume that, going all-in on power, Poco has neglected other areas of the phone – but that’s not the case. The design feels premium with a velvet glass rear, a flat 6.67-inch 120Hz AMOLED display with a 1440p resolution, decent camera performance (from the main 50MP f/1.6 camera, anyway) and all-day battery life.

Of course, you don’t get everything with the Poco F6 Pro, with elements like IP54 dust and water resistance falling well behind the competition, middling auxiliary cameras and Poco’s spotty long-term software support, but if you want the most power possible from a mid-ranger, the F6 Pro remains a tempting option.

Reviewer: Luke BakerFull Review: Poco F6 Pro

Honor 200 Pro

Best for portrait photography

Trusted Score

Pros

Stunning portrait effects

Speedy performance

Bright, vivid display

Speedy charging

Cons

The design is a little odd

Curved edges are prone to accidental swipes

MagicOS 8.0 is an acquired taste

The Honor 200 Pro may be one of the pricier phones on our list at £699, but if you want a top-notch viewing experience, it may well be worth the upfront investment.

The Honor 200 Pro sports a 6.8-inch curved OLED screen that’s larger than much of the competition, but it’s not just a big-screen device.

It comes with a pixel-packed 1.2K resolution, a maximum brightness of 4000nits and even supports blazing-fast 3840Hz PWM Dimming that bests some of the priciest smartphones around. There are also a number of features aimed at reducing blue light to keep your peepers fresh, and the whole experience is highly customisable too.

Elsewhere, the Honor 200 Pro boasts an impressive camera experience headed by a 50MP f/1.9 main camera with a large 1/1.3-inch sensor, but the 50MP 2.5x telephoto is most interesting. That’s because Honor worked with famed French photography house Studio Harcourt to bring its unique portrait style to the Honor 200 Pro using AI to deliver some of the best Portrait mode results around.

It’s also a powerhouse with the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 and 12GB of RAM that can handle basically anything you can throw at it, and with a 5200mAh silicon-carbon battery, it has no issue lasting a day or two on a single charge. Combined with 66W fast charging, it’ll regain a full charge in under an hour, achieving 70% in half an hour.

The only hurdle is the software experience, with Honor’s MagicOS 8.0 based on Android 14 deviating quite far from the stock Android experience. It’s arguably closer to iOS 17 than stock Android with elements that mimic iOS, from Dynamic Island-esque controls to a split notification centre and quick control panel.

That’s great for those leaving team iPhone, but it’s a massive learning curve for other Android users.

Reviewer:Luke BakerFull Review:Honor 200 Pro

Apple iPhone 15

Best iPhone under £700/$700

Trusted Score

Pros

Welcome switch to USB-C

Really good camera

Far more ergonomic than iPhone 14

Dyanmic Island is much better than the notch

Cons

No true telephoto camera

Still no 120Hz display

USB-C doesn’t improve charging or data speeds

Following the release of the iPhone 16, yesteryear’s iPhone 15 has now taken this slot from its predecessor. Apple has dropped the price of the handset to just £699/$699, making it arguably the biggest bargain amongst the company’s wares right now.

It’s worth mentioning right off the bat that the iPhone 15 isn’t compatible with Apple Intelligence, and while there’s been plenty of hubbub about the feature, its importance to the average consumer will depend on how much they already use existing AI systems. If you’re not exactly drawn in by all the AI hype then you’ll get on just fine with what’s on offer here.

Finally doing away with the age-old Lightning port, the iPhone 15 is fully compatible with USB-C. This means that you don’t have to bring a separate Lightning cable with you when you travel, allowing you to use the same USB-C cable that you might already be utilising for your headphones, tablet and more.

Unlike the iPhone 14, which used the same 12MP wide and ultra-wide standard from previous iPhones, the 15 kicked things up a notch by upgrading that wide-angle lens to a 48MP model. This switch allows the iPhone 15 to capture far more detail in a single picture, which in turn gives you more flexibility when it comes to cropping and editing after the fact.

The upgraded camera also complements the fact that the iPhone is still far in the lead when it comes to video capture on a smartphone. If you’re a content creator who wants an all-in-one device that lets them shoot smooth 4K footage and has a plethora of top-shelf editing apps to work with, this is it.

As a final point, the iPhone 15 also brings about a jump in processing speeds. The iPhone 14 used the same A15 Bionic chip as its predecessor, but you’ll find the faster A16 chipset in this handset. Even though it’s hampered somewhat by Apple’s reluctance to implement a 120Hz display on its base-level iPhones, the overall experience is still incredibly efficient, with slowdown being nonexistent.

Reviewer: Max Parker

Full review: iPhone 15 Review

Samsung Galaxy A55 5G

Best mid-range Samsung phone

Trusted Score

Pros

Full metal and glass bodywork

Excellent water resistance

Top quality display glass

Cons

Relatively slow charging

Beaten for gaming power at this level

No bundled case or charger

Editor’s note: Samsung has announced the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G, which will go on sale later this month.

If you’re a Samsung purist and your budget can’t quite stretch to the £799 Samsung Galaxy S24, the more budget-friendly £439 Galaxy A55 5G might suit your needs.

It sports a look not that dissimilar from the flagship Galaxy S24, complete with a glass front, a glass back and aluminium sides, an upgrade from the plastic sidewalls of the Galaxy A54 5G that immediately makes the phone feel more premium in the hand than much of the plastic competition.

It’s also covered by Corning’s high-end Gorilla Glass Victus+, and sports IP67 dust and water resistance to complete the premium build experience.

Netflix bingers and social media addicts will love the 6.6-inch 120Hz AMOLED display, which delivers vibrant colours and deep blacks. A 5000mAh battery will see you through the day without any worry, even if the ‘fast charging’ remains relatively slow at just 25W.

The main camera is a fairly capable one, sporting a 50MP sensor that our reviewer described as “pretty satisfying” with none of the usual red flags – purple fringing, oil painting-esque detail at the pixel level – that you see from mid-range cameras. The auxiliary cameras, a 12MP ultrawide and 5MP macro lens, aren’t quite as useful, but that’s a sacrifice we often see at the price point.

The only real weak point of the Samsung Galaxy A55 5G is, rather ironically, performance. Despite the premium build and features, Samsung’s 4nm Exynos 1480 chipset is far from the most powerful you can find. It was bested by the Pixel 7a’s Tensor G2, let alone the Pixel 8a’s Tensor G3, in both CPU and GPU tests, suggesting that mobile gamers might be better off looking elsewhere.

Reviewer: Andrew WilliamsFull review: Samsung Galaxy A55 5G

Motorola Edge 50 Pro

Best for fast charging

Trusted Score

Pros

Premium, lightweight design

Full charge in 20 minutes

Flagship-level screen

Cons

Lacks processing power

Only three OS upgrades

Camera quality can be inconsistent

Despite the Pro branding, the Edge 50 Pro is Motorola’s latest mid-ranger to hit the market, sporting a sleek, svelte design, an impressive screen, solid performance and some of the fastest charging we’ve seen at any price point that makes it one to consider.

First off, the Edge 50 Pro looks the part with a choice between vegan leather and marble rears, complete with vibrant colour options including a particularly attractive shade of Lavender to choose from. It’s also thin and lightweight at 8.2mm and 186g respectively, and when combined with a slightly curved screen, it feels great in the hand.

The 6.7-inch display is another standout feature, with OLED screen tech, a rapid 144Hz refresh rate that’s ideal for gaming and a maximum brightness of 2000nits. Combined with a 1.2K resolution, the screen experience is crisp, bright and vibrant, ideal for binging Netflix on the go.

Despite its mid-range price tag, the Edge 50 Pro is one of few mid-rangers to sport a dedicated 3x telephoto lens alongside its 50MP main and 13MP lenses. The main camera is identical to the Motorola Edge 40, which is to say that it remains an impressive snapper with a large 1/1.55-inch sensor and f/1.4 aperture, but the addition of a 10MP telephoto means you can get closer to the action than ever before.

For us though, the real highlight of the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is the charging experience. Not only does it support 125W fast charging tech, but you’ll get a 125W fast charger in the box – and you can’t say that about many flagships, let alone mid-rangers. With tests showing a full recharge takes just 19 minutes, it’s one of the fastest-charging phones on the market at any price point.

The only real weak point of the Edge 50 Pro is the performance, utilising the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset present in phones that cost £100 less. It’s more than enough for everyday use when paired with 12GB of RAM, but you’ll really notice the lack of graphical grunt when playing games.

Reviewer: Lewis PainterFull review:Motorola Edge 50 Pro

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FAQs

How much does a mid-range phone cost?

The team at Trusted Reviews defines mid-range smartphones as any handset costing ideally under £700/$700. We raised our definition in 2022, following a gradual rise in prices in the top end of the market.

Are mid-range phones good?

Over the last few years, the mid-range phone market has blossomed, with key companies including Google, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo and Samsung creating mid-range handsets with features traditionally reserved for flagship devices. Recent highlights have included 5G connectivity, high refresh rate screens and improved rear camera sensors. The team of experts at Trusted Reviews recommend most users consider a mid-range smartphone before investing in a flagship as a result.

Are there 5G mid-range phones?

5G is an increasingly common site in the mid-range market with Samsung, Oppo, Motorola, OnePlus and Google having mid-range phones supporting the connectivity.

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