The smartphone market in the US is cornered by Apple and a handful of brands that represent the Android fraternity. Most ofthe best Android smartphoneswe recommend are made by Samsung, Google, and OnePlus. While there are some other brands like Motorola active in certain price segments, none of them have been able to command the flagship market as this trio has. But there exists a whole world of smartphones outside of North America with so many lucrative options that it’s hard to pick our favorites. So, we’re sharing a list of some of the finest smartphones from international markets that we think you’re missing out on in the US instead.
While these phones offer a unique experience and are tempting to import stateside, bear in mind that you will have to deal with shipping and customs hassles, and that still wouldn’t guarantee full network compatibility with your carrier. With that out of the way, let’s see the smartphones that spoil folks on the other side of the Atlantic.
1Xiaomi 14 series
The Ultra’s got one heck of a camera island
When our Google Editor, Manuel Vonau,reviewed last year’s Xiaomi 13 Pro, he was particularly impressed by its camera performance. Xiaomi’s partnership with Leica is really paying off not just for the color science but also for making the camera app feel more fluent. Things have only improved with this year’s Xiaomi 14 Pro. InGizmoChina’s side-by-side photo comparison, you’ll see that the Xiaomi 14 series’ camera takes more vibrant-looking photos. The images look far more detailed this time, which becomes evident when you zoom in.
But that’s not all. There is another, more premium Xiaomi 14 model, which looks like an absolute camera beast. In the official render above, you may see that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra has some eye-popping design elements, including that multi-tiered camera island taking up a large portion of the back. We just hope that its image quality lives up to the visual swank because the previous Ultra was quite a camera champ, and we expect no less from the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
2Oppo Find X7 Ultra
The kind of bleeding-edge phone we want OnePlus to make
It isn’t a hidden fact that OnePlus and Oppo function as a single entity fundamentally. But the Oppo Find X7 Ultra’s rear camera array has a leg up on theOnePlus Openand the newly launchedOnePlus 12, so much so thatit left us wanting a OnePlus 12 Ultra. The Oppo phone flaunts its massive camera bump that houses a quad-cam setup. It’s got two telephoto cameras, one going up to 2.8x optical zoom with the other doubling it to 6x besides a wide and ultrawide camera.
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All four shooters have a 50MP sensor, so there is no resolution drop, and you still get the Hasselblad branding and color tuning. All this flamboyance is not in vain as Nirave Gondhia found the Oppo Find X7 Ultra to be a better camera phone than the OnePlus 12, though OxygenOS remains superior to ColorOS.
3Fairphone 5
Open. Replace. Fix. Done!
A little less than AI, but repairability has been a major buzzword in the tech town, with companies like Appleready to ship you bulky equipmentfor you to fix your phone at home. But Fairphone has been dealing with this problem for longer and more smartly. TheFairphone 5is perhaps the most repairable phone out there. It makes it easy for you to quickly swap a dead battery, but Fairphone didn’t stop there and went a few steps ahead.
you may easily replace things like the USB port, the speaker unit, and even the camera module all by yourself using minimal tools and within minutes. This makes the phone environmentally friendly as well since you aren’t just tossing your phone away when something breaks. While the phone may not score well on its internals, it has earned a solid reputation for its unique repair system.
4Vivo X100 Pro
Literally putting the ‘Pro’ in the camera
As it has become a norm with smartphone makers, Vivo has also tied up with Zeiss to co-brand its phone cameras. However, this particular partnership extends to the hardware level as well, with the company opting for a coating that reduces lens flair for clearer photos. Vivo and Zeiss have worked on theX100 Pro’s color science, which is quite impressive. The phone has three rear cameras that offer consistent colors when you jump between them, which is often a sore point with multi-cam phones.
The Vivo X100 Pro is one of the few premium phones to use a high-end MediaTek chip instead of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Having said that, its performance is still up to the mark when it comes to everyday tasks and even gaming, though Vivo’s Funtouch OS isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
5Honor Magic V2
It’s so light, it really feels like magic
A big problem with foldables is their bulky design since the two halves contribute to the overall thickness, but that’s not the case with theHonor Magic V2. It is merely 9.9 millimeters thick when folded and isn’t much heavier compared to a regular phone, making it super easy to use and travel with. While the foldable design itself is exciting, the Magic V2 leaves you in awe when you first pick it up — you’ll want to double-check if it’s really a foldable until you get used to its slim profile.
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Many new foldables to choose from
Despite its rather compact build, the phone doesn’t compromise on any other aspects. It has a top-notch spec sheet that can give any premium phone a run for its money. It could’ve been a worthy contender tothe current foldable crop, but it doesn’t look like it’s coming to the US at all.
Beyond the big three
We often say that mainstream smartphones have become rather stagnant with no real innovation happening year-on-year except for some incremental upgrades. But if you look beyond the three major Android phone makers in the US, there is still a lot of interesting stuff going around. Asian and European markets now have a ton of Ultra phones that can easily give theGalaxy S24 Ultraand theiPhone 15 Pro Maxa run for their money. While one brand wants to bring back the good old days of self-swap batteries, another is willing to make foldables more accessible for everyone. This kind of variety in the global smartphone scene is what keeps us excited about the future of Android phones.
