The Best Smartphones You Can Buy Under Rs. 25,000

The iQoo Z5 is the latest addition to our list of some the best phones under Rs. 25,000 in the Indian market. The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion made an appearance last month, which joined the ranks of the OnePlus Nord CE 5G and Samsung Galaxy F62. Other than this addition, there haven’t been any major changes to our previous list. This segment of smartphones continues to be popular with those looking for a little extra in terms of features and performance, particularly now with 5G becoming almost standard on new phones. 

We’ve let a few older models slip off our list since they aren’t as good value anymore, and some others were previously featured here have fallen in price, so they’re still great but you’ll find them on our list of the best phones to buy under Rs. 20,000 now. Samsung, Xiaomi, and Realme are the main players in this segment for now, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. 

The select few models that have made it to our list are definitely worth your time and money. You can also consider buying higher-specced variants of phones that made it to our sub-Rs. 20,000 list. Here are all the best phones you can buy under Rs. 25,000 in India to help you make the right choice.

Best phones under 25,000

iQoo Z5

The iQoo Z5’s design has been improved slightly over that of the outgoing Z3, and it offers better grip, but the material is still plastic. There’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G processor, which is on par with the mid-range competition, and this phone performed well when gaming and even in our benchmark tests. You get a 6.67-inch LCD panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and we finally get stereo speakers, which worked well both while watching movies and playing games. Camera performance is decent in daylight but not great in low light. Battery life is excellent, though you do lose out a bit in terms of charging speed. The iQoo Z5 might not be a major upgrade over the Z3, but it’s still worth a second look.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion

The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion sports a 6.7-inch OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate and a centred front camera hole. It has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, a dedicated Google Assistant button, and an IP52 rating. This smartphone packs in powerful hardware plus a clean near-stock Android UI which will appeal to purists. There’s very little to complain about here, other than a slightly average low-light camera performance. tThe Edge 20 Fusion is built well, has great performance, and offers good battery life. Motorola has also managed to undercut the OnePlus Nord CE 5G by Rs. 2,000, making the Edge 20 Fusion an easy smartphone to recommend for this price.

OnePlus Nord CE 5G

One of the most anticipated phone launches of 2021, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G brings the OnePlus experience, especially the smooth OxygenOS UI, to a new low price point. This isn’t a premium “flagship killer”, and it lacks a few touches such as the familiar alert slider, but a lot of people will find it more than enough for their needs. The Snapdragon 750G SoC, 6.43-inch Super Amoled screen, 4500mAh battery and quick charging all make for a great experience whether you’re getting day-to-day work done or playing games. 

The base variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage isn’t on sale yet, but luckily the middle variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage still falls within our budget. The top-end variant has 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and competes in a different price league altogether. 

Samsung Galaxy F62

The new Samsung Galaxy F62 (Review) offers pretty much the same features as the Samsung Galaxy M51 (Review) but with a more powerful, flagship-class SoC and the latest version of Android for only a bit more money. The Galaxy F62 boasts of the same 7,000mAh battery which makes it chunky and heavy. You do get a very good Super AMOLED display, decent daytime camera performance, and excellent gaming performance at this price thanks to the Exynos 9825 SoC which is the same one used for the Galaxy Note 10+.

Since there is no such thing as the perfect smartphone, there are a few things to keep in mind about the Samsung Galaxy F62: you’ll find ads in some of the stock apps, low-light camera performance could be better, and the battery can take a while to charge even with the 25W fast charger.

Mi 10i

Xiaomi kickstarted 2021 with the launch of the Mi 10i (Review) at a very aggressive starting price of just Rs. 20,999. You get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G 5G SoC, fast charging, a 120Hz display, and a 108-megapixel primary camera — which are all mighty impressive for a phone at this price. Other than the on-paper specifications, the phone also offers plenty of other little convenient features and design touches which make usage even more enjoyable.

The 108-megapixel camera is definitely the main selling point here, but in our experience, it doesn’t quite hit the mark all the time. It’s possible that this could improve via software updates in the future. The Mi 10i is a great phone for showing off, and you certainly get very good value for money. If you aren’t too fussy about photo quality, it could be a great option under Rs. 25,000.