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00:00The mid-tier phone market right now is ripe. There are a lot of really good options in that $500 price point and I thought I'd just make a video that showed, I guess, my five top picks of the bunch as well as talk about my personal favorite of this group.
00:18In order to make this list, every phone here is really good. There's no particular order when I'm actually talking about the different phones.
00:26They're all good, but the ones that have been excluded from this list, I've purposefully excluded. Like, a lot of brands out there, like some of the Huawei phones, in light of recent events, they're not in here.
00:35But if they're in here, they're all good. So, right off the bat, the Samsung S9 and S9+. This is a phone that has appeared a lot on my channel.
00:44It's such an easy phone to recommend. The best things about it are really that it's an all-rounder phone. Everything about this phone is solid, like the speakers, the headphone jack, the camera system, the screen.
00:56Like, it's just such a good all-rounder phone. It covers all the bases and it does everything really well. The camera isn't, like, the best thing in the world. I would say that the Pixel cameras are better, in my opinion, but it's just a great all-round phone.
01:09If there's one thing I would knock on it, it's their software. Not the actual software that it's running. Like, some people are gonna love One UI, some people may not. It's more about personal preference.
01:17I'm talking about their lack of updates, of software updates. Samsung is a company that makes tons of phones. Tons of people have these phones around the world, but for whatever reason, they're just slow to update their phones.
01:29I mean, every year you're gonna get two, maybe three major software updates, which is a lot less than some of the other competitors out there.
01:35Also, because this phone is over a year old at this point, whatever lifespan that Samsung had originally planned for supporting this phone, like if they were gonna support it for two or three years, it's now one year less.
01:48So, this is not gonna be updated forever by Samsung, so that's probably its only disadvantage. Fantastic phone overall, but if you care a lot about frequent and long-term updates, that may not be the best pick.
02:01Next up, Pixel 3a XL. This is Google's answer to the whole mid-tier phone market. They did an awesome job on this phone. It's plastic, but it still feels like a relatively premium phone.
02:13Like, if you didn't tell me this was a polycarbonate shell, I would've believed that it was glass and metal. Like, it's just that well-made.
02:19Weaknesses of this phone are its performance. It's got great camera, great software, but if you really want a fast experience, this thing is noticeably slower compared to other $500 phones out there.
02:32It also doesn't have wireless charging, if that matters to you, but if you're looking for just a good overall experience, you don't care too much about performance, this is a great pickup.
02:41Next up, OnePlus 6T. You can pick up this phone for $550 on their website, which doesn't really fit in the $500 category, but I'm putting it in here anyways.
02:50Now, OnePlus, as a brand, has been traditionally known as, like, the budget brand. Budget's the wrong word, but, like, value brand. You get good value for this phone.
03:00And over the years, it's held up to that name, but I would say that right now, in mid-2019, their brand isn't as price competitive as it used to be.
03:08Not that it's a bad phone or anything, I mean, it's a great phone, that's why it's even in this bunch, but in terms of its price point, I don't think it stands out as being, like, a value brand anymore.
03:18It's still one of the nicest looking phones in this bunch, in my opinion. It's got a relatively small notch, and the software's clean, it's got dash charging.
03:24It does not, however, have a headphone jack, and I think at this price point, headphone jacks are pretty important. Shame it doesn't have it, but that's the OnePlus 6T.
03:32Great phone, but just not as clear of a price leader as it used to be.
03:37Then we also have our newest addition to this lineup, the Zenfone 6.
03:42I really like this phone. I don't want to just oversell it, because I feel like it's easy to do when you get something that's new and novel like this.
03:49My initial impressions of this phone were that the hinge on the flip camera was questionable, but I've actually tried to bust this thing.
03:57Like, I've been rough with it, I've been torquing it around. I think this thing will actually hold up quite well to real world use.
04:02The advantages of this phone, I would say, are its aesthetic. It's a really nice, clean looking front.
04:07I also say the software's quite clean.
04:10The flip-up camera makes water resistance on a device like this extremely difficult, so I'm not even going to do a water test on this,
04:16because just looking at the mechanism makes me feel like this thing would bust immediately if I submerged this.
04:22Also, the camera. This is something that I feel like Asus has always been not great at.
04:27Like, their camera software just doesn't process images as nicely to my eye.
04:32I hope that they fix this, but that's really its only major flaw to me.
04:36Like, everything about this phone feels right for $500.
04:39Okay, last up, Razer Phone 2.
04:42This is a phone that launched for $800.
04:45And at that price point, just, it was a bad recommendation.
04:48No one was going to openly say, like, hey, this is a great phone to buy for $800.
04:52It is now a $500 phone. It's such a good phone at that price.
04:56See, I find it unfortunate when companies do that.
04:58When they launch a phone, and they price it wrongly.
05:01Like, when this thing goes out at $800, and the camera software isn't great at launch,
05:05it kills the product. Like, they just can't recover from that.
05:07We've seen this happen with the Essential Phone a couple years ago.
05:10We now see it happen with the Razer Phone, where the phone is good,
05:13but because the price tag is so high, the initial reviews are just like,
05:16eh, it's not worth the money, and then they can't sell it.
05:19Like, at this point, for $500, this is such a good phone.
05:22It's not perfect, but I think it can sit with the rest of these comfortably.
05:26Its main strength is that 120Hz screen.
05:29Super smooth, super fluid, it just looks really nice.
05:32Wish it was brighter still, but still a good screen.
05:35The biggest weakness, I would say, is the uncertainty of future updates for this phone.
05:40Razer, as a company, had some shifts internally,
05:43and there were rumors that they were pulling some of the resource out of mobile hardware development,
05:48including software.
05:50So, it's, you know, it's possible that this phone may not be supported really long term,
05:55but they seem to have held up over the past couple months.
05:58I just hope that they keep it up.
06:00But, okay, all these are great phones, but if I had to choose one as, like, the best or my favorite of the five,
06:07if you'd asked me two weeks ago, I would've gone with the S9+.
06:10Really easy phone to recommend, but, I mean, you've seen this thing a bunch of times on my channel,
06:15and I like it a lot, but because of the introduction of the Zenfone 6,
06:20this is my favorite right now.
06:22They've done a fantastic job on this device.
06:24I didn't expect it.
06:25I think the world did not expect them to make something this good,
06:28and if you're interested in a $500 phone, I highly recommend checking this thing out.
06:33I will say this.
06:35This is kind of a message for Asus, but this is a phone that has finally gotten the attention of a lot of eyeballs.
06:43Like, they've made phones for a bunch of years, but they've never been, like, massively popular.
06:47This phone, I think, will be wildly popular.
06:50It has a lot of eyeballs in North America, which is something Asus has never really had with their Zenfone lineup.
06:55I hope they kind of appreciate that, and I hope they respect that,
07:00because this is a great phone, but they've got to keep it updated,
07:04and they've got to work on the camera software, because as it stands, I mean, it could be a lot better.
07:09Okay, that's my favorite of the bunch.
07:11I think you can't go wrong with any of these, but that wraps up this video.
07:16Okay, hope you guys enjoyed it.
07:17Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
07:18See you guys next time.
07:25Bye.