We are constantly asked (of course!) Which smartphone to buy or which smartphone is now the best for your money - and usually you can just give a choice of several models in your price range, regardless of any third-party processes.
It is for these purposes that we write articles about the top 10 smartphones - here is the material about devices up to 10 thousand rubles, but about models up to 20 thousand rubles.
But now everything has changed. If you need a smartphone urgently, then you have to make a start from what is now in warehouses.
The combination of difficult logistics, a shortage of components on the market, and, as a result, a disrupted production cycle led, for example, to the fact that the supply of smartphones to Russia in October satisfied only 25% of the market demand. Some smartphones (for example, Motorola edge 20 Pro) have generally turned into a kind of myth - they are officially sold but can be found in stores only occasionally.
In general, sales of smartphones in the third quarter of 2021, for example, decreased by 6%, even though the demand for these gadgets is not yet going to fall: with decreased shipments, sales of smartphones increased in monetary terms.
And there is no reason to believe that the situation will change in 2022. However, not everything in 2021 was so bleak.
Honor is back
The combination, which Ostap Bender would have envied, worked - Honor technically separated from Huawei back in 2020, but doubts remained that the American regulatory authorities would recognize this company as completely independent and exempt from sanctions (the main one of which was blocking the use of Google Mobile Services).
Well, it's time to discard them: albeit with a huge delay, but the first Honor smartphone with Google services (and the Qualcomm platform) after a two-year hiatus - Honor 50 - still came out. Honor will likely be able to reclaim a very noticeable market share next year, even if it shrank to almost zero last year.
Crouching Tensor, Hidden Snapdragon
But for Qualcomm, 2021 was not a very good year. Back in the third quarter of 2020, the company lost its leadership in the supply of processors for smartphones to a competitor in the person of MediaTek, and in the past year, the process only worsened.
The Taiwanese chipmaker continued to lead the mobile chip market in the second quarter of 2021 with a 38% share, while Qualcomm took 32% of the market. By the way, Samsung's share has dropped dramatically - to 7%, but Apple, of course, is stable with its 15% (which exactly corresponds to the iPhone's market share).
Another 5% - at UNISOC, 3% - at HiSilicon (the prospects here are sad). In monetary terms, however, Qualcomm is still ahead (34.4%; Apple - 27.8%, MediaTek - 26.8%).
A new player has added to this fun company - Google with its own Tensor platform, which has been equipped with the Google Pixel 6/6 Pro.
Not so much is known about it - in the manner of Apple, the manufacturer hides some of the information from the public. But it is known that the platform received two Cortex-X1 cores operating at 2.8 GHz, two mid-level Cortex-A76 cores with a frequency of 2.25 GHz, and four energy-efficient Cortex-A55 cores with a frequency of 1.8 GHz. GPU Mali-G78 is responsible for graphics processing.
The technical process is 5 nm. And there is a particularly powerful processor responsible for neural network computing - a separate emphasis is placed on it.
But the most, perhaps, still the main thing is that this platform has not noticed a sin with excessive heat release, which is why Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 suffers greatly. We hope that Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will be better in this regard.
Front camera that is not visible
Technologically, it was a very boring year for smartphones - adherents of the topic of "technology stagnation" can be satisfied.
Companies have largely used legacy designs with fresher components without spawning anything truly fresh - something we've never seen before. Except for one thing - subscreen cameras have finally appeared in serial devices, which means that soon we may still say goodbye to various kinds of "holes" and "cutouts". Will even Apple give up the monobrow ?!
The first "invisible" (in fact, you can see them, but only if you carefully look at the surface of the screen) cameras received a flexible smartphone Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 and Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 (we will soon prepare a review of this smartphone, which never officially reached Russia ). I hope there will be more of them next year - front cameras should be invisible.
Goodbye Galaxy Note
What should have happened, it seemed, back in 2016, when the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was epically disgraced, did happen, but five years later when the explosions had already been safely forgotten.
The Galaxy Note series is retiring. This was read back in February when the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra received stylus support. At the end of the summer, the flexible Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 learned to work with the pen - and then everything became completely clear. Note in the galaxy of Samsung smartphones no longer exists.
This series will be remembered for the fact that it was she who opened the gates to the world of "shovels", debuting in 2010 with a 5.1-inch screen and causing both a sensation and misunderstanding of how such a healthy phone can be used in general.
What kind of hands are needed ?! Today, when the 6.7-inch diagonal no longer surprises anyone (“oh, it’s okay, it’s convenient!”), These are very lovely memories. Well, let's remember!
LG finished with smartphones
And also remember the LG smartphones. The company has long left behind the best years, which fell on the release of push-button phones, but for a long time kept at least close to the leaders, including in the Android era.
In recent years, however, things have gone very badly - in Russia, in particular, the flagships have not been presented for several years, and the sales of inexpensive models did not stand up to criticism. The solution was obvious. LG released its last smartphone on May 31, 2021.
If you start recalling the most memorable LG pipes in this article, the article will only be about this, and not about the results of 2021.
So let's move that discussion into a comment: Which LG phone do you remember the most?
Flexible smartphones with us for a long time (forever?)
Clamshell smartphones and convertible smartphones with a folding screen nevertheless turned out to be not a strange quirk and not a technological dead end, but quite a popular product, even despite the still very high cost.
More smartphones with flexible displays were sold in July-September 2021 than in the previous four quarters combined.
Quarterly growth was 215%, and growth compared to last year - 480%, the number of smartphones sold in units amounted to 2.6 million units, and Samsung accounts for 93% of all gadgets of this type delivered for the quarter.
In second place is Huawei with 6%. Surprisingly, Motorola, with its excellent RAZR, is barely represented. Well, we are waiting for more active entry into the game of new brands - we especially count on OPPO.
Best smartphones of the year: flagship killer - real GT (entire series)
"New Xiaomi", a discounter brand from the BBK consortium, started this year neither shaky nor shaky - at least the realm 8 Pro did not make any amazing impression. But by the end of the year, he got hot as it should.
First came real GT, which occupied the almost empty niche of "near flags" with a price of about 40 thousand rubles - very stylish (especially in a leather case), fast and convenient, although not ideal.
And then realme GT Master Edition drove up, which gave a leg to Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro and realme GT Neo2, which has almost no competitors in its price category (37 thousand at the start), except perhaps Honor 50.
While Xiaomi is slowly increasing the prices of its smartphones, realme can grab a piece of people's love - albeit mostly in the not very budgetary category.
Best smartphones of the year: most trending - OPPO Find N / Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3
And here is what we talked about just above - flexible smartphones, which are gradually entering our daily life as truly "flagship flagships", although they are not yet able to take the title of the most elite and fashionable smartphone from the annual iPhone.
We will not argue with the people's taste, especially since the iPhone 13/13 Pro this year turned out to be very good, but we will add something more interesting to the best smartphones.
Out of the Fold / Flip pair, I definitely prefer a small clamshell - to whom, of course, but to me, a small smartphone, which becomes even smaller when folded, seems to be a more meaningful application of technology than an already rather big device that turns into a tablet.
Plus, the Flip3 is very good on its own - with moisture protection, a neat design, a Snapdragon 888 platform (not Exynos!) And a relatively reasonable price, which did not even step over 100 thousand.
But the OPPO Find N presented at the very end of the year and has not yet reached the stores is just a smartphone tablet. But, firstly, it is more compact and human than the Galaxy Z Fold, and secondly, it has almost no folds at the fold! And while the fact that OPPO has ditched (for now) its sliding smartphone concept in favor of a foldable one is a little frustrating, the model still seems very interesting. And the very fact of the appearance of a new player on the "folding" field is very pleasing.
Best smartphones of the year: most anticipated - Honor 50
The already mentioned first Honor with Google services after a long break deserves a second mention, already among the best smartphones of the year. Partly because of sentimental feelings (look who's back!), But mostly simply because this is a great smartphone.
Curved OLED screen with a frequency of 120 Hz (which really works in games, and not like the real GT), traditionally excellent shooting quality on the main camera, a high-quality front camera, decent performance combined with no throttling problems (Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G).
In the category of relatively inexpensive sub-flagships (35 thousand at the start), a serious competitor for a smartphone is, in fact, one - realm GT Neo2. The return turned out well.
Best smartphones of the year: the most humane - ASUS Zenfone 8
Galaxy Note once set the fashion for large smartphones, and this fashion finally absorbed the entire market. It is almost impossible to find both a powerful and a convenient smartphone at the same time. There is, of course, the iPhone SE (2020), but the filling from 2020, packed in an iPhone 8 case (!) And equipped with a 4.7-inch screen, is still very specific.
There are only two companies that make human smartphones - Sony with its special narrow flagships and ASUS with the Zenfone 8. This is a rather ordinary-looking smartphone with ordinary cameras, which turns out to be both relatively inexpensive (for a flagship) and maximally convenient to use.
It brings back the forgotten feeling of being able to operate a smartphone with one hand. But at the same time, there is an OLED screen with a frequency of 120 Hz, and a flagship platform, and a non-slip body, and a mini-jack. In its competitors, of course, the "regular" iPhone 13 is registered, but it is noticeably larger, and lacks an analog connector, and is noticeably more expensive.
Best smartphones of the year: most technologically advanced - Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
This smartphone, like Xiaomi Mi Mix 4, never officially arrived in Russia - Xiaomi has already raised the prices for its older models (Xiaomi Mi 11 costs 86 thousand rubles today), so it did not frighten the public with a gadget for 120 thousand.
And it would be worth it, in my opinion: in the absence of Huawei (the P50 has not yet made it out of China), it is here that the most interesting technologies in the field of mobile photography are concentrated (Xperia PRO-I, forgive me, but no).
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra has questions about an unusually heavy and bulky case, it has problems with firmware, autonomy leaves much to be desired, and the brightest feature in the form of an additional screen is useful only for bloggers who can shoot themselves (but with a number of unpleasant restrictions ). But Mi 11 Ultra received the most "punchy" set of cameras: 50 + 48 + 48 megapixels with a main sensor of 1 / 1.12 inches (in reality, the size of a single combined pixel turns out to be even larger than in Xperia PRO-I), five-fold optical zoom, autofocus on all cameras - and excellent software processing, the pictures are really good.
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