OPINION: The mid-range smartphone market hasn’t always been successful. Much like budget phones, mid-range smartphones were neglected in the late 2010s, with most brands focusing instead on all-singing, all-dancing flagships – but things have changed in the past few years.
As the years go by, smartphone technology that was once flagship-exclusive becomes more affordable, eventually reaching more affordable phones. It’s called the trickle-down effect.
But in recent years, that trickle has turned into a downpour, to the point where the best mid-range smartphones are just as tempting, if not more so, than the best flagship phones. There’s an abundance of options that cost less than £600/$600 with tech that would’ve been flagship-level just a couple of years ago.
That’s completely at odds with the flagship smartphone market, which has stagnated in the past few years while costs continue to balloon. You only need to look at the four-figure price tag for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and iPhone 16 Pro Max to see what I mean.
The big three
Let’s start with the big three names in the smartphone world: Apple, Samsung, and Google. All three have now released their respective mid-rangers, the iPhone 16e, Samsung Galaxy A56 5G, and Google Pixel 9a.
These are tempting smartphones from popular brands that people know and love.
The £499 Samsung Galaxy A56 5G has a premium glass and metal build not too dissimilar to the Galaxy S25, along with a triple camera setup and AI smarts, while the £499 Pixel 9a shares many characteristics, including screen, processor, and an industry-leading 7 years of OS upgrades, with the flagship Pixel 9.
The £599 iPhone 16e might not reach the same lofty heights in the hardware department with a single camera and a 60Hz screen, but it does offer flagship-level performance as well as full Apple Intelligence support via the A18 chipset – the same as that within the iPhone 16.
These are all great smartphones with plenty of strengths, but I’d argue that they’re not quite as good as they could be – simply because the makers don’t want the more affordable mid-rangers to compete with their more expensive flagship smartphones.
That’s not exactly ideal for consumers, but my inner-capitalist understands.
The truly 2025 exciting mid-rangers
Thankfully, other manufacturers focus exclusively on more affordable smartphones. Without worrying about cannibalising more expensive alternatives, we’re seeing true innovation and bang for our buck here.
Take Nothing, for example. The London-based startup has never launched a smartphone that costs more than £579/$599, and even then, the company has yet to release a follow-up to 2023’s top-end Nothing Phone 2.
Instead, the company launched the even more affordable Nothing Phone 2a collection in 2024. While many expected Nothing to follow up with a more capable Nothing Phone 3 in early 2025, we were treated instead to a follow-up to the budget phone collection in the form of the Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro.
Nothing called the Phone 2a its most popular phone ever, and it’s clearly expecting to cash in on the same level of hype with the Phone 3a collection. As such, all of its efforts have gone into crafting two smartphones that offer incredible value for money without the worry of cannibalising a high-end alternative.
The Nothing Phone 3a may cost just £329, but offers a triple camera setup including an OIS-enabled 50MP main camera, 50MP 2x telephoto camera and an 8MP ultrawide, with a similarly high-res 32MP camera on the front.
It also packs a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 3000 nits that can easily compete with that of the iPhone 16 and Google Pixel 9. And, with a 5000mAh battery and 50W fast charging, it’ll go from flat to full faster than similarly priced alternatives.
It’s a similar story with the Nothing Phone 3a Pro. Despite the mid-range price tag, it offers a similarly high-spec setup, though with a more advanced periscope camera in place of the regular model’s 2x telephoto lens. It’s rare to see a telephoto lens at this price point, and the number of mid-rangers with full periscope lenses is vanishingly small.
Nothing is but a single example of manufacturers exclusively focusing on the mid-range market with exceptionally well-specced smartphones that can easily compete with smartphones that are double the cost.
We’ve also seen impressive offerings from Chinese manufacturers like Poco in recent months, particularly the Poco X7 Pro. Again, despite costing a fraction of the price of a flagship at £349, it offers the incredibly powerful MediaTek Dimensity 8400-Ultra, a bigger 6000mAh battery than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and faster 90W wired charging to boot.
There’s also full IP68 dust and water resistance – again, the same as you’ll find on flagships – and a 6.7-inch 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED screen. Yep, all of that, for just £349.
I can’t imagine Google, Samsung, or Apple launching something like that at this price point without completely cannibalising flagship sales, can you?
Regardless of which manufacturer it’s coming from, the truth can’t be denied: the 2025 mid-range smartphone market is more competitive and more tempting than ever, and could signal a shift in focus from smartphone manufacturers going forward.
