OPINION: As highlighted by the deluge of budget-focused Xiaomi launches this week, as well as recent launches from Honor, it’s clear that Chinese manufacturers have the budget smartphone market in somewhat of a headlock – and that’s great news for consumers.
That comes mainly in the form of Xiaomi’s Poco X7 and Redmi Note 14 collections in early 2025, offering surprisingly competitive smartphones from just £179, with the top-end Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus capping out at just £399, but let’s dive a little deeper into these recent releases to see what all the fuss is about.
Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 14 collection offers serious bang for your buck
The Redmi Note 14 is the cheapest phone that Xiaomi currently sells in the UK, coming in at £179, though the price doesn’t seem to reflect the hardware on offer.
Despite its sub-£180 price tag, the smartphone comes with features including IP54 dust and splash resistance, a 108MP main camera, a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 5500mAh battery with 33W fast charging.
Compared to the Motorola Moto G55 5G, which costs a little more at £199, Xiaomi’s alternative offers a higher-res main camera, better dust and water resistance, a much better screen and a larger battery, offering impressive bang for your buck. The only catch is that it doesn’t offer 5G connectivity like the Moto does.
Moving up the chain a little, there’s the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G, which comes in at £299. As with the entry-level model, the Pro impresses with headline specs including a 200MP main camera, full IP68 dust and water resistance, a 1.5K AMOLED screen and MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Ultra power – specs you’d usually expect to see in a phone closer to the £500 mark, if not a little more.
Again, compared to something like the £319 Nothing Phone (2a), you’re getting a higher-res screen, a massive upgrade on the main camera, a faster processor and faster 45W charging, all for £20 less – and it’s a similar story with other phones in the £299-£349 range.
There’s also the Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus, coming in at £399 with the same core specs as the Note 14 Pro 5G along with a more premium glass or vegan leather finish, improved AI smarts, a slightly faster chipset and massively boosted 120W HyperCharge capabilities.
The Poco X7 Pro has budget-friendly gaming covered
Those are great all-rounders, but Xiaomi’s budget smartphone collection reaches into niches like gaming with the Poco X7 series, and the Poco X7 Pro in particular.
I’ve already waxed lyrical about how impressed I am with the Poco X7 Pro’s value proposition, but it essentially follows the trend set by the Redmi range, albeit with a particular focus on battery life and performance.
For just £10 more than the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G, you can secure a smartphone with a Dimensity 8400-Ultra chipset – the first smartphone to do so internationally.
It may not be the top-end Dimensity 9400, but it’s not too far off either, with levels of performance that should beat practically every other phone in the budget market, especially when paired with Xiaomi’s Wildboost Optimisation tech and the same LiquidCool 4.0 tech as the Xiaomi 14T Pro.
There’s also elements like IP68 dust and water resistance, a 6.67-inch 1.5K AMOLED screen with a peak brightness of 3200nits, and a whopping 6000mAh battery to power the experience.
Honor’s also in on the budget-friendly fun
As noted, it’s not just Xiaomi that has much of the affordable smartphone competition feeling a little bit nervous; Honor has recently released the Honor Magic 7 Lite, its new £399 smartphone, and it’s similarly impressive compared to a lot of the competition.
Main highlights include a 6.78-inch 120Hz AMOLED screen with a near-identical resolution and higher peak brightness than the Xiaomi alternatives at a whopping 4000nits, a camera system headed up by an OIS-enabled 108MP f/1.8 lens, and an incredible 6600mAh battery despite weighing in at just 189g.
It falls behind the Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus in areas like charging, performance and AI capabilities but compared to other popular mid-rangers like the £439 Samsung Galaxy A55 5G, you’re getting a higher-res main camera, a bigger, brighter, a more pixel-dense display, boosted storage, and a much more capacious battery to boot.
Bad for manufacturers, great for us
This isn’t great news for manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola striving for dominance in the budget smartphone market but it’s great news for those of us on the hunt for a bargain smartphone.
Increased competition from Xiaomi will likely force the competing brands to upgrade their own budget options to fare better, and that’ll hopefully translate into even more capable smartphones at even more affordable prices – and until that point, you’ve got plenty of fantastic value Xiaomi and Honor phones to choose from.
