Best flagship killers 2024 - buyer’s guide

The Xiaomi 14T Pro is still among the best phones you can get for about €700. It delivers on every single promise and has plenty of flagship-grade, class-leading features. It's among the fastest charging phones in the industry and it's got a 144Hz display, and that's in addition to a high-end chipset and a camera system that only falls short in one or two niche areas.

The Leica cooperation i paying off, as all rear cameras deliver outstanding photo and video quality day and night.

Admittedly, if selfies are of utmost importance, one of the niche areas becomes more of a pressing issue. Similarly, if you're into closeups, you'll probably need to look elsewhere (or try to work with the main camera, because the ultrawide and the telephoto won't be of much use).

Long story short - the Xiaomi 14T Pro is a very competent offering with a compelling set of flagship-grade capabilities. Something like a flagship-killer, if you will.

It is hard to find any serious faults with the €450 Poco F6 Pro. Sure, we would have loved to see a better ingress protection rating and perhaps expandable storage. Other than that, however, the Poco F6 Pro is an exquisite device all around. It has a premium build, an excellent display, great speakers and awesome charging speed.

The decision to go for last year's premium Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, in particular, has been well placed. The chip still offers amazing performance. Plus, Xiaomi has done a great job with cooling and sustained performance as well. On top of that, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 offers excellent connectivity and flagship features. It should cost a bit less than the current Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 flagship, and those savings are seemingly passed along to the end user.

The Poco F6 Pro is an excellent device at that price, offers a ton of premium, flagship-even features and deserves our full-hearted recommendation.

The Pixel 8 might have gotten a successor, but at €500 it is one of the best phones you can get right now. It has a great little OLED, excellent camera experience, fast charging, 7 years of software support, and timely major OS updates. And, it is one of the most compact smartphones on the market, one of the most powerful, and one with a remarkable photo quality from its cameras.

But the Pixel 8 isn't without its flaws. For instance, a 3x telephoto unit would have been greatly appreciated as well wider availability for its smart features. After all, many of Pixel’s clever software features can't be utilized to its fullest in many markets. Charging and battery life aren't particularly impressive either, although somewhat okay in Pixel terms. We also wonder why Google decided to skip the autofocus feature on the selfie camera and the support for Pro camera mode on the smaller Pixel.

Bottom line, the Pixel 8 is an easy recommendation because, despite its issues, as it manages to pack competent hardware into a compact body, offers top-notch power, and has a mid-range price.

The €470 OnePlus Nord 4 remains competitive in its price range by offering a unique design approach, excellent battery life, speedy charging and great performance thanks to its Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chip. The camera experience is a mixed bag, but we tend to like the photos taken with the main camera in 1x Photo mode. The absence of stabilized 4K video recording is the bigger con in our books, though.

The camera has been improved since the Nord 2, there is no doubt. The main camera saves great photos and videos, day and night, and so does the ultrawide shooter. Over-processed a bit, sure, but still better than what Nord 2 had to offer.

Having 256GB storage by default would have made the Nord 4 a tad more competitive as at least half of the phones in the same price bracket start from 128GB. The promised 4 years of software support will likely draw some users who are already on the fence.

We do recommend the Nord 4 for its design, screen, performance, battery life, and fast charging. Just don’t expect a flagship grade camera quality.

The OnePlus 12R is an excellent offer in India, and the markets it is available in. It’s a €550 smartphone with a large Fluid AMOLED screen with 1B colors, 120Hz refresh, and Dolby Vision. It also packs flagship-grade Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset with proper cooling solution that helps for good sustained performance. The phone is IP64-rated for dust and splash resistance.

The camera system features a so-so ultrawide and is missing a zoom unit - that's the weak point that rivals can readily exploit.

That said, stills performance is superb on the main camera and not half bad on the ultrawide, with both excelling in the dark - that's anything but a disappointing performance, if you don't particularly care for video. Add to that a wonderful display, class-leading battery life, and charging speed that's also among the best (in any class), and the 12R isn't looking too shabby, all things considered.

Ultimately, whether the OnePlus 12R is merely good enough or just great for you will be decided on exactly how much you want to be zooming in or out on your cameras. For everything else – it is a fine flagship killer specimen.

The €350 Motorola Edge 50 Fusion is undoubtedly a gorgeous device through and through, one that deserves a special spot on this list. It is exquisitely made, and even though the bill of materials is not what would conventionally be considered particularly "premium," everything looks and feels very nice and falls into place. The IP68 ingress protection is also a great bonus to have. The display on the Edge 50 Fusion is also very solid through and through, perhaps with the exception of the lack of HDR support. We have nothing but praise for the hybrid stereo setup. The camera performance is pretty solid all around, too.

We have to say that the biggest weak point on the Edge 50 Fusion specs sheet is probably the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset. It doesn't offer ample performance in the CPU or GPU departments. Even so, it's not like the Edge 50 Fusion struggled to perform any particular task we threw at it, even gaming, so we won't go too hard on the choice of chipset, though it is worth noting that you can get much better performance in this price range.

Ultimately, we would say that if the Moto Edge 50 Fusion speaks to you, particularly with its looks, it won't disappoint in any particular way, and you should go for one. You will not regret it, on the contrary, we can see you recommending it to a friend or two.

The €550 Realme GT 6 is a great upper-tier smartphone with a well-rounded set of features. It has a potent main camera, good zoom camera, snappy chipset, flagship-grade LTPO OLED panel, fast charging, excellent battery life, blazing-fast charging and loud and good-sounding speakers. In a sense, the GT 6 covers all the bases.

Perhaps the biggest missteps of GT 6 are the ultrawide and selfie cameras. The competition has moved away from the dated 8MP ultrawide unit, and Realme should too.

But if you are in the market for a phone in this ‘like a flagship’, then the Realme GT 6 is an outright recommendation for its premium all-round feature set.