Best midrange all-rounders 2025 - buyer’s guide

The Poco X7 is not a major step up from the Poco X6, but still a very good offer. It is also a reworked version of the recent Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G and since it is cheaper than its Redmi counterpart, it easily made it to the top spot in this category.

Compared to the X6, the X7 comes with a refreshed design, a newer chipset and a better camera, but the complete water resistance and the enhanced shock absorption are probably the most notable improvements.

Still, if you are not coming from a Poco X6 or Redmi Note 14 Pro, the Poco X7 will impress you with design, screen and even performance. We found its battery life and charging good enough, and its rich connectivity options are a big plus.

The Poco X7 main camera does not live up to our expectations as it didn't offer a lossless 2x zoom, which was available on the Poco X6 (with a solid 4x option even, too).

While the Poco X7 Pro comes with HyperOS 2 and Android 15, the X7 comes with HyperOS 1 and Android 14, which means one less major upgrade for this phone. This is a trick we wholeheartedly do not approve of.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to this - is the Poco X7 a good device? Yes, it is. The phone has a well-rounded specs sheet and delivers on most of its promises.

The new Redmi Note 14 4G appears to be a good all-rounder that improves upon its predecessor. Sure, the ultrawide camera is gone, but we don't count this as a huge loss. We've got longer battery life, a nice display, an aluminum frame with an updated Gorilla Glass 5 front panel and decent enough camera performance.

The Redmi Note 14 4G isn’t particularly fast, maybe even a bit slow. And its camera department fails to deliver on quality.

Overall, the Redmi Note 14 4G is a dependable offer in this basic segment and we do recommend exploring it.

The Galaxy A16 5G is a nicely constructed device covering most bases. We particularly like Samsung's fairly new commitment to up to six major Android upgrades on modest devices. Undoubtedly, there is a lot to love about One UI and all of the added features it offers. The Super AMOLED and the thin bezels are nice development here, as well as the IP54-rating.

The phone lacks stereo speakers, and its display, while not bad in any way, only has a 90Hz refresh rate and pretty modest maximum brightness. The Exynos 1330 chipset that we tested offers modest performance at best. The UI doesn't run particularly smoothly and is not snappy at all, which makes us worried about usability after a few Android updates have gone through, as promised.

The Galaxy A16 5G currently retails for about €180, which makes it a very good offer, all things considered.

The €180 Moto G55 is quite an attractive offer priced below €200. It has a beautiful and lightweight design. The LCD screen is of high resolution, high refresh rate and there is only a small perforation.

Furthermore, the Note 12S offer a lot of connectivity options including 5G, FM radio, NFC, and more. Plus, its primary camera promises great photo and video quality. The large battery is much appreciated, of course.

The €330 Poco X7 Pro turned out to be an excellent bang for the buck offer as it offers unmatched flagship performance for its price class. It also has a cool and stylish design, a great AMOLED screen and an attractive design with a solid build. The battery life and the charging are quite alright, and so are the speakers.

We were also impressed by the smoothness of the HyperOS 2 and its AI options. And let's not forget the promised three major Android updates and 4 years of security patches.

Admittedly, the camera is mostly mediocre, except for the 2x zoom quality and the video stabilization. The rear cameras get the job done, but there is nothing impressive about the quality. The selfie shooter is one of the worst we've experienced lately, though.

If not for the so-so cameras, we would have given an excellent mark for this Poco X7 Pro. But even with these imperfections, the Poco X7 Pro is the most powerful smartphone around the €400 mark with a premium display, cooling, and top-notch battery and charging technologies. Given the all-round premium experience on a low-tier midrange price, the Poco X7 Pro easily becomes our top pick for this category.

The €280 Motorola Edge 50 Fusion is undoubtedly a gorgeous device through and through, one that deserves a special spot on this list, the top one. 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.

Motorola has found a successful formula with some of its Edge devices for the last couple of years, and we believe that the Neos stand out even more as delivering great value. Strangely enough, only a few brands offer compact mid-range solutions, so the €330 Edge 50 Neo finds a very tight but comfortable niche for itself. And this year's Edge 50 Neo is even better. Motorola has significantly reduced its size compared to its predecessor and has added some premium features and hardware.

The Neo's display is now a 6.4-inch LTPO OLED, gains MIL-STD-810H military standard, runs on a more powerful chipset, supports wireless charging and adds a 3x telephoto camera. Not to mention, the default storage variant stands at 256GB now.

Despite its size, the Edge 50 Neo is indeed well-equipped. You don't see many compact midrangers with a telephoto camera and wireless charging. The handset also offers a higher-end LTPO OLED panel, decently fast charging capabilities and long battery life. The design is ergonomically-sound and the finish is soft and grippy. It is a phone worth considering.

We enjoyed the 120Hz AMOLED display on the Redmi Note 14 5G and together with the loud stereo speaker it promises some proper video streaming experience. The battery life is alright and the charting speed is adequate.

The Redmi Note 14 5G isn’t particularly fast, maybe even a bit slow. And its camera department, while offering plenty of imagers, fails to deliver on quality.

If we still had to express some wishes, a better chipset would probably be up there. The same goes for the omission of HyperOS 2 and the latest Android 15, both of which Xiaomi has promised to deliver as soon as possible, whatever that means.

Overall, the Redmi Note 14 5G is a solid all-round offer in this basic segment and we do recommend exploring it.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro 4G brings a few upgrades over last year's model, notably the IP64 ingress protection rating, overall better build quality, and the larger 5,500 mAh battery. Besides that, not much has changed about the device's hardware. The new Helio G100 chipset is basically identical to last year's Helio G99 Ultra, especially in performance. The camera setup this year isn't much different, either.

The phone has good build quality and protection, both in the form of IP64 ingress protection and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front. Despite lacking HDR support, the display is quite nice and offers plenty of brightness. We liked that the battery capacity has grown, even if charging has been notably downgraded. The stereo speaker system is solid and does not disappoint. The same is mostly true of the camera setup. We like how the 200MP main snapper performs after dark. However, the ultrawide is a bit disappointing.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro 4G is one good offer and it will do well as your daily driver, there is just one issue to consider – the cheaper Poco X7 model, which makes much more sense.

The Galaxy A35 is a very well-rounded device through and through. While it doesn't do anything groundbreaking with the tried-and-true Galaxy A formula, it further refines the A3X series. While the Galaxy A25 still arguably comes with quite a few omissions, notably to its build and ingress protection, the A35 is much closer to the A55 in its general offering.

With the A35, you get glass on both sides, Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the front, and an IP67 ingress protection rating. The 6.6-inch Super AMOLED 120Hz display is still solid without really changing much from previous generations. You also get a solid hybrid stereo speaker setup and a large 5,000 mAh battery with solid endurance.

Performance-wise, the Exynos 1380 is a nice little step up from the Dimensity 1080 inside the Galaxy A34. It is perfectly adequate for the class and enough to offer a fluent One UI experience. That experience will be a big draw for a lot of people. Very few features are still relegated to Samsung's flagship models and outright missing from the Galaxy A35. Plus, the A35 comes with four years of major software updates and five years of security updates.

That said, there is no point in claiming that the Galaxy A35 is the best in its class. Shopping around, you can get notably better hardware for your money. However, the Galaxy A35 remains attractive in its entirety as a package. We are sure it won't disappoint any prospective buyers.

It's really hard to find any glaring faults with the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G, as should frankly be the case with a phone that has all the makings to become insanely popular sales-wise. Xiaomi just knows how to deliver value at this competitive mid-range price point.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G might not sport the most premium of materials, but it is extremely well made and also, new for this year, extremely well protected against the elements. An SD card slot would have been great, and we are sure some will mourn the demise of the trusty old 3.5mm audio jack, but other than that, we can't say anything is missing or out of place in this design. The controls are where they should be. The stereo speakers are symmetrical, well-balanced and quite nice-sounding. The display bezels are very reasonably seized, with practically every sensor hidden away somewhere and not in the way. This makes for an overall very clean and, dare we say, even classic design language.

The MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultra is far from a chart-topper in the grand scheme of things, but it is still a modern and efficient chip with all the connectivity features you may expect at this price point. There's ample battery to get most users through a full day, which is pretty adequate in our book. The same goes for the charging rate.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G has a perfectly adequate and versatile camera setup. There are no glaring faults in either the photos or videos it captures. These are not quite flagship-grade by any means, but again, we can't realistically ask for much more for the class.

The fact that the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G ships with Android 14 and HyperOS 1 while some of its siblings, like the Poco X7 Pro, come with Android 15 and XyperOS 2 out of the box is far from ideal. Let's call this a pretty obvious and not-so-clever trick to offer users fewer major OS updates in total, which we don't approve of.

We definitely wish that Xiaomi had made things a bit easier when it comes to differentiating between all the different models and regional versions of the Redmi Note 14 line. Things still get more confusing when we branch out into the Poco X7 family. If you like the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G, then you might benefit from looking at the Poco X7 for essentially the same experience and potentially a better price tag.

All things considered, the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G is an excellent overall package, and you can hardly go wrong when choosing the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G or its Poco X7 counterpart.

The price of the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ has quickly dropped down since its premiere and we cannot but recommend it. There are quite a few things to like in the Redmi Note 14 Pro+, like the extra durable build and smooth design, the very nice screen, the new battery chemistry, the solid performance with awesome thermal stability, the great video recording and the very fast charging. Convinced, yet?

We hoped for better battery life, better photo quality and a bigger performance bump but these things have not changed in the new model a full year later. And there are phones in this price range that can offer you an even better chipset and longer battery life.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ does not have any glaring issues and at its current price, it is one of the best options in this price segment, if not the best considering its all-round feature set.

The Motorola Edge 50 is a capable midranger with its strengths and weaknesses. For starters, it has a beautiful and sturdy design, offers an excellent OLED with a lot of pixels, colors, and 120Hz refresh rate. Its cameras are nicely versatile and the selfies are promising. It also provides fast charging, wireless charging, and loud stereo speakers.

Unfortunately, the drawbacks are hard to overlook - relatively low raw performance for the price and short battery life.

If you like the Edge 50 lightweight yet sturdy design, its versatile camera and clean Android, and you can live with mid-range performance, we think this phone could be a truly good fit.

The €300 Poco F6 may not be the real flagship killer you are looking for, but it gets pretty close and tries to specialize in certain aspects. For instance, the handset offers an excellent viewing experience, good speakers, unmatched performance in the segment, reliable, sustained performance and fast charging. In a way, the Poco F6 seems like a solid multimedia/gaming device on the cheap. Despite the omission of a 3.5mm jack, which many will miss. The absence of a proper proximity sensor may also annoy quite a bit of users

However, the mediocre battery life and okay-ish camera quality keep us from giving the device an instant recommendation. But it does deserve to be on your shortlists.

The Galaxy A55 tries to ride on the success of its predecessors and though it brings modes updates, it is still one incredibly solid offer. We are impressed by the battery life; we liked the new, more premium design; raw performance is good along with sustained performance, and we are generally happy with the camera all-around, including selfies and video recording. Display quality is competitive, although it's not hard to find bright 120Hz OLEDs nowadays.

We are very disappointed by the fingerprint reader; we are not fans of the virtual proximity sensor, and the thick screen bezels are off-putting. While none of these is a real deal-breaker, they should be considered when shopping for a phone.

All in all, the Galaxy A55 is a good phone at a reasonable price and it gets our recommendation.