Our editors talk: 2019 H1 highs and lows

What were the most impressive phones and trends in the past six months?

George

I walked into this discussion in a gloomy mood, and couldn't really shake it off throughout - it's probably the weather. I have been unable to get excited about a new phone for a while now, and the past months didn't really help.

That said, the Galaxy Fold that showed up more or less out of the blue in February alongside the S10 lineup did get me moderately intrigued. Not because I was going to get one, obviously, but rather because of its apparent prime time readiness at a time when we all thought foldables were just one-off proofs of concept. And then Huawei's Mate X got official, in a similarly ready-to-market state, what was that about?

I do tend to find moving bits particularly fascinating - on phones even more so, and there's been a healthy dose of them lately - plain pop-up cams have gotten meh already, the Oppo Reno's shark fin variety is slightly more interesting, but it's the likes of the Galaxy A80 and the Zenfone 6 that actually add practicality on top of the sheer coolness factor. The Zenfone 6 specifically is the best of them all, being able to stop its FlipCamera in any position along its 180-degree range - not just main-camera selfies, but odd angle shooting too - pretty neat.

Ivan

2019 has been great so far. There's been a lot of highs but I’ll keep this short and sweet, focusing only the major good things that have happened in the last six months.

Cameras, cameras, cameras! I love the fact that flagships and even many midrangers are now coming out with the ideal trifecta of cameras - a great all-purpose regular snapper, the 2x, 3x or even 5x telephoto and the ultrawide. You really don’t need to lug your dedicated camera to trips anymore - hell, we’ve even shot the odd smartphone event with a phone.

Samsung’s Galaxy S10 family came out great. Samsung pulled all the stops in 2019 to deliver an immaculate flagship line with large, medium and small options - all versatile and all just great. Also, when push came to shove and Samsung needed to reinvent its midrange it delivered, pushing out premium and feature-packed phones with reasonable prices in the Galaxy A and Galaxy M series. A look at our most popular phones at the moment will show you just how well-received Samsung’s improved midrange roster is.

Sony and OnePlus innovating. Sony’s Xperia 1 is a unique device, which is saying a lot in 2019. Its combination of a unique extra-tall 21:9 4K OLED screen with cornerstone specs such as a triple camera and the latest Snapdragon 855 chip make it a great proposition for the techie that likes to stand out. And OnePlus did something it hadn’t before - make an absolute spec juggernaut of a phone. The OnePlus 7 Pro is a beast both in the hand and on paper - no notch, all the cameras you want, great battery life, super-fast charging and a 90Hz display. And all of that for a couple of hundred bucks less than a Galaxy S10+ or an iPhone XS Max - wow!

Kaloyan

The past six months were indeed eventful - foldable phones, periscopic zoom lenses, the return of the rotating snappers, plenty of new flagships and mid-rangers. The industry brought us plenty to talk and write about, but a few of those really shined bright.

The Huawei P30 Pro and Sony Xperia 1 are the two flagships that really intrigued me. I was impressed by Huawei's versatile camera setup - both as capabilities and image quality, day and night. The 5x zoom camera was impressive, but its hybrid zoom on lower magnifications was quite brilliant, too.

Then, after a string of mediocre Xperia flagships Sony has finally released one that is truly worthy of its name. The Xperia 1 has one of a kind 4K display, excellent design, plenty of processing power, and an excellent triple camera that shoots quality night shots - how about that?!

But that's not all. I was very surprised by the new Galaxy A series. Samsung really stepped up its game in the mid-range segment and the AMOLED-packed A20, A30, A40, A50, A60, and A70 turned out champs in what they do for the asking price. The A10 has no OLED, while the A80 costs as much as a flagship and that's the reason those two didn't make the cut.

Xiaomi has also surprised me with the Mi 9 SE and Mi 9T - two very reasonably priced mid-rangers that I just fell in love with. The Mi 9 SE is a sight you don't see everyday - a compact phone (by today's standards), powerful and with a great camera. Then there is the Mi 9T with a notch-free OLED, and flagship-worthy power punch and camera experience priced at just €300 or less!

I can't pick just one phone and say this is the star of the 2019 so far. But I will surely remember the rise of these midranges, the return of Sony, and the next big thing in the mobile photography courtesy of Huawei.

Victor

There is never really a total shortage of things to get excited about in the mobile industry, especially if you know where to look. That's part of the reason why I love this job so much. Anyway, my personal focus over the last few months has been on the budget to mid-range segments of the market. A traditionally cut-throat arena where the likes of Xiaomi and Oppo, and lately Realme have been battling it out.

While definitely not a new trend, I do believe that we, as consumers, are finally starting to reap some tangible benefits. It's kind of astounding to think just how far sub €200 phones have come. Snapdragon's newfound love for the 700 series chips now offers what was considered flagship grade raw performance, only a few months ago to the wide masses.

Glorious AMOLED panels are coming down in price and popping-up on more and more devices. Both Sony and Samsung have their popular 48MP camera sensors powering increasingly impressive budget camera experiences, with plenty of AI and computational photography going on behind the scenes.

Frankly, all things considered, I would actually feel pretty content even as a power user with one of these new 2019 budget smartphones as a daily driver. And then there are the budget flagships to consider as well - a particular smartphone niche that's emerging as the top-of-the-line models' prices shot to the sky. Phones like the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro, the Lenovo Z6 Pro or the vivo iQOO. Plenty to get excited about indeed.

Yordan

I am an idealist in the smartphone world and I can rarely get excited about a new smartphone, unless it is something out of the ordinary. You should’ve seen me back in March when Samsung introduced its anniversary flagship series - the Galaxy S10 is the smartphone to have right now. The Korean manufacturer managed to put together a smartphone that is not only good looking, but also takes amazing pictures and has overall great performance.

And then Sony Xperia 1 came. This phone is a piece of beauty on its own. Sadly, we are looking at diminishing sales quarter after quarter, so I am a bit worried the company's mobile division might go the way of HTC. But for now, I enjoy the 21:9 screen with endless possibilities for scrolling social media and entertaining myself with video in proper cinematic experience.

The overall smartphone landscape is definitely getting better and it is good we have different manufacturers to push each other and never stop innovating. Oppo already has the technology to hide the camera under the screen. If they can make it work, others will follow soon and we will finally have the gadgets we only dreamed of when watching Bond movies.

Peter

I used to open Amazon occasionally to check if there are good deals on micro four-thirds cameras. That’s because every time I used my phone to shoot something faraway or in the dark I would think to myself “why do I even bother”.

Well, I’ve stopped looking for such deals. The periscope cameras on the Huawei P30 Pro and Oppo Reno 10x zoom offer a great mix of focal length and image quality. Even OnePlus 7 Pros 3x telephoto camera is quite good. It doesn’t bother me all that much that these phones can’t do intermediate zoom levels without interpolation.

Huawei and Google showed impressive Night mode results last year and this year many other makers released their own implementations. Some are better than others, but we’ve come a long way from the dark noisy mess that was smartphone photography in low light.

So, any money I might have spent on a camera that will probably stay back home on most occasions I can now happily put towards a smartphone with a better camera.