GSMArena smartphone shopping guide: June 2014

€300-€400

This price segment is above mass market smartphones and proved to be the home of practically all of last year's flagships. There are also a number of quality phablets to choose from.

The Sony Xperia Z Ultra is a practically a tablet with its 6.4" 1080p screen. The screen can use a regular pencil as a stylus.

The device is a stunning 6.5mm thick and features Sony's attractive design, including the IP58 certification, which is now standard for flagship Xperias. This means you can dunk it in the pool to shoot photos and videos with its 8MP / 1080p camera.

The Xperia Z Ultra is powered by a beefy Snapdragon 800 chipset and runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat either with Sony's customizations or pure Google Play Edition software. The battery life could have been better though.

A more manageable phablet is the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo with its 5.5" screen. It's a Super AMOLED unit of 720p resolution, so not as sharp as its premium namesake (267ppi). It does have an S Pen stylus though and the added productivity that comes with it.

It runs an older version of Android (4.3 Jelly Bean) on Samsung's Exynos 5260 Hexa chipset - it pairs two fast Cortex-A15 cores with four energy-efficient Cortex-A7s. The Galaxy Note 3 Neo has an 8MP / 1080p camera (with flash) on its faux leather back.

Yet another 5.5" phablet is the LG Optimus G Pro. It's older, but it has a 1080p IPS screen with Gorilla Glass 2 and a more traditional quad-core Krait 300 processor. It also has a 13MP camera with 1080p video capture.

Many have abandoned their point and shoot cameras since smartphones got so good at photography. Some are better than other and few - if any - are better than the Nokia Lumia 1020. It's not a particularly impressive handset for this price, but it has a monster camera.

The massive 1/1.5" sensor has 41MP resolution sits behind Carl Zeiss optics and is optically stabilized. The custom camera software allows for manual focus and you get powerful xenon flash. The camera normally shoots 5MP photos, which are more practical but also enable lossless digital zoom (it's available for video too).

Other than that you're essentially getting a Lumia 925, but the gap in cameras is well worth the €100 price difference between the two.

Another phone with big camera credentials is a mini - the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact is the only flagship mini that's both small and didn't get a massive reduction in specs.

Its camera has a 1/2.3" 20.7MP sensor, but like the Lumia it only shoots 1080p video, it's not part of the elite 2160p club.

The Xperia Z1 Compact has a 4.3" IPS screen of 720p resolution, a powerful Snapdragon 800 chipset running Android 4.4 KitKat. The Sony doesn't have optical stabilization, but isn't afraid to wade water thanks to its IP58 certification.

HTC has a new darling, but truth be told the HTC One from last year is nearly as good at it. It certainly has the aluminum unibody appeal and front-facing stereo speakers, plus the same camera sensor but with image stabilization. It doesn't have the second camera on the back, but that's mostly for gimmicky effects anyway.

The screen is smaller than the 2013 norm, a 4.7" Super LCD3 with 1080p resolution. The chipset is a Snapdragon 600, slower than Snapdragon 800's but certainly no slouch. The HTC One runs Android 4.4 KitKat with either Sense 6 or pure Android in the Google Play Edition implementation.

If you're okay with large phones, the full-sized Sony Xperia Z1 costs virtually the same as the Xperia Z1 Compact. It enhances the recipe with a bigger, sharper screen - 5" 1080p - and a bigger battery.

You get the same 1/2.3" 20.7MP sensor, Snapdragon 800 chipset and Android 4.4.2 KitKat software. The IP58 water resistance certification is in place too.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a fine flagship, but Samsung quietly unveiled a small update, the I9506. It's essentially the same phone except it swaps the Snapdragon 600 chipset with a Snapdragon 800, offering better CPU and GPU performance and faster LTE.

With a 5" 1080p screen and 13MP / 1080p camera, it serves as a budget version of the Galaxy S5. There are I9506 Galaxy S4 Black Editions out there with faux leather on the back similar to the Galaxy Note 3 (but different from the Galaxy S5 faux leather), which costs just a little more and those are the ones you should be looking for.

We've listed a few of Google Play Edition devices so far and there are more to come. Still, some users want Google to have more say in the design of a phone, not just the software.

The Nexus 5 by LG has 2013 flagship specs, including a 5" 1080p IPS screen, Snapdragon 800 chipset and an 8MP / 1080p camera with optical image stabilization. The phone packs other goodies like wireless charging and will be among the first to get new Android versions, at least for a little while longer (Google doesn't guarantee updates beyond 18 months after launch).

Now for another case of "you met the mini, now here's the big one." Unlike the Xperia Z1 pair though, the LG G2 has little in common with its mini - it was one of the most impressive phones to come out last year with razor thin bezels around its 5.2" 1080p IPS screen.

Consider this - the LG G2 is practically the same size as the HTC One, whose screen is half an inch smaller. The G2 is powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset and runs Android 4.4 KitKat. It also has an impressive camera - an optically stabilized 13MP shooter with 1080p @ 60fps video capture.

The unusual design of putting the Power key and volume rocker on the central line of the back, just below the camera, has both its proponents and opponents.

The OnePlus One is made by the same people behind Oppo and the phablet is indeed quite similar to the Find 7a. It has the same 5.5" 1080p IPS screen, but is powered by a better chipset - both have Snapdragon 801 chipsets but the OnePlus One uses the AC version (with 2.5GHz CPU clockspeed) and 3GB RAM vs. 2GB. Also, the One runs a special version of CyanogenMod, which is close to stock Android 4.4 KitKat, while the Find 7a runs Color OS based on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.

The OnePlus One has the same 13MP camera with 2160p video capture. You do lose the microSD card slot and the base storage is just 16GB, so we recommend you shell out €50 extra for the 64GB version. This puts it at the same price as a 16GB Find 7a.

The Oppo Find 7a is the replacement of the Find 5. Its 1080p screen grew to 5.5" and the Snapdragon chipset was updated to Snapdragon 801. Another noticeable updated is that the 13MP camera can now capture 2160p video, plus you get a microSD card slot to handle the increased storage demands. The camera also has a special mode that combines several shots into a 50MP image.

It runs a heavily customized version of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, which won't be everyone's cup of tea. By the way, there's another version on the way called just Find 7, which offers a QHD screen - that's 1,440 x 2,560 - if 1080p isn't enough.