The year 2018 has been a good one when it comes to advance­ments in consumer electronics. It has brought us bezel-less displays, in-screen fingerprint readers and AR emojis, concepts that would have felt farfetched just a few years ago. Today, the concepts grace many high-end and mid-ranged phones and should influence and inspire many more devices in 2019. Here are some phones that made 2018 just a little more magical.

 

Smasung Galaxy S9

Price Rs 87,900 (S9) & Rs 99,900 (S9+)

 Smartphones in 2018 definite­ly took a turn for the ultra-ex­pensive, with phones like the S9, Note 9 and iPhone X cost­ing as much as a fully decked-out laptop. As much as the S9 costs, however, it is still the best phone to come out in 2018: powerful and making compromises in just the right places. While many other com­panies got side-tracked by bezel-less screen displays and compromised on notches to house front sensors, Samsung designed a phone with very thin front and bottom chins while still providing a great bezel-less experience.

In a year of compromises, the Samsung Galaxy S9 held its ground, even coming with a 3.5mm head­phone jack that Apple had removed for ‘technological advancement’. But technological advancements should never come at the cost of usability and accessibility, and the Samsung Galaxy S9, with its clever aesthetics and technology that are still very relevant, clearly doesn’t. (Going the Apple route of forcing tech advancements down their user’s throats is never a good idea.) Advancements in technology need to be organic and subtle, which is why I think the Samsung Galaxy S9 is the best phone of 2018.

 

 Apple iPhone XSand XS Max

 Price Rs 1,62,000 (XS 64 GB) & 1,72,000 (XS Max 64GB)

 If you thought the Samsung was expensive, the iPhones this year step up their price game by leagues. Costing as much as a MacBook, these iPhones are difficult to rec­ommend because of their price alone. But regardless of what Apple does with their iPhone line, Apple’s technological advancements ripple across the smart­phone market. Apple deemed the 3.5mm headphone jack arcane for their sleek new iPhones and poof, they’re gone from many devices from Google, Huawei and OnePlus. If only companies mimicked Apple’s soft­ware optimization, battery life or even their camera! Regardless, the iPhone X is an instrumental device considering just how mainstream it helped certain concepts become in 2018.

 

Samsung Galaxy A9

Price Rs 54,999 (6/128GB)

 The Sam­sung Galaxy sits comfort­ably between a flagship and a mid-ranged device. While more flagship phones from Samsung cost close to a lakh, the A9 is a brilliant phone to keep the company’s hold on the higher mid-ranged market. The A9 is not all talk though and enters the fray with an overkill of four rear cameras while bringing some decent specifications to the table: a a 6.3 inch screen, 3800mAh battery and 6GB of RAM. With such phenomenal specifications, Sam­sung has finally made a device that can go head-to-head with OnePlus and Huawei’s Honor lines.

 

Xiaomi Pocophone F1

Price Rs 36,999

 The Xiaomi Pocophone is a reflection of the mid-ranged market back in the days when Xiaomi was going head-to-head with OnePlus on price-to-per­formance ratio. Both wanted to provide the best specifications for a price point, lower than half of the then flagships. While both com­panies have moved on from this tactic, the Pocophone reinvents that philosophy and brings flag­ship specifications at a very decent mid-ranged price point. Much like the Xiaomi and OnePlus of old, the Pocophone is here to disrupt the market, and to some extent, it has already done so in Nepal. But with consumer-focused smartphones like the Pocophone, affordability and accessibility come hand-in-hand. I think the Pocophone F1 is a monu­mental device of 2018 and I hope to see more phones like it in 2019.

 

Nokia 6.1

Price Rs 27,499 (3/32GB)

 When we go a little lower on the price scale, we find the Nokia 6.1 brilliantly riding the budget market after a difficult comeback. Nokia has been releasing some interest­ing phones these days and rath­er then focus their efforts on flag­ships alone, the Finnish company finds success in diversity. Nokia has released some competitive budget phones in the mid-ranged market—and the Nokia 6.1 just happens to be the second wave of the company’s smartphones.

While its predecessor was as impressive as the 2018 reiteration, the 6.1 version just brings more to the table while improving on pre­vious flaws. At the budget end, the Nokia 6.1 is a unibody aluminum phone with some great hardware: a Snapdragon 630 processor with 3GB of RAM. The older Snapdragon 630 might stand out because of its age but it’ll perform heaps better than some recent lower end 400 series processors. For the price, the Nokia packs quite a good punch.