Top Best New Chinese Phones of 2019 Video

You've probably heard of Chinese phone brands such as Huawei and Honor. Xiaomi, too, is becoming increasingly popular worldwide, and officially launched in the UK in November 2018. Now, in January 2019, Oppo has also made its way to British soil. (Also see our round-up of the best budget Chinese phones.)

Then there's Meizu, Letv, Homtom, Vernee, UMIDIGI, Ulefone, Elephone, Doogee, Leagoo, Mazze, Bluboo, Oukitel and others that won't sound familiar to a UK audience but offer fantastic value and are well worth your attention.

The problem with many Chinese phones is that they can be difficult to get hold of in the UK, and should something go wrong it is more difficult to get it sorted. To buy a Chinese phone in the UK you'll either need to look on a site such as eBay or Amazon, or go through a grey-market importer such as Geekbuying, GearBest or Coolicool. Be sure to read up on our grey-market tech buying advice before you do so.

Should you buy a Chinese phone in the UK?
Pros:
• Excellent value for money
• Competitive specification
• Dual-SIM
• None of your friends will have the same phone

Cons:
• Faulty devices may be difficult to return
• You may incur import duty (charged at 20 percent of the value on the shipping paperwork plus an admin fee)
• The phone may not work with your network (be sure to check before you buy)

Features and specifications
The majority of Chinese phones we've reviewed have been dual-SIM dual-standby. Sometimes, though, this second SIM comes at the expense of the microSD slot - it's often one or the other.

An increasing number of phones will support 4G on both SIM slots, but dual-standby phones will ask you to select one or the other for data.

The fact that a Chinese phone supports 4G doesn't necessarily mean it will work on your UK network, mind. Always check a phone's frequency bands before purchase, because Chinese phones are often missing the 800MHz band (band 20).

Whereas Qualcomm-made processors are popular in UK phones, many Chinese phones come with cheaper MediaTek chips. The fastest among these are the Helio X25, X27 and X30. Typically speaking they're not quite as fast as their Qualcomm cousins, though they are more than capable of your daily tasks. A key difference is their support for HotKnot rather than NFC.

Three or four gigs of RAM is not uncommon, with some even specifying 6GB, while storage is usually 32GB or 64GB as standard.