GO YOUR PHONE WAY

In 2024, there’s more to the smartphone world than the same few big-name brands. From flashy foldables and killer camera phones to gaming powerhouses, here are the best reasons to take the path less travelled…

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Whether your current phone is nearing retirement, or you just can’t resist the allure of shiny new hardware any more, the competition for a place in your pocket has never been tougher.

We can chalk that up to class leaders Apple and Samsung not rocking the boat with their next-gen models, which aren’t too far removed from last year’s efforts.

This has left the door wide open for rivals to offer up some strong alternatives, with head-turning tech and options at every point on the price spectrum.

So, do you stick with what you know or mix things up? Put it this way: if you ate the same meal every day, you’d be missing out on a world of flavour. It can’t hurt to look at the menu, right?

Over the next 18 pages we’ve tested some of the best new phones out there, from flagships and foldables to cheerful burners. There’s guaranteed to be something in here to suit you.

THE NEW FLAGSHIPS

XIAOMI 14

Mostly known for its excellent affordable and mid-range smartphones, the Xiaomi 14 is the company’s latest attempt at cracking into the ultra competitive flagship space the world over.

Unlike the traditional flagship bigwigs but much like the new-age high-end superstars, the Xiaomi 14 puts the focus on the camera, promising top-notch photography performance to match up to the competition. That’s not it though; this is a flagship smartphone in every way, with the spec sheet led from the front by its powerful processor.

Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 plus 12GB of RAM, the Xiaomi 14 delivers flagship performance, and the 512GB storage goes some way to justifying its oomphy price which is considerably higher than what we’re used to seeing from Xiaomi.

Leica boss