The best mid-range phone 2023

The Pixel 7a is a superb mid-range phone that frequently feels like a flagship.

An outstanding main camera combines with water-proofing, wireless charging, excellent Google software, and powerful performance to outclass almost every other mid-ranger around.

There are compromises. The wired charging is sluggish, and Google doesn’t include a charger in the box. Battery life isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. Check out our roundup of the Best phone chargers.

You’ll also have to put up with a 90Hz refresh rate display, lagging behind the smoother 120Hz panels found elsewhere.

Those are small negatives in an otherwise excellent phone though, and overall the Pixel 7a offers the best bang for your buck out there right now.

An outstanding follow-up to 2022’s OnePlus Nord 2T, with the same 80W fast charging, 5G, OnePlus’s signature Oxygen OS interface, and a near-flagship main camera.

OnePlus Nord 3 again demonstrates that the company is brilliant at taking exactly what’s needed in a phone, packaging it into a nice, well-built exterior, and topping it with a competent Android skin. What’s not to love?

The Nord 3 misses out on flagship niceties like wireless charging and waterproofing, and its additional cameras are nothing to write home about. But these are really the only compromises you have to make.

There’s also the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite, which delivers a stripped-back version for a slightly lower price.

Arguably the toughest competition for the Pixel 7a is the fact that you don’t have to spend that much more to get the Pixel 7, which is just cheap to enough to sneak into our mid-range chart, despite really being a flagship phone.

That extra expenditure gets you one of the best cameras around at this price, with an exceptional main lens backed up by an equally strong ultrawide. Both benefit from a few clever AI tricks delivered by Google’s second-generation Tensor chip.

You also get flagship build quality, with a toughened glass body and a sleek, slender design – this is thinner than the 7a, and only a fraction heavier despite packing a larger display.

Last year, Nothing Phone (1) made quite a splash when it finally launched. It promised to shake up the phone market, and in some ways – especially design-wise – it really did.

This year, its predecessor continues the project with much better performance, even more lights, and an even better (and less buggy) Android flavour.

Unfortunately, it also sticks with last year’s cameras, which weren’t the best of the bunch back then.

Set aside the lights, and the Nothing Phone (2) is really just a regular mid-range device, albeit one of the better ones around. Battery life is stellar, but the trade-off is you get a display that is a bit dim. You can instead make a light show on the back, so there’s that.

The Poco X5 Pro 5G is at the cheaper end of what we consider a mid-ranger, but that doesn’t stop it offering exceptional value.

The 6.67in, 120Hz AMOLED display is essentially flagship-level and it’s matched by a slick, elegant design elsewhere. Even the camera impresses, with a surprisingly solid 108-megapixel sensor for the main shooter – though the accompanying ultrawide and macro cameras aren’t as impressive.

It’s all made of plastic, so doesn’t feel too premium, and we don’t love the MIUI software running on here (shared by all Xiaomi, Poco, and Redmi phones). But overall this is an excellent package for the price.

Samsung is back on track with the Galaxy A54 5G after a miscue with last year’s A53.

The A54 delivers top-notch styling, IP67 protection, one of the best screens on a mid-range phone, and a dependable set of cameras. Furthermore, battery life is solid and Samsung continues to impress with its software upgrade guarantee.

The key this year is that all of that is backed up by stable, solid performance from the powerful Exynos 1380 processor. This isn’t the most powerful mid-range phone around, but it’s good enough – and excels almost everywhere else.

The Motorola Edge 40 is an impressive phone for the price, especially when it comes to aesthetics. The vegan leather-backed version is one of the most attractive and best feeling phones we’ve ever used, all the more improved by its incredibly slim and lightweight build.

Clever software additions such as the gestures for opening the camera or the option to use the always-on display to preview or open notifications really add value to Android and are a good reason to pick this phone over other mid-rangers, while from a hardware side the super-fast 144Hz refresh rate display is unique for the price point.

It’s frustrating that the phone will get just two Android platform updates and only get security support until 2026. This isn’t long enough when the phone would otherwise be good enough to keep going for at least five years.

If this doesn’t bother you then it’s a solid choice in the mid-range market.

The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ is more than just a competitive mid-ranger – it’s a potential flagship killer.

Its headlining 200-megapixel camera is a bona fide premium feature, while performance and display are among the best you’ll find at this price point. Battery life is solid too, while the 120W fast charging is excellent.

As a result, the 12 Pro+ is easy to recommend, though if you can live with slower charging and a 50-megapixel camera then the cheaper Note 12 Pro is also great. The polarising MIUI software and poor supporting rear cameras might make you look elsewhere, but you certainly shouldn’t rule out this phone.

Realme really hits the mark with its 11 Pro+ model. The company is known for making phones with a specific purpose in mind, and this time the goal was to master photography.

That’s why Realme uses a 200-megapixel sensor with quite a few software tricks to end up with impressive performance – especially for this price. The rest of the package is equally impressive: the AMOLED screen is beautiful and rich in colour, and the battery life is long.

Unfortunately, there had to be a trade-off, and it’s the CPU. It’s not bad, but it means the 11 Pro+ might feel slower than you’d like in a couple of years’ time when software is more demanding. You also get only two years of OS updates, so say goodbye to a long-lasting relationship.

Aside from that, Realme 11 Pro+ is undoubtedly one of the more interesting propositions in the mid-range right now.

There are two ways of looking at Fairphone 5. If you look at its specs alone, it really is nothing special. Its processor is quite slow (more so than the Realme 11 Pro+), the screen is not the best, and the whole package is chunky and not as sleek as the competition.

On the other hand, you can look at it as a cause. It’s so repairable that you can take it apart with only a screwdriver and replace every part just as easily, with replacements available straight from Fairphone. It’s a statement against all the other brands that make your phone impossible – or uneconomical – to repair.

What’s more, it has other things going for it. The five-year warranty and eight-year software support are in a class of their own. It also has some nice tricks up its sleeve such as a desktop mode if you want your phone to be your only electronic device, plus a nice, retro-looking back panel.

So, don’t buy Fairphone 5 if you want all the performance and specs you can get for your money. Buy it if you support what it stands for.