Gadgetory

let's say you have four hundred dollars to spend we've covered mid Ranger's in the past but we're seeing more flagship grade specs slide into phones at cheaper prices oneplus built their reputation on making inexpensive phones Apple now has a new phone purpose-built for the mid-range and for good measure we're looking at a phone which used to cost $400 last year okay it still lists for $400 but it doesn't take much savvy shopping to find a cheaper online looking at design the Nexus is the odd duck here this plastic shell is fairly dull and it feels a bit cheap in the hand Apple tries to slip one bias as the iPhone 5s was truly a gorgeously designed phone so gorgeous that the se is a virtually identical device which can largely use the same cases as the older 5s the oneplus 3 has barely been accused of drawing more than a little inspiration from Huawei and HTC but it does represent the most significant manufacturer evolution of the three moving to the screens display tech is a tricky comparison for Apple here they would win an award for best one thumb ability where my stumpy thumb's delivering such an award but alas they are not it's a practical screen with very good brightness and decent pixel density but no one's going to be impressed by a sub 720p display today oneplus moved over to an AMOLED panel this year which we would normally celebrate but this pentile display looks softer than the LCD on the Nexus so we'll give the win to the 5x talking about storage all right sorry Apple yeah no 16 gigs not great the nexus fares better here but since none of these phones have SD card expansion the oneplus crushes this category a fingerprint sensors are also something of a toss-up the iPhones home button is easy to reach but we're kind of spoiled by always-on scanners on a personal note I prefer rear mounted sensors which are easier for my tiny Hobbit hands to reach so the 5x wins here and you can drop angry comments below this video listening to audio kit the Nexus is compromised one area LG likely coasted through to keep the price low apple and oneplus battle really well here though the oneplus is just nipping at the SC's heels for amp output and the compared very well for dynamic range in noise for the iPhone down samples high resolution audio but otherwise it just barely edges out the oneplus three super close fights are a lot more fun camera tech is an interesting battle - Apple delivers maybe the most well-rounded platform for photos and videos super consistent processing for photos high quality UHD and 60 frames per second 1080p video and great fun features like HDR processing slow motion video and panorama stitching the Nexus gets us really close to the SE though the video could benefit from better image stabilization funnily both the iPhone and the Nexus deliver mono audio for video and that's funny like what a bummer not funny like haha the oneplus three has both optical image stabilization and stereo audio recording and yet it delivers the shakiest footage and the poorest audio of the three still photos are more competitive but the third one plus comes in third for this part of the comparison and I'm no fan of selfies but the iPhone se front shooter is pretty late when it comes to software we're going to call support for the Nexus and the iPhone at AI as both phones are currently running developer previews the oneplus 3 might be near stock but it's still not full stock so it'll probably lag a bit behind Nexus devices the iPhone also wins for battery though it has the smallest capacity of the bunch the smaller lower resolution screen helped this puppy sip juice running our media test streaming 30 minutes of video over Wi-Fi at 50 percent brightness the SE drained 3% the oneplus drained 5 percent and the Nexus strained 9 percent that Qualcomm 808 isn't doing Google any favors for run time all three phones have reversible cables and all three phones can use NFC based mobile payment systems so let's wrap this up our delivery might be a little tongue-in-cheek but these are fun comparisons to produce so why not have a little fun producing them these three phones have pretty entrenched fan bases and it's probably uncommon that someone shopping an iPhone is going to go Hey look at this red Chinese phone and just switch teams like that it's less about outright winners and losers and more about watching prices plummet on really solid hardware $400 buys a lot of these days and phones at this price tier don't feel as compromised as they might have a couple years ago we're also happy to see the Nexus 5x holding its own there were some concerns at lunch about the lower power processor but it's hanging in there just fine it still represents a killer deal when you see you can score one for around $300 with a little shopping we're feeling the good feels on this one folks so let's leave this off with a little kumbaya since all is good in mid-range smartphone land as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more fun comparisons and hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos fag now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next video okay if you twist my arm the 1 plus 3 wins cheese get all cranky about it why don't you oh I need winners for all of my comparison videos Murr