Discover how the latest mid-range smartphones are outshining yesterday’s flagships, and why you might not need to spend a fortune to get the best.
Think you need to break the bank for a top-notch smartphone? Think again! In some sense, certain mid-rangers are now getting the label “premium” while the top-of-the-line sustained the label “flagships.”
Below are the five reasons why “premium mid-rangers” are outshining older flagships!
1. OLED Displays No Longer Premium
OLED display technology has evolved in recent years and alongside innovation is price improvement. Like smartphones, OLED panels are now available in economic and premium versions.
That said, cheaper OLED panels give visual notes, such as real blacks, and accurate colors, like premium ones. They fall short in those really pricey upgrades, like LTPO technology. Premium ones are also more durable.
But hey, if price-friendly OLED panels enable brands to apply 1.5K resolution on their mid-range offerings, would you complain?
2. Mid-range Chipsets Closing the Gap
Before, you can only expect incredible performance from flagship smartphones. Now, many mid-rangers can score at least 1M on AnTuTu.
Let’s put the MediaTek Dimensity Series in the spotlight. The flagship Dimensity 9400 can score over 2.6M on AnTuTu, making demanding apps and games easy peasy to run. Its midrange version, Dimensity 8400, can score over 1.6M on AnTuTu.
Here’s a comparison with D9400, D8400, and older Dimensity flagship chipsets.
| MediaTek Dimensity Series | AnTuTu Score |
| Dimensity 9400 (flagship, announced 2024) | 2,647,012 |
| Dimensity 8400 (mid-range, announced 2024) | 1,602,917 |
| Dimensity 9200 (flagship, announced 2022) | 1,468,431 |
| Dimensity 9000 (flagship, announced 2021) | 1,097,512 |
As seen above, D8400 beats the old flagship D9200 on AnTuTu. This shows that the latest mid-rangers and flagships have similar raw performance capabilities for typical activities.
They will only differ in very specific tasks, including demanding games and video editing – the hardcore stuff. How so?
D8400 may have beaten D9200 on scores but their GPUs have a lot to say:
| Specs | Mali-G720 | Immortalis-G715 |
| Clock Speed | 1300 MHz | 850 MHz |
| Pipelines | 7 | 11 |
| Shading Units | 128 | 192 |
| Total Shaders | 896 | 2112 |
| FLOPS | 2329.6 Gigaflops | 3590.4 Gigaflops |
The Immortalis-G715 is a flagship-level GPU and this is one of the reasons why flagship smartphones are flagships!
3. Better and Bigger Memory
Of course, an excellent chipset won’t do well without an excellent RAM and ROM. The LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 ROM are now available on mid-rangers.
There are still variations depending on the vendor but in general, these memory types are the fastest in the market. Being paired with a flagship-like chipset usually leads to impressive raw performance, particularly when loading and running apps.
4. More Optimized Software
Better chipsets? Check! Latest memory and storage types? Check! Software? Check! Several mid-rangers are no longer left in the dust, especially those called “Pro.” They usually arrive with the newest Android OS and custom UI and are eligible for two to three major upgrades.
This guarantees a mid-ranger’s lifespan of five years, which is good for those on a budget. They get up to five years to save up for their next purchase.
With the latest Android version and custom UI, mid-rangers have a lot to offer to users. The only downside here is brands can make certain features like advanced AI tools exclusive to flagship models.
5. New Battery Technology
The latest silicon-carbon battery technology is still limited to powerhouse models, but it’s already changing the industry. One premium mid-ranger is rumored to have a SiC battery.
The India variant of the POCO X7 Pro is speculated with SiC Li-Ion battery having a capacity of 6550mAh. The same goes for the global variant with only 6000mAh battery capacity. Since SiC allows higher capacity without needing much space, it explains how this POCO device kept its relatively thin profile.
Honorable Mention: Camera
Flagships can handle everything you throw at it and then some. But even the best mid-ranger cannot do that because it’s either camera or performance or a balance of the two, usually.
You may see an amazingly crafted mid-ranger with impressive camera potential, topped by some durability perks. Then, a closer look reveals that it’s only powered by a year or two old chipset.
With camera sensors pricey themselves, brands may opt for older processors with a good imaging signal processor. The ISP is then augmented with the brand’s software to yield those desirable shots.
The Judex
It’s good that the mid-range smartphone segment is becoming a worthy pool of great contenders. In the old days, this segment was filled with tanky batteries, absurdly large screens, and gimmicks, but got nothing that resembled flagship features while costing a lot.
Today, the budget that can’t get you a flagship is now welcomed with choices: impressive cameras, powerful raw performance, or top-notch battery capacity and durability – the choice is yours. Your budget can lead you to 120Hz 1.5K OLED displays, super-fast charging, and even immersive gaming.
