Since what goes by the term ‘midrange’ is the most widely encompassing category, we’ve split it further into price brackets. You could say the €200/250/300 sub categories are spaced too close, but we do find that €50 is a meaningful price difference in this segment. Then there’s what we call the ‘premium all-rounders’ category that sits below the all-out flagships – not exactly cheap, no, but still good value.
Best midrange all-rounders up to €200
Editors’ choice
Big battery, 18W charger in the box
Snapdragon 665 chipset is a good midrange chip
An ultra wide camera complements a proven 48MP main unit
Gorilla Glass 5 front and back, NFC, IR blaster
A bit on the heavy side
If we have about €200 to spend on a phone, we will go with the Redmi Note 8T. It has pretty much everything you’d want out of a handset for this price – a large and sharp display (LCD, but still), a modern chipset (powerful and efficient), a big 4,000mAh battery with 18W charging support and a whole array of cameras.
But that’s not even all. It’s built with Gorilla Glass 5 on both sides, it has NFC support, and can even control your legacy appliances with its built-in IR emitter.
Perhaps the one thing we can come up with that could be an issue to some is the 200g weight – it’s not unreasonable, it’s just a bit hefty. And yes, an OLED seems like too much to ask in this price bracket.
Outstanding battery life, 20W fast charging
Snappy performance, great for gaming
High-quality main camera images day and night, great video, impressive portraits.
Has an ultra wide-angle camera
Uninspiring ultra-wide and macro camera shots
EIS only available in 1080p/30fps
No NFC
It doesn’t have great brand recognition outside of Asia
Best midrange all-rounders up to €250
Editors’ choice
FullHD 6.4″ Super AMOLED display
Huge 6,000mAh battery means it’s thick and heavy, 15W fast charging
Gaming-friendly Exynos 9611 chip
Capable camera setup includes a 48MP main unit and an 8MP ultra wide
Plastic build, back is a fingerprint magnet
No NFC
If you have slightly more to spend, we’d recommend the Galaxy M30s. The M30s has a 6,000mAh cell inside, paired with a nice 6.4-inch FullHD AMOLED, a speedy Exynos mid-tier chip and a promising camera setup – if that’s not an all-rounder, we don’t know what is.
This one too is missing NFC, so if you absolutely must have the feature for stuff like mobile payments, this Galaxy isn’t for you. For the M30s, Samsung has gone with a rather plasticky build, and its glossy back is nigh impossible to keep clean – not strictly a dealbreaker, but a nuisance nonetheless.
Excellent AMOLED display
Good battery life, 15W fast charging
Gaming-friendly Exynos 9610 chip
Generally good daylight images, great portraits and selfies
Plastic build, back is a fingerprint magnet
Poor loudspeaker quality
Unsatisfactory low-light performance
A third-party app required for 4K capture
Outstanding battery life, 18W charger in the box
Mediatek chipset is snappy and efficient
64MP main camera does admirably, selfies are really nice too
Great video quality overall
Good as this LCD may be, you could get an AMOLED for similar money
The large screen and 4,500mAh battery mean it’s relatively heavy and thick
The macro and ultra wide cameras are uninspiring
Video recording in 1080p leaves more to be desired
Best midrange all-rounders up to €300
Editors’ choice
Excellent 6.39″ AMOLED – color-accurate, bright, HDR10-capable, notch-free
Great battery life, 18W PD fast charging
Potent chipset, one of the best for the money
Proper triple camera setup – great results from all three, day and night, photo and video
Top-quality selfies too
One of the higher-end Mi 9s could be even better value
Color-accurate AMOLED display
Excellent battery life, 30W VOOC charging is one of the fastest in the segment
Potent chipset, one of the best for the money
64MP main cam is very capable for stills, takes good 4K vids too
Flagship-grade haptic feedback
Display lacks auto brightness boost in bright light
Underwhelming ultra- wide angle camera
1080p videos from either cam aren’t competitive
Nightscape (Realme’s night mode) could use more work
Comments