Best Buy Smartphone Guide – Tweakers

Once every two months, we publish an update to our Smartphone Best Buy Guide. The March release is a little later than usual, because last week’s Mobile World Congress took place, which the undersigned were on hand to report. Usually the most important smartphone show of the year, which has been running on a regular basis for the first time in years. In 2020 the exhibition was canceled at the last minute, and in 2021 and 2022 there is only a slimmer version. There were not many telecom companies and media at that time.

In 2023, the halls of Barcelona’s Fira Gran Via are crowded again, but for some Tweakers, the announcements at MWC 2023 were a disappointment, as evidenced by the reactions under our overview article featuring the top stories. Apple wasn’t there as usual and Google showed some software demos. Samsung has already fired its guns: the Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra were shown off at their own event in early February. Of course, the best Samsung models of 2023 are also in this BBG.

OnePlus has revealed a special concept version of its top model OnePlus 11, which will not be available in stores. For this BBG, we measured the regular model you can buy. As for the rest, the BBK brands (OPPO, OnePlus and realme) came to the stock exchange relatively little, and realme GT3 with a 240W charger remains the most important announcement. Unfortunately we don’t have it yet. The Moto Rizr smartphone that Lenovo showed off wouldn’t make it to our test lab anyway; The manufacturer is still working on a retail model.

Therefore, the most important new products at MWC came from Xiaomi, which presented its best models in early 2023 at the exhibition: Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro. We were able to test them and they are of course also in this BBG. At the beginning of February, Xiaomi also announced the POCO X5 and X5 Pro, two mid-range devices that we also tested for this version of BBG.

Redmi A1, OPPO A17, and Motorola Moto G72 round out the list of devices we’ve reviewed for this BBG, as well as previously tested models. Keeping in mind the current price evolution, we can decide which smartphones are highly recommended in each category at the moment. Some of the recommendations from this BBG’s previous Best Buy guide return, but there are also some newcomers who make the recommendation.