The smartphone market is divided into three core segments viz. top-end, mid-range and entry-level, but in the past few years, a new category called ‘affordable flagships’ has also emerged. This section was brought to the mainstream by OnePlus, and it hosts smartphones that offer a top-tier performance without burning a hole in the pocket of buyers and are usually priced around Rs. 30,000.

1. Poco F1

Finding a smartphone which brings the top of the line processor while costing less than INR 30000 might have been a dream in the past, but as of 2018, Xiaomi has made this a reality. If you are looking for a smartphone below Rs. 30000, this is one of the best smartphones you can buy. When it comes to the guts of the smartphone, the Poco F1 is powered by the Snapdragon 845 processor and Adreno 630 GPU. That means you are getting the same processor which is powering Samsung’s latest flagship, the Galaxy Note 9, in a smartphone which costs less than one-third of its price.

Buy From Flipkart: starts at ₹20,999

3. Honor View 10

Just like Oppo, Vivo is yet another company which focuses a lot on its selfie camera performance. So, the new Vivo V11 Pro is a nice smartphone for all the selfie lovers to buy. The smartphone is packing a 25 MP camera at the front allowing you to take some amazing and detailed selfies. The primary camera is not half bad either with its dual 12 MP + 5 MP camera taking some decent pictures.

The Mi MIX 2 is a pretty great phone from Xiaomi that didn’t really make it in India too much. However, it has since received some price cuts and is now available under Rs. 30000 making it a pretty solid phone to get. The highlight of the Mi MIX 2 is definitely the bezel-less display that it comes with. There are absolutely no bezels on the top and the sides of the phone, and a slim chin holds the front camera (which means you have to rotate it upside down to take selfies or for video calls).

Samsung’s mid-range smartphones are usually underwhelming, but the Galaxy A7 is definitely a phone that’s breaking that trend. The A7 comes with a 6-inch FullHD+ SuperAMOLED display which has vibrant colors, great sunlight visibility, and deep blacks that you’ll love. The phone features an Exynos 7885 processor and while it’s not as powerful a processor as, say the Snapdragon 660, it’s definitely a lot more powerful than Samsung’s previous mid-rangers with Snapdragon 450 processors. Paired with up to 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB of internal storage, the Galaxy A7 is a decent performer. You’ll be able to play PUBG Mobile on the Galaxy A7 for sure, but you’ll have to make do with low graphics.

The Nokia 7 Plus is one of the best smartphones under 30,000 INR that you can buy. The Nokia 7 Plus comes with a 6-inch IPS LCD display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, and a bezel-less design. In the camera department, the Nokia 7 Plus comes with a dual 12MP camera on the back with the primary lens set to an f/1.75 aperture, and the secondary lens set to f/2.6 which means we get a portrait mode on the Nokia 7 Plus.

If you love smartphone photography, you are going to love the new Huawei Nova 3i as it is bringing one of the best camera experience you can get in a smartphone costing under 30000 INR. But before we talk about the cameras, let’s see what else the smartphone has to offer us. Well, for starters, the Huawei Nova 3i is being powered by Huawei’s latest Hisilicon Kirin 710 processor which sits right in the middle of higher-end Kirin 970 and mid-range Kirin 659 processor. The Kirin 710 is plenty fast and should handle all the normal day-to-day tasks and gaming quite easily. The Nova 3i is pairing the Kirin 710 with Mali-G51 MP4 GPU, 4GB/GB of RAM, and 64GB/128GB of internal storage.

The display on this thing is a 6.3-inch IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, giving it a pixel density of ~409 PPI. Like it’s with all the other Huawei smartphones, the display here is color accurate and beautiful. All that is good but as I said at the start, you are buying the Huawei Nova 3i for its cameras and I meant it. The smartphone brings a 16 MP (f/2.2) + 2 MP camera at the back along with a 24 MP + 2 MP dual-camera sensor at the front. Yes, you read it right, both the primary and the secondary cameras on this smartphone pack dual-camera sensors and they take incredibly good pictures. If you love your smartphone cameras, this is one of the best ones you can get.

There’s no denying the fact that most of the Android smartphones take some design inspiration from iPhones for their design, the notch being the latest trend. That’s why it feels so nice when a company tries to at least reiterate on the design and doesn’t just plaster the original design on its smartphone. While the Oppo F9 Pro comes with a notch, its notch’s design is quite unique and looks almost beautiful. Oppo has designed the smartphone’s notch to look like a teardrop and if you don’t pay attention to it, most of the time you won’t even notice its there. What this means that you are getting a bezel-less smartphone without having to deal with a hideous notch which by now we have to get accustomed to.

Buy From Flipkart: ₹23,990

So, that sums up our list of the best phones under 30000 INR you can buy. While there are a lot of options to choose from, depending on which device suits you the most, there are only a handful of smartphones that can truly offer the best experience.