The OnePlus 12 recently rolled out internationally and in the UK it already has a discount – the 16/512GB model is down to £900. The base model is 12/256GB, but that one isn’t on sale so it costs £850. The £50 for 4 extra gigs of RAM and double the storage are well worth it.
The phone received several major updates sine launch. The first introduced Master Mode, which offers Hasselblad color tuning in the camera. ProXDR support for the Google Photos app was enabled by another update. Yet another update introduced several AI features – e.g. the AIGC Remover removes unwanted objects and people from a photo, AI Summariser gives you a brief look at your call history, while Article summaries shrinks lengthy articles to bite-sized text.
The OnePlus 12R is also available, though no discounts on this one yet. It’s £650, so even at MSRP it is quite a bit cheaper than its flagship sibling. Fans of Genshin Impact might want to wait, however, OnePlus is bringing a 12R Genshin Impact Edition styled after Keqing on February 28.
After leaving OnePlus, Carl Pei founded Nothing. The company is gearing up to launch its first mid-ranger, meanwhile, its second flagship is falling in price – the 12/256GB Nothing Phone (2) for £530 is not particularly exciting (it was £550 a couple of weeks ago), but the 12/512GB model for £560 is worth a look (was £620 two weeks ago).
Samsung has several sub-£200 Androids. The Galaxy A15 5G has a Dimensity 6100+ (which is more or less a refresh of the Dimensity 810). It has a 90Hz 6.5” AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution. The 128GB base storage is expandable via the microSD slot. The camera is basic but decent with a 50MP main, 5MP ultra wide and a 13MP selfie (video recording is capped at 1080p @ 30 fps).
You can save a few quid by going with the 4G model. The Samsung Galaxy A15 is pretty much the same phone, except for the Helio G99 chipset. Both are powered by 5,000mAh batteries with 25W charging.
You can also grab a protective case for the Galaxy A15/A15 5G. This is an official case made out of TPU and has a slot on the back to hold cards (credit cards, travel card, etc.).
Even cheaper than the A15s is the Samsung Galaxy A05s. This one makes different choices – its 90Hz display is a larger 6.7” LCD (still with FHD+ resolution even at this price). It uses the Snapdragon 680, which makes even the Helio G99 look modern. Still, it has expandable storage and all three have 3.5mm headphone jacks. The battery is the same at 5,000mAh and 25W.
These tablets don’t need much introduction. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is the largest in the series and one of the largest modern tablets in general – it has a 14.6” 120Hz AMOLED display that pairs with the bundled stylus. The USB-C port and DeX let you add a second display to the tablet. The tablet itself can act as a second screen for a Windows 10 (or above) PC. The connection is done wirelessly and you can pick between low latency and higher image quality modes.
The same trick works with the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9+ too, of course, the 12.4” 120Hz display is still large enough to be useful. The Tab S9 series is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip, which is clocked higher than the regular 8 Gen 2 chips.
There’s also the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 at 11”. Note that the base storage on this one is 128GB and, more importantly, that it comes with only 8GB of RAM. The 256GB model does get 12GB like the plus and ultra models.
It’s a similar situation with the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ – the base 64GB model has only 4GB of RAM, the 128GB one doubles that to 8GB. This tablet will get 2 OS updates (it runs Android 13 out of the box, so it will end up on 15) and will receive security patches for 4 years.
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