We all know that the year 2020 had been insane, due to the virus and all. We saw huge events by GSMA (PhoneWorld Official Partner) like MWC Barcelona, and MWC Shanghai cancelled. In Pakistan, we had significant mobile launch events pushed back, cancelled or replaced with online launch events. Still, it has been a year where we have seen a lot of technological advancements, particularly in the smartphone industry.
PhoneWorld Awards 2020!
Throughout the year, we have reviewed loads of smartphones, some were good, and some couldn’t match the hype. Here is where we honour the best smartphone in every category and price bracket. All the winning smartphones have been chosen through voting by the PhoneWorld Reviews staff and a panel of tech experts too. We do hope that you like it. All the nominees in every category are pretty neck and neck when it comes to performance, and we indeed were puzzled while deciding and finalizing the winners in this list. Our list is based on the smartphones that we have available in Pakistan only, and we have also kept their availability and the value for money factor into consideration while choosing the winners. We spent hours trying to come up with the right categories, choosing the suitable nominees and then crowing the worthy ones among them. So, we’d love to have you share it with your circle as they might love it as well. It is time to start with the PhoneWorld Awards 2020! Our First Award is
Best Flagship of the Year 2020
Nominees: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, Oppo Find X2 Pro We have reviewed and tested all the flagships that came into Pakistan this year, we finalized the list to only three smartphones and then based on Votes here’s the winner
Winner: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is the top-of-the-line variant of the Note Series by Samsung. It was launched back in August and since then has been going strong. We love its Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, and we firmly believe that this is the best display on any smartphone available in Pakistan as of now. The Top-Notch specs, high-quality DSLR like picture and video quality and the note features make it the best flagship of the year 2020.
Best Budget Flagship of the Year 2020
Nominees: Apple iPhone 12 Mini, OnePlus 8T, Samsung Galaxy S20FE, Xiaomi Mi 10T Yes, we have another sub-category that we thought is important to add this time around. Why? Because flagships are getting expensive year by year. Smartphone manufactures have opted for a new strategy of reducing the prices by cutting some corners that do not degrade performance at all, like the glass-back design. That is the reason we have added an entirely new category to let our readers know about the top budget flagship(s) of the Year 2020.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S20FE The Galaxy S20 FE might be the only smartphone over 100k price tag in Pakistan that people bought more frequently. When we got it for review for our Youtube Channel, we were astonished for what it offered for the price. You get the same chipset, hence same performance, almost identical cameras as the S20, good battery life, a Super AMOLED Full HD 120Hz display and more. It did not have the glass-back, or the Dynamic AMOLED 2X display or ultra-fast charging, but honestly, those features were precisely the ones people can live without. And above all, Samsung Pakistan has set the price of this budget flagship very affordable. Congratulations to Samsung for being the winner both the flagship categories in Pakistan.
Best Compact Phone of the Year
Nominees: Apple iPhone SE (2020), Samsung Galaxy S20, Apple iPhone 12 mini Smartphones have gotten bigger in size as they have become better over the years. But, there is still a percentage of consumers wanting a phone with the latest tech but in a small form factor. Honestly, we did not have many options in this category, so here is the winner
Winner: Apple iPhone 12 Mini The iPhone 12 mini is a phone that comes with excellent build quality with glass at both the front & back, weighs only 135g. It has the same Super Retina XDR OLED display as the iPhone 12 but small, i.e., 5.4 Inches. Apple has done a brilliant job of keeping in almost the identical internals as its bigger sibling the iPhone 12. It has the Apple A14 Bionic (5 nm) chipset that is considered as one of the most capable mobile chipsets in the world. Apart from that, you get a great design, decent camera performance at a reasonable price.
Best Upper Mid-Range Smartphone of 2020 in Pakistan
Nominees: Vivo V20, Oppo F17 Pro, Realme 7 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 10T, Samsung Galaxy a71 Okay, so we have another new category this time around, i.e., the Upper Mid-Range Smartphones. Those mid-range smartphones that cost over 50K we considered for this award. The competition has become challenging among all the smartphone manufactures for this specific price segment in Pakistan, hence better for the end consumer, right? Okay, the best upper mid-range smartphone of 2020 is
Winner: Xiaomi Mi 10T The Mi 10T is a fantastic smartphone with extraordinary specs when compared to the competition. Yes, it was a callous call because it lacked an AMOLED panel, but, honestly, it is the only smartphone starting at PKR 62,999 that comes with the Snapdragon 865, a 5G beast of a chipset. Apart from that chipset, it offers decent cameras, excellent build quality, a massive battery that lasts all day of heavy use and more.
Best Lower Mid-Range Smartphone of 2020
Nominees: Samsung Galaxy M31, Poco X3, Vivo V20 SE, Infinix Zero 8, Tecno Camon 16 Premiere, Vivo Y51 The mid-range smartphones that cost less than 50K have been considered and compared in this award category. It was tough to choose a winner in this segment, honestly, we went through all of them many times, tested them, compared their designs, build qualities, cameras and more. Anyways, the award goes to
Winner: Vivo V20 SE Nominees in this award category offered great value for the price, but at the end, we were confused between these two, Vivo V20 SE and the Poco X3. But the unique design and looks, and the superb display of the Vivo V20 SE made it a better choice in our opinion. Poco X3’s design isn’t our favourite as they had that weird branding at the back of the phone, if you aren’t a fan of that, you’d have to use a case all the time.
Best Budget Smartphone of 2020 in Pakistan
Nominees: Poco M3, Tecno Camon 16 SE, Infinix Note 8, Xiaomi Redmi 9, Realme C17 The Award for the Best Budget Smartphone has always been our favourite award out of all others because, in Pakistan, most consumers opt for budgeted smartphones and ultimately there are a lot more sales of these smartphones compared to the mid-range and flagships. We shortlisted & compared all the nominees for the award against each other. And we think that you will not go wrong if you buy any of the smartphones mentioned above. It is time to crown the best budget smartphone of 2020
Winner: Infinix Note 8 Infinix has been among the hottest selling brand in the budget segment of the smartphone market in Pakistan. The Note 8’s entry wasn’t long ago since its launch we have been a fan of the brand and what it offers at an affordable price. We loved its design, display, performance, even the cameras. Well done, Infinix! Highly deserved!
Best Budget Gaming Smartphone of the Year
Nominees: Tecno Pova, Realme C12, Xiaomi Redmi 9, Infinix Note 8i Gaming on smartphones has been trending for a while now. Especially since the launch of PUBG Mobile, we will not be wrong if we say that the trend of smartphone gaming went up significantly. So, yo gamers out there, this one is for you! 😊 The winner for the best gaming smartphone at a budget is
Winner: Tecno Pova All the smartphones competing for this award featured the highly capable MediaTek’s Helio G Series chipset that offered impressive gaming performance. Still, the Tecno Pova had a slight edge over the rest. It has the Helio G80 chipset along with 6GBs of RAM, a huge display, and a Mega battery of 6000 mAh at a such an affordable price is truly a bargain.
Best “Value for Money” Smartphone of 2020
Finally, the most anticipated award of the year, the smartphone that provides the best “Value for money”. There aren’t any nominees mentioned here, because all the smartphones launched this year are the nominees. We considered the performance, features and the innovation brought into a smartphone when compared to the competition. We strongly believe that you will agree with us on this one
Winner: Realme 7 Pro Realme 7 Pro is the only smartphone at its price segment that offers the best innovative features that any user would wish for. It has the Super AMOLED display, has the highly capable SONY IMX 682 camera sensor that offers brilliant results in the mid-range segment. We were amazed by the charging technology that this phone offers, the 65W charger is blazing fast, trust me! We managed to charge the phone from 0-100 in 40 mins, isn’t that amazing? Overall, it is a beast of a phone, and we believe that the Realme 7 Pro is the king when it comes to providing value for money. It has been a fantastic year for Realme without any doubt. Here’s our Top Smartphone Review Moina Shah hosting the PhoneWorld Awards 2020 on Youtube 🙂
Final Words:
The competition is continuously heating up between the smartphone manufacturers over the years. That is undoubtedly beneficial for the end consumers. They get more and better options to choose from. It’s the 3rd Edition of the Smartphone Awards by PhoneWorld. We started it back in 2018, continued in 2019 and we will be doing it for you every year to help you decide the best possible option available in your budget. Lastly, we thank our followers, loyal readers of the blog and our subscribers on Youtube for all the support and the encouragement that helped us do more throughout the year. We are grateful to our partners who have been supporting and giving us opportunities to test the phones and review them for you ahead of its launch in Pakistan. Read Also: Best Smartphones under 25000 PKR. We do hope that you like this year’s PhoneWorld Smartphone Awards. Please share it with your loved ones! Cheers 😊
