The media chatter is dominated by high-end smartphones, so it’s easy to think that you need to spend hundreds — of not thousands — of dollars to get a decent smartphone experience.
You don’t.
For the past few weeks I’ve been using a the budget Doogee N20 Pro, and I’m blown away by what you can get for under $200.
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The N20 Pro is the product of yesterday’s high-end components becoming today’s budget. There’s nothing particularly cutting-edge about the N20 Pro, but it doesn’t need to be.
- Helios P60 octa-core processor
- 6.3-inch FHD+ 1080 x 2280 428 PPI Waterdrop display
- 6GB RAM
- 128GB ROM
- 16-megapixel, F/2.0, 6-element lens rear camera
- 16-megapixel front camera
- Fingerprint reader
- 4400mAh battery
- microUSB port
- Fantasy Forest, Streamer Purple, Space Gray
- Android 10
Everything about the N20 Pro feels like it is perfect to deliver a great Android 10 experience. Sure, it’s not going to win any benchmarks, but that’s mostly nonsense designed to sell newer, better, and more expensive phones.
I’ve been using the N20 Pro for a few days, and not once did I feel let down by it. The display is nice and bright and vivid, the cameras capture bright, detailed photos and video, and the processor and RAM is sufficient to keep everything humming along nicely.
And the fit and finish of the handset was second to none. It looked nice, and felt nice in the hand and pocket. The supplied silicone case means that it stayed looking nice!
The addition of a fingerprint reader is a nice touch because the convenience of biometrics encourages people to use stronger passcodes.
And the 4400mAh battery meant that I didn’t one suffer charge anxiety.
For most people, this is all the smartphone they need. The only downside I saw was the absence of USB-C or wireless charging. The N20 Pro’s battery is huge, and recharging using the microUSB port feels slow and outdated.