Who (if any) are the European smartphone manufacturers making devices worth paying attention to?
Since Nokia was sold to Microsoft, I can think of only Archos, BQ, and Wileyfox potentially belonging to such a list. They all generally operate in the low to midrange segment.
I'm interested in this because I'm realising I don't really need a true flagship Android phone - especially when multi-year updates are not guaranteed like they are with iPhone. So I'm paying more and more attention to the cheaper mid-range devices. Furthermore, for whatever reason, I find it difficult to find phones from the major phone manufacturers with the combination of smallish (5-5.2") but sharp screen (at least 1080p), large battery (3000 mAh or more), and more than 16GB internal storage that I desire (e.g. the Galaxy A5 is a phone that interested me until I realised it only had 16GB internal storage). So I've started to look more broadly. Chinese phones are very appealing in this range but they're a hassle to have to import, I don't really want to have to faff about with manually installing Google services, and there does not seem to be any real after-sale support mechanisms outside of Asia.
The European phone which has really piqued my interest, and motivated this post, is the BQ Aquaris X5 Plus. The combination of 5" 1080p screen, up to 3GB RAM, up to 64GB internal storage, > 3000 mAh battery, fingerprint reader, and near-stock Marshmallow is very appealing to me. Going by the prices on BQs other phones, I'd expect this phone to be not much more than €300. I'd never heard of BQ before, but they seem to be an established brand in their home country (Spain), have more to them than just smartphones, and offer an astonishing 5-year warranty on their devices. I'm now wondering if there are compelling devices from other European manufacturers.
Since Nokia was sold to Microsoft, I can think of only Archos, BQ, and Wileyfox potentially belonging to such a list. They all generally operate in the low to midrange segment.
I'm interested in this because I'm realising I don't really need a true flagship Android phone - especially when multi-year updates are not guaranteed like they are with iPhone. So I'm paying more and more attention to the cheaper mid-range devices. Furthermore, for whatever reason, I find it difficult to find phones from the major phone manufacturers with the combination of smallish (5-5.2") but sharp screen (at least 1080p), large battery (3000 mAh or more), and more than 16GB internal storage that I desire (e.g. the Galaxy A5 is a phone that interested me until I realised it only had 16GB internal storage). So I've started to look more broadly. Chinese phones are very appealing in this range but they're a hassle to have to import, I don't really want to have to faff about with manually installing Google services, and there does not seem to be any real after-sale support mechanisms outside of Asia.
The European phone which has really piqued my interest, and motivated this post, is the BQ Aquaris X5 Plus. The combination of 5" 1080p screen, up to 3GB RAM, up to 64GB internal storage, > 3000 mAh battery, fingerprint reader, and near-stock Marshmallow is very appealing to me. Going by the prices on BQs other phones, I'd expect this phone to be not much more than €300. I'd never heard of BQ before, but they seem to be an established brand in their home country (Spain), have more to them than just smartphones, and offer an astonishing 5-year warranty on their devices. I'm now wondering if there are compelling devices from other European manufacturers.
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