Owning a smartphone has become more than just a preference nowadays, it became a sort of necessity. Today’s world is all about communicating effectively across multiple platforms, so now you need your phone to do so much more than just call and text. You also want a steady Internet connection on it and the ability to read and send e-mails, instant messages, photos, videos, audio clips and so much more. All in all, you now want your phone to do everything that your computer used to do. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s more than natural.

However, a good smartphone can hang heavy on your budget. We all know that the best smartphones out there are either new iPhones or Samsung Galaxy phones, but nowadays one of these can set you back a thousand dollars even. Fortunately for those of us that are on a budget, there are a lot of great mid-range and affordable smartphones on the market nowadays that look, feel and perform almost as well as premium ones. Today we will compare three of them: the Nokia 6, the Lenovo P2 and the Moto G5 Plus. Let’s see what they have to offer and then you can make your choice.

Design

If you can believe, we have a set of nearly identical twin here, namely the Nokia 6 and the Lenovo P2. You’d expect the Lenovo and the Moto to be more similar, seeing as they’re both owned and made by Lenovo, but it’s not the case. Instead, we have the Nokia 6 and the Lenovo P2 both sporting a rectangular finish with subtly curved edges. They look like candy bars more or less, to be honest. They are both 5.5-inches in size, which makes them difficult to use with one hand only. So they’re somewhere in between a phone and a phablet.

The Moto G5 Plus on the other hand is far more elegant and compact, with its 5.2-inch size being just comfortable enough so that you can use the device with one hand only. All the three smartphones on this list have an aluminum shell with a metal frame, which gives them an extra boost of elegance and aesthetic appeal. So, although these phones are certainly not expensive, they sure do look like it.

Specs

All the three mid-range smartphones on this list run on Android Nougat out of the box, with the mention that the Moto G5 Plus and the Lenovo P2 run on version 7.0, while the Nokia 6 enjoys the update 7.1 Nougat. The Moto G5 Plus and the Lenovo P2 also have the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor inside them, which goes to show that sometimes having the same manufacturer becomes more than obvious. The Nokia 6 on the other hand is powered by the more modest and aging Qualcomm Snapdragon 430.

Both the Moto G5 Plus and the Lenovo P2, but the Nokia 6 as well this time, have 32GB of internal storage, and all three of them offer additional microSD support. Neither of them is water resistant, although it is mentioned that the Nokia is splash resistant at least. All three of them have fingerprint sensors, and this is where their similarities stop.

Conclusion

The Moto G5 Plus and the Lenovo P2 are not all that alike after all, and the Nokia 6 is the most different of the bunch, but also the most modest. The Moto G5 Plus retails for 259 pounds, the Nokia 6 for 220 pounds and the Lenovo P2 is the cheapest with its price of 199 pounds. So what do you choose?