This video was sponsored by Brilliant. As I was talking about the OPPO Find X
in my last video it really hit me just how willing flagship phones have become to
trade usability for flashy designs. And it has come to the point where I actually started recommending midrange phones like the Nokia 7 Plus even to people who could
totally afford to buy a flagship smartphone. So this video will be a weird combination of a " The
Story Behind" series episode, where I explain why midrange phones are now kind of better than
flagships in my opinion, and also a mini review of the Nokia 7 Plus. Just to show you what I really mean. So we generally expect the price and the quality
of a device to be directly correlated. If a company has a line-up, the cheapest device
is supposed to be the worst one and the most expensive device is expected to be the best one. But I feel like lately this just isn't true anymore. And here's why. We have been saying for years now that the
smartphone market is getting kinda stale, right? Big touchscreen on the front, cameras on both
sides, hopefully a few ports you can plug things into somewhere around the edges, and
so on. This standard formula works, but it's getting
kind of boring. So, phone makers need to find new ways to
stand out, which they do by pushing this formula to its absolute limits. Bezels? Nah, they apparently all try to get rid of
those. Cameras? They fit like 3 or 4 of those on the phone. Even motorized ones that just pop right out
like this, ... or like this. They also keep making phones slimmer and slimmer,
and cover them in premium materials with fancy, curved edges. In making phones more "premium", everything
gets pushed to its limits. And here's the thing. This is cool. I'm a geek, I love innovation, I love progress,
and this is what drives the industry forward. And I think many companies don't even have much of a choice. Because, as competition increases, if they don't push themselves to the limit, they just fall behind. But you, the consumer, you do have a choice. And I feel like more and more, choosing the suuuper
premium flagship phone with the crazy design is becoming the impractical one. Small bezels are impressive to look at. Except, you either end up with a silly notch,
or a motorized thing that makes your device way more fragile and complicated than it has to be. Phones with curved glass everywhere are pretty
and certainly feel premium in hand. Except, they break and scratch really easily,
they are slippery and just slide off of surfaces, so you might just end up putting a case or
skin on them, in which case what was the point of glass in the first place. Thin phones are beautiful to look at. Except they mean you don't have room for headphone
jacks, or a battery that will comfortably get you through a day. Or if a smartphone maker does squeeze a lot
of battery into a thin device, it might just catch fire like Samsung's phones did. Flagship phones happily sacrifice durability,
battery life, a headphone jack and many other really practical features for one main reason:
becoming desirable. A few years ago, a flagship phone was simply
a better version of a midrange phone in pretty much every category. So you could just decide if you wanted to
pay for the extra or not. But not only has the gap become much smaller
over the years, the ever-increasing pursuit of premium flagship designs actually turned
this equation around in some cases. Now, depending on which phones you compare
and which aspects of a phone you find important, it is very possible that you will find a midrange
phone that is not just a better deal for your money like we are used to, but actually a
better device for you overall. And I think the Nokia 7 Plus demonstrates
this perfectly. I actually switched from a flagship to this
midrange phone and I'm happier overall. It's as if Nokia spent 0 points on being flashy
and instead spent all of their points on becoming practical and useful. And because of this, the Nokia 7 Plus is significantly better in a couple of areas than most flagships out there. It is incredibly durable, as proven by Jerryrigeverything
and it even comes with a silicon case, just in case. It has all the ports you want your phone to
have, so Type C with fast charging and a headphone jack, and a fingerprint reader in a normal
location. Cause those are apparently a dying breed now
as well. Apart from a surprising number of early bugs,
like Music that just stops playing in the background for no reason, which I hope they
fix, software support is impressive too. Pure stock Android that gets regular monthly
updates for 3 full years, which, apart from Pixel phones, very few flagships can compete
with. And the same goes for battery life. It's phenomenal, as this phone has a large,
3800 mAh battery that only has to power midrange CPU, stock Android and a FullHD screen. I get a comfortable day and a half with heavy
use and up to two full days with light use, which is fantastic. Ah, living that midrange life. So all of that is excellent. But of course it doesn't outperform flagships
in every category. The 6 inch 18:9 screen isn't as jaw-dropping
and bright as what you'd find on flagships, and while I like the lift to wake functionality,
bezels are a little thicker than what you are used to as well. A Snapdragon 660 and 4GB of RAM also make
this phone just a tad slower than flagships despite the efficient stock Android it is
powering, but honestly, neither the performance, nor the display are things that bothered me
even once in my two weeks with the phone. So, pff, I feel like on a practical level,
these slight downgrades just don't really matter. The only two areas that have me looking jealously at flagships are waterproofing, which is sadly missing from the 7 Plus, and
the cameras. And don't get me wrong, for a phone that costs
399 Euros here in Germany, the cameras are solid. They are what I would call 85% flagship in
basically every area. Dynamic range, low light performance, colors,
they are all good, though not mind-blowing. 2x Zoom is useful occasionally, though the
zoom camera is not stabilized and has a narrower aperture, and 4K video is plenty sharp but
other than the excellent audio quality, just didn't impress me like a flagship phones usually
do. So for the price, this is great. But, since I'm unfairly comparing this to
flagships, I feel like this is the Achilles heel of midrange phones. Having slightly better performance or a slightly
brighter screen honestly doesn't meaningfully change how I use my phone. But having an even better camera probably
would. So if I had to make the perfect smartphone
in 2018, I'd probably start out with a no-nonsense midranger like the 7 Plus, and then add waterproofing and truly flagship-grade cameras. At that point, even if that would mean adding another
50 to 100 Euros to the price, I'd see very few real reason to actually upgrade to a flagship phone. So good job Nokia, and I hope you now know
what to do for the successor of the 7 Plus one year from now. Now, I have just checked my analytics and
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