Chinese smartphones are increasingly becoming the best value-for-money efforts in the mobile industry, offering great specs and at times even good design for their price tag. Consider that a Xiaomi, Huawei or Lenovo flagships run 20-30% less than a similar offer from Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC and other more popular names.

While in the midrange scenario they might start you at half off compared to the competing brand juggernauts, and it’s not hard to grasp why the Chinese brands are grabbing more and more market share from Samsung and the rest.

Xiaomi, for instance, used to be lumped in the “Others” category just in 2013, while this year it is projected to be the world’s fifth, and maybe even fourth maker. Huawei is also doing pretty well, raising its market share about two percentage points in the span of two years.

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