Poco

A budget of Rs. 6,499 is not considered ideal for a decent smartphone in 2025. More so, when some feature phones from HMD or the popular Android-powered dumbphone, the Cat S22 Flip costs more. However, a set of smartphone manufacturers believes that there are buyers out there with really tight budgets who want to upgrade from a feature phone with buttons to their first smartphone. And for these buyers, the Poco C71 may be the perfect fit.

The Poco M7 5G was launched in India last month as the latest entry-level smartphone from Xiaomi's performance-focused subsidiary. The handset is priced under the Rs. 10,000 mark, and it features an octa-core Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 SoC, 128GB of built-in storage, a 50-megapixel rear camera, and runs on Android 14. It will compete with similarly priced smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy F06 5G, Redmi A4 and Redmi 14C 5G from Xiaomi, Infinix Hot 50 5G, Tecno Spark 30C, and Lava Blaze 3 5G.

The Poco M7 Pro was launched in India in December as a mid-range budget offering and we got to try it out recently. It's astonishing how much value modern smartphones offer at accessible price points, especially under Rs. 15,000, which is the cost of the base variant of this new Poco model. For that money, you get a large AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 5,110mAh battery, a capable mid-range chipset, and a dual rear camera setup with a 50-megapixel primary sensor.