New budget Android phone gets one vital upgrade Samsung’s Galaxy can’t match

Apple has just made quite the splash with the release of its new iPhone 17, razor thin iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro, but these phones cost from £799 and can go all the way up to £1,999 if you get the 2TB 17 Pro Max. That’s a heck of a lot of money for a smartphone, especially when you can spend hundreds of pounds less and still get access to the basic apps and services you need.

Good old Android. Apple’s rival to iOS has allowed for scores of different phones to hit the market at a wide range of prices. If you can’t stomach some of the prices towards the high end, you might well be better off spending as little as possible on a phone if all you need is WhatsApp, calls, calendar, email and a basic camera.

Enter the new Redmi 15, a £159 Android phone just announced by Xiaomi. On paper, its specs look incredibly impressive considering the low cost, and even outgun Samsung’s equivalent phone at this thrifty price point.

The headline here is that the Redmi 15 has a massive 7,000mAh battery, one of the largest batteries we’ve seen in a smartphone to date. It’s possible as Xiaomi is using silicon carbon battery tech, a more modern and energy efficient tech than lithium ion. This phone is very likely to last you at least two days on a single charge, and maybe more if you’re a light user.

That could be the upgrade you need in your next smartphone.

Samsung’s Galaxy A16, which costs £169, can only manage a 5,000mAh with older lithium ion tech, its video playback estimated to last 18 hours on a charge compared to the Redmi’s 28 hours.

You can also top up the Redmi faster with 33W wired speeds compared to Samsung’s 25W, and in a nice perk, the Redmi also offers 18W reverse wireless charging so you can use the phone to charge your earbuds or another phone simply using a cable.

Battery is not the only place the Redmi wins out compared to the more familiar Galaxy phone. The Redmi 15 has a larger 6.9-inch screen with a mammoth 144Hz refresh rate, meaning apps, text and games should scroll very smoothly. That’s against Samsung’s 6.7-inch panel with a lower 90Hz refresh rate - though the Galaxy A16 does use OLED, whereas the Redmi’s screen is LCD.

Both screens have identical resolutions of 1080 x 2340 pixels, so things should be HD sharp, but Samsung might just have the edge in colour accuracy.

Samsung initially looks to have the edge when it comes to cameras, with three on the back compared to Redmi’s one. But if you prefer other aspects of the Redmi 15, it might not matter, as both phones have a f/1.8 50MP main camera whose results should be decent in daylight and very similar in quality.

Samsung’s A16 adds in a 5MP ultra-wide, but with specs like that it won’t necessarily be all that great - plus the third lens is not a telephoto, merely there for macro shots. But at 2MP, we can’t help but think it’s just added so Samsung can say it has triple cameras, as so the design looks like a pricier Galaxy device at first glance.

Redmi is a bit cheeky in its design that makes it look like it has three lenses - it doesn’t. The Redmi has a more eye-catching design overall though with Sandy Purple, Titan Gray, and Midnight Black options with a reflective effect in certain lights.

The Redmi 15 also has IP64 dust and water resistance, which means it’s dust-tight and can survive light splashes. The Galaxy has IP54, which isn’t quite as robust.

Something to note of both phones is they only support 4G connections, so if you pay for, or really want, access to 5G, they’re not the phones for you. But something’s gotta give to reach these low prices.

The Redmi 15 goes on sale in the UK soon for £159 with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage.