How we test

A phone review is only as good as the time someone spent living with the phone. This page is our standard: the method every review on The Synap follows, what our scores mean, and how we pick the phones on our Best phones lists. If a review ever falls short of it, we want to hear about it.

We use it as our own phone

Before we score a phone, one of us uses it as their main phone for at least a week. Our SIM goes in, our apps get signed in, and it comes along for the commute, the weekend and the late-night scrolling. Spec sheets and benchmarks tell you what a phone can do on paper. A week of real life tells you what it’s like to own.

If we publish first impressions sooner, on launch day for example, we call them first impressions, and there’s no score until the full review is done.

What we look at

• Display. How bright it gets outdoors in Indian daylight, how it looks for reading, video and games, and whether the high refresh rate actually holds up.
• Performance. Everyday speed, how it handles the games people actually play, how hot it gets in long sessions, and whether it still feels quick after a week of apps piling up.
• Cameras. Daylight, night, indoor and portrait shots, skin tones, video and the front camera, taken in the places people really take photos.
• Battery and charging. How long it lasts through a real day, and how long it takes to charge with the charger in the box. If there’s no charger in the box, we say so.
• Software. Preinstalled apps, ads in the interface, how clean it feels, and how many years of Android and security updates the maker promises.
• The everyday stuff. Weight, grip, water and dust resistance, speakers, haptics, the fingerprint reader, network reception and call quality.
• Price and value. What you get for your money compared with the other phones you could buy for the same price in India.

Scores, out of 10

Every full review ends with a score out of 10. A score says how good a phone is for its price in India, so a ₹15,000 phone and a ₹1,30,000 phone can both earn an 8. One is a great budget phone, the other a great flagship.

• 9 to 10: Exceptional. Sets the standard at its price. Rare.
• 8 to 8.9: Excellent. Easy to recommend, with only small compromises.
• 7 to 7.9: Good. Worth buying if its strengths match what you need.
• 6 to 6.9: Okay. Does the job, but your money can do better.
• Below 6: Skip it. Real problems, or priced well above what it’s worth.

Scores use one decimal place, like 8.4. They’re a judgement, not a formula. We don’t add up points per category, because a brilliant camera can’t make up for a phone that’s dead by 4pm.

Buy it if, skip it if

A score can’t tell you whether a phone suits you, so every review also ends with two short lines. Buy it if names the person the phone is right for. Skip it if names the person who should look elsewhere. Between them, you should know in ten seconds whether to keep reading.

Prices

The price we show is the starting price in India: the lowest official price of the base variant, in rupees, including GST. We check it against the maker’s own Indian website and the big Indian online stores, and each phone’s page lists the other variants and their prices too.

Bank offers, exchange deals and coupons change by the day, so we don’t fold them into the price. Prices change too, which is why every phone page shows when we last checked it. Confirm the price with the seller before you buy.

Upcoming phones

Phones that haven’t launched in India yet are marked as upcoming, and we tell you how sure we are about each one: confirmed by the maker, expected, or rumoured. An expected price is our best estimate until the maker announces the real one.

Best phones lists

Our Best phones lists name the phones we’d buy at each budget, and each pick says who it’s best for. This is how a phone gets on a list:

• Our reviews come first. Once we’ve reviewed phones at a budget, our verdicts decide the order.
• Until then, we do the homework. A phone we haven’t reviewed yet is judged on its full spec sheet, its price in India, the maker’s software update promise and its service network in India. We never call that tested.
• Nobody pays. No maker or store can buy a place on a list, or a higher one.

We revisit every list regularly, and straight away when a big launch or a price cut changes the picture. The date at the top of each list shows when it last changed.

When we get it wrong

We fix it. If a fact in a review or a list is wrong, we correct it and note the change at the end of the story. If a software update or a price cut changes our verdict, we update the review and say what changed and when. Spotted something? Tell us and pick Correction.