8 cool smartphones coming to India soon (Source : TOI)

For the Indian smartphone market, it's the year of the dragon. Smartphone makers from China are making a beeline to India, heading to the market in droves. In the last year itself, we have seen over half a dozen brands enter the Indian market, while many more have consolidated their operations and made a wider user base in the country.

And of course, all these brands offer feature-rich smartphones at a fraction of the price of flagship models by Apple, Samsung, Sony etc. Here's our pick of 8 smartphones by Chinese companies that are likely to make their way to India very soon...

01	Xiaomi Mi Note Pro With the Mi4i and the Mi Pad selling well in India, it’s only a matter of time before Xiaomi decides to bring the Mi Note Pro to India. Clad in a metal body with a curved glass back, Xiaomi Mi Note Pro sports a large crisp 5.7-inch QHD panel, a larger version of the Mi 4’s stellar display. The smartphone is powered by the Snapdragon 810 processor with 4GB of fast LPDDR4 RAM and packing 64GB of in-built storage, a 13MP rear camera with 6-element lens and two tone flash and a 4MP Ultrapixel front camera. The Mi Note Pro could very well be the phone to continue where the Mi 3 left off in terms of Xiaomi’s sales.
02	OnePlus Two The "flagship killer's" successor, the OnePlus Two has been hotly anticipated. Expected to have ultra-thin bezels all around the screen, the phone is likely to retain the 5.5-inch screen size at 1080p resolution and 3GB RAM, but get the new Snapdragon 810 processor, 16MP rear camera and 5MP front camera. As always, these are not the final specs and OnePlus is known to surprise, but we dn't have to wait too long, as the smartphone will go official on July 27.
03	ZTE Nubia Z9 With the ZTE Nubia Z9 Mini already out, it’s only a matter of time it’s brilliant big brother, the Z9 hits the Indian market. Sporting a metal chassis, the phone packs a borderless display; the frame actually has an interactive touchpoint that lets you squeeze or slide over to perform actions. The rear camera is an optical image stabilized 16MP camera and with a wide-angle 8MP selfie camera. The 5.2-inch display sports Full HD resolution, is powered by the new Snapdragon 810 processor, packs a massive 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and boasts of an audio processor for crisp sounds. With these specs, the Nubia Z9 should have been the phone that ZTE should have bought here, to make a big impact. A true winner.
04	Huawei P8 Max With the Huawei Honor 6 Plus and the 4X launched in India, Huawei China has already launched the P8 and the P8 Max, the latter sporting a massive 6.8-inch Full HD LCD display with a 1500:1 contrast ratio and 83% screen-to-body ratio with nearly imperceptible bezels in a full metal body used in aviation construction. Powering it is the company's Kirin 935 64-bit octa core processor, 3GB of RAM, 64GB internal memory with expandable MicroSD memory. A 13MP rear shooter with optical image stabilization, dual-LED flash and a 5MP front camera. To power the display is a 4,360mAh battery. The phone has a 1W RMS loudspeaker with a massive sound chamber and smart amplifiers directing the sound.
05	Gionee Marathon M5 With the E8 bringing the flagship monster specifications to the table, the Marathon M5 is very sedate in comparison. With a simple 720p resolution to its 5.5-inch display, quad-core processor and 2GB RAM, this sounds like every other phone. Except that, the M5 brings it big with a 6,020mAh battery, comprising of dual 3,000mAh batteries, with almost 3 days of standby time. Add to that features which squeeze a lot more time out of the phone on extreme battery mode. The M5 is the ideal phone for those who value battery life a lot more than power or QHD displays.
06	Meizu MX5 Pro Hugely successful in China, Meizu’s flagship MX4 has been available in India unofficially through various online retailers, even though the company has officially entered india with the launch of M1 Note. Now, the successor of MX4, named MX5 Pro, is round the corner, and if the leaks are correct, this one should be a monster. The screen measures 6-inches, and has the same 16:5 aspect ratio of the MX4, but steps into the QHD realm at an odd 1536x2560p resolution. Leaked images suggest an edgeless display, or at least one with well disguised edges. Reportedly running Samsung's Exynos 7420 processor backed by 4GB of RAM, the smartphone is expected to have a 20.7MP camera capable of full HD resolution, presumably using the new Sony sensor.
07	Huawei Honor 7 Hot on the heels of the Honor 6 Plus, Huawei is already ready to launch the Honor 7. With a similar tough, aircraft-grade metal body as Honor 6 Plus, Huawei's upcoming Honor 7 is said to pack a fingerprint scanner, 13MP camera with OIS on the back and an 8MP camera out front. The phone is using Huawei’s own HiSilicon’s octa-core Kirin 935 processor with up to 4GB of RAM for the 64GB variant. The screen is a manageable 5-inch 1080p display. Going by Huawei’s track record, the Honor 7 is sure to hit our shores, and if they get the price right, you will get a phone with better-than-flagship build quality at a fraction of the cost of the flagships.
08	Doogee F3 Don't go by the rather odd name of Dogee F3. A sleek-looking smartphone which has the high-end version packing a Snapdragon 810 processor and 4GB of RAM, powering a 5-inch QHD (1440x2560p) display and 21MP rear camera with Sony sensor with a 3,100mAh battery. If you just like the look but want to save some money, go in for the lite version sporting a 720p display and MediaTek MT6753 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 2,200mAh battery. While already launching for about $350 and $150 respectively, the phone should go the route of Xiaomi and make it to India.