A few days later the company launched the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. The 5.5" phablet aimed at the international market and swaps the Helio chipset for a Snapdragon 650 and upgrades the camera to 16MP along the way.

On the other end of the size scale is the}Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016){, which tiptoed into official status. It has a 4.5" screen (Super AMOLED), a quad-core chipset and a 5MP camera. Its official price tag of $135 is $10-$20 above what can be found with a bit of shopping.

The Lenovo Lemon 3 competes with the Redmi 3 with a 5" screen (with a higher resolution, 1080p) and a similar just-over-$100 price tag. It has a 13MP camera and the same Snapdragon 616 chipset.

The Asus Live is another 5-incher. It's heading to Brazil where tech gets a hefty markup. The phone features a 720p display, 8MP camera, two SIM slots and a built-in digital TV tunner.