Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Samsung mid range A series phones, from £249 on that Amazon (29% off)
Cheap Android phone recommendations
- Thread starter treelover
- Start date
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Moto phones are great value at a hardware level, but they've stood still while the competition has moved and they have the worst software support - by far - of the major manufacturers.
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Very poor history on bug fixes, security patches quarterly at best and usually late. Only two years of patches, one android upgrade unless you buy the Edge series. Even the cheap Xiaomis are on 3 years now.
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Brand new or New to you?
ddraig
kicking against the pricks...
Brand new
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Need a budget, and what's important to you in a phone. Storage, camera, performance, support length, waterproof rating..
ETA, the Samsung A series don't look great value until you remember they have 5 years of support and are waterproof. Something not much else in that price band has.
ETA, the Samsung A series don't look great value until you remember they have 5 years of support and are waterproof. Something not much else in that price band has.
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UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Hopefully they are, though.
I imagine taking good care of the phone and a number of resets to factory default are necessary along the way, though, to keep things in check.
Are iPhones any better at this, having all the main apps built in?
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
I bought a Xiaomi Mi6 for my mother ~7 years ago. The phone is still working fine but the battery was starting to get a bit weak, so last week I gave her my 6 year old Mi8, which is still an excellent phone for anything she'll need/use it for, and the battery is still lasting the full day.
I replaced the Mi8 with a Poco X6 Pro 5G, and I'm impressed with it so far. It's a powerful phone for the price. It's running that new HyperOS from Xiaomi, which I think they released a bit early but most of the bugs seem to be ironed out now.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Fair enough. I dug my partners old Honor 9 Lite out recently. I mean, it still works, but that was about the nicest thing I could say about the experience.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
We're at the point where the ARM A76 CPU is now 5+ years old and still represents a decent level of performance. But a 5 year old phone with that will have been a flagship when it was new.
At the low end, phones still ship with that CPU. My son has my wife's old Redmi Note 9 Pro that's A76 based and he finds it perfectly fine. That phone is roughly 4 years old now. So yes, I'd agree that in the past a 5 year old budget phone was near to useless, but phones achieved a level of performance a few years back that has really extended how long they can be useful for.
If my wife hadn't broken my Honor V20 playing Pokemon Go, the Boy would have got that and it would have been over 5 years old now. And it was faster than the Redmi, being flagship level at the time. Much better camera, too. But replacing the screen was about the same price as buying the mrs a new phone (Redmi Note 12 Pro), so she got an upgrade and he got her old one. (I know, suspicious that)
TLDR; I'd expect a Samsung A54 to be usable in 5 years, barring some new, must-have technology that no-one's heard of yet.
(Yeah, I'd expect an Honor 9 Lite to be too painful to use on a daily basis)
At the low end, phones still ship with that CPU. My son has my wife's old Redmi Note 9 Pro that's A76 based and he finds it perfectly fine. That phone is roughly 4 years old now. So yes, I'd agree that in the past a 5 year old budget phone was near to useless, but phones achieved a level of performance a few years back that has really extended how long they can be useful for.
If my wife hadn't broken my Honor V20 playing Pokemon Go, the Boy would have got that and it would have been over 5 years old now. And it was faster than the Redmi, being flagship level at the time. Much better camera, too. But replacing the screen was about the same price as buying the mrs a new phone (Redmi Note 12 Pro), so she got an upgrade and he got her old one. (I know, suspicious that)
TLDR; I'd expect a Samsung A54 to be usable in 5 years, barring some new, must-have technology that no-one's heard of yet.
(Yeah, I'd expect an Honor 9 Lite to be too painful to use on a daily basis)
xsunnysuex
Life is a horizontal fall.
I've just purchased an honor 90 5g 512gb 12gb ram. Brilliant phone.
Selling now between £350/£400.
Selling now between £350/£400.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Looks really solid for the money, especially with an OLED screen.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Honor 90 is a good phone, and worth its price; but even the base model is really stretching "cheap". I got my Pixel 7 for that last year, and while it was a stonking great deal I still couldn't call it cheap. Cheap for what it is, perhaps.
I don't know, maybe I'm being too miserly. What do we consider a cap on "cheap"? For me it's £300. And only that because prices have crept up a bit. I'd have said £250 a few years ago.
(FWIW, you need to go under £200 to not get OLED these days. It's the dominant tech now.)
I don't know, maybe I'm being too miserly. What do we consider a cap on "cheap"? For me it's £300. And only that because prices have crept up a bit. I'd have said £250 a few years ago.
(FWIW, you need to go under £200 to not get OLED these days. It's the dominant tech now.)
xsunnysuex
Life is a horizontal fall.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
I was just fishing around to see what's still an LCD screen and not utter bottom-of-the-barrel crap. Because some people do prefer LCD.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G seems to be the only thing with a half-decent spec that's LCD. Runs £250ish. Everything else current that's LCD has major drawbacks, but budgets be budgets and I don't think there's a huge difference.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G seems to be the only thing with a half-decent spec that's LCD. Runs £250ish. Everything else current that's LCD has major drawbacks, but budgets be budgets and I don't think there's a huge difference.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
I think that's fair. I'd describe that price as mid range.
Sometimes you get a much nicer device for not loads more. Well worth it if you can afford it and like most of us use it regularly.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
I was a bit shocked at the price of flagship phones from Xiaomi these days. They used to be around half the price of the equipment Samsung, etc. model but they're no longer trying to get a foot in the door, and their prices have risen accordingly. I wanted a flagship Xiaomi but there's no way I was paying a grand for one, so I opted for the Poco, and at €300 I'd say it's a bargain. Any equivalent phone from another manufacturer was over 500.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Wow. That's... the same spec as the Mi A1 I got the mrs for £200 in 2017. Do work really dislike you?
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Wow. That's... the same spec as the Mi A1 I got the mrs for £200 in 2017. Do work really dislike you?
Probably. They put app restriction policies on Outlook and Teams, so they've got to be unlocked seperately to the phone. Despite it being a managed phone. And removed the photo viewer.
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Reminds me of the last place I worked.Probably. They put app restriction policies on Outlook and Teams, so they've got to be unlocked seperately to the phone. Despite it being a managed phone. And removed the photo viewer.
Same approach, hobbled sub £200 Samsung for everyone. 90% of staff simply didn't use them.
editor
hiraethified
The Pixel Pro 7a is now £329. That is insanely good value.
mwgdrwg
Be a Pisces. Jam.
I'd geth a Nothing Phone 2a for £319 Nothing Phone (2a)
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Tough call on those two. Pixel's camera is still voodoo, but the 2a is almost as fast and since it's newer it will get updates for just as long. I'd lean towards the Pixel myself, but wouldn't call you an idiot for buying the Nothing. In the past, I'd have said the Pixel's less likely to be buggy, but Google has fucked up a few software drops of late. If you're a gamer, the Pixel's GPU is quite a lot more powerful. But only a gamer will care, and they'd probably go for an older top-of-the-range Snapdragon, because the T2 isn't top-tier, just pretty good.
Pixel is waterproof, if you're a clutz.
Pixel is waterproof, if you're a clutz.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Probable aot easier to get a Pixel repaired in a few years if needed the a who?
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Honor 90, 90 Lite and 70 all on offer over at Amazon - dunno for how long of anyone's interested. The 90 is £349.99 currently.
200megapixel camera!>#? Is that right?
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Apparantly it's a Samsung sensor so sounds decent. Of course a lot of the magic happens with software. I think the numbers are almost meaningless.
I think we could do with a mid range Android phone thread, it's the most intresting sector. High end phones are bonkers prices and many people don't want the compromises true budget phones come with. A lot of this tech is now "good enough" that the top end improvement seem quite marginal. I'm now out of contract on my Pixel 6, so as always seems to happen to me, I expect it to break shortly.
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