Top budget cell phones

The Quick List 2. Best overall 3.

It's an exciting time for smartphones. Thanks to increasingly powerful new chips, we're long past the days when you had to choose between spending a bundle on a premium phone or settling for sluggish performance on a budget model. As the most expensive flagship smartphones strive to deliver console-quality gaming and advanced computational photography experiences, more affordable phones have benefited from a healthy range of powerful mid-range processors that can now easily handle all the daily tasks that most smartphone owners need and won't need to be left behind when the next Android update comes along. Some of these even cross over onto our list of the best Android phones. Of course, you'll still have to make some compromises to get a phone in this price range, but the good news is that we know where those lines are drawn, and we've applied our years of experience reviewing Android phones of all shapes and sizes to round up some of the best picks to get you started.

Top budget cell phones

It also comes with a side-mounted fingerprint reader and Verizon 5G support. The Samsung Galaxy A03s has better performance and update support than other ultra-budget phones, and it works on all cellular networks. Unlike many budget phones, its 6. It will support Android 14 when it rolls out, and it will get security updates through June Most budget phones are lucky to get half that. The A03s is fast enough to browse the web, send messages, and play simple games. Wirecutter staff writer Roderick Scott has been reviewing consumer tech, including Android phones, for more than a decade. Previous testing for this guide was done by Ryan Whitwam, who has reviewed Android phones for Wirecutter since The best smartphones have never been more expensive, but you can still find a phone with high-end features for a fraction of the price of a flagship phone. Budget phones are excellent first smartphones, especially for kids and teenagers, or the terminally clumsy. More importantly, you can use an unlocked phone on a prepaid mobile virtual network operator MVNO ; these low-cost carriers operate on national networks but tend to impose more data-usage restrictions or calling limits.

Rear cameras. When you start digging into very cheap phones, the Galaxy A03s is the only one we can recommend.

The list in brief 2. Best cheap Samsung 3. Best cheap iPhone 4. Best cheap Pixel 5. Best cheap camera phone 6. Best cheap phone for durablity 7. FAQs 8.

It also comes with a side-mounted fingerprint reader and Verizon 5G support. The Samsung Galaxy A03s has better performance and update support than other ultra-budget phones, and it works on all cellular networks. Unlike many budget phones, its 6. It will support Android 14 when it rolls out, and it will get security updates through June Most budget phones are lucky to get half that.

Top budget cell phones

The list in brief 2. Best cheap Samsung 3. Best cheap iPhone 4. Best cheap Pixel 5. Best cheap camera phone 6. Best cheap phone for durablity 7. FAQs 8. How we test. There are a lot of smartphones to choose from nowadays and as the price point comes down, typically, so does the quality.

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The list in brief 2. The 7a has a 6. Samsung Galaxy A14 5G Best value. However, the Pixel 6a couldn't snatch the top spot in our recommendations due to its shorter lifespan — it'll stop receiving security updates a full 10 months basically a year before the Pixel 7a. Battery life is better, too, as the Galaxy A54 outperforms the average smartphone on our battery test by half-an-hour. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Learn more. With its lower-resolution screen and low-power processor, the A03s can run on its 5, mAh battery for the better part of a week. Low-res display. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more from the TechRadar team. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. Even if you are in the US, importing some of these can be relatively easy, although you will be giving up warranties and ongoing support. Lower-cost phones also tend to receive fewer updates, so they should have the latest Android software with recent security patches out of the box. Battery life, the number and types of cameras, display refresh rate and the type of chipset powering the phone are all ways that cheap phones can distinguish themselves.

We round up the best inexpensive phones we've reviewed from Apple, Samsung and Google Pixel.

Android users who prefer large displays may find the Pixel 6a's 6. More security flaws found in popular AI chatbots — and they could mean hackers can learn all your secrets. The phone is also thicker and heavier than it seems like it should be, especially compared with the Pixel 7, which has high-end hardware and construction. Solid battery life. Samsung Galaxy A OnePlus has guaranteed one software update to Android 14 along with three years of security updates. It even has an IP67 rating. Solid main camera. Google Tensor. Google's Pixel 6a offers tremendous value with performance and camera quality that punch far above its price tag. While Motorola has made a few compromises to get here, it's mostly made the right calls. For starters, the design is more in line with the rest of Samsung's phones and uses the same "camera island" style we saw introduced in the Galaxy S23 series. However, cheap phones will have fewer features and not last as long as their flagship counterparts. Best cheap camera phone 6. Front camera: 32MP.