12 best cheap phones that prove budget smartphones aren’t rubbish

Best known for producing flagship premium devices at the top end of the price spectrum, Samsung also makes some of the best budget and mid-range smartphones you can buy. Not only does the Samsung Galaxy A54 sport a stylish design, it is excellent value for money.

Crammed in here are high-spec features such as a great-looking AMOLED screen with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate and a camera array that runs rings around other phones at this price.

To keep the price low, however, the Galaxy A54 runs on a relatively slow processor with poor battery efficiency, so performance and battery life take a small hit, compared with pricier Galaxy phones. Overall, though, this is an attractive phone at an unbeatable price.

• Samsung Galaxy A54 with 80GB data: £27 per month, Affordablemobiles.co.uk

If you’re not interested in 5G, don’t give a hoot about refresh rates, and only plan on taking pictures if you run into Bigfoot, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 4G is the cheap Android phone for you.

The phone ditches some of the more advanced features of the Pro model and keeps the sharp and vivid 6.7in display, the impressive battery life and the sophisticated look. 2022’s baseline Redmi Note also gets a 120Hz refresh rate for silky-smooth scrolling animations – something not even the basic iPhone 15 can do.

We’re expecting the Redmi Note 14 series of devices to arrive in the UK soon – but the Redmi Note 12 remains a good choice for budget-conscious shoppers in search of a basic phone.

The very latest in Samsung’s A-series of budget-friendly phones, the Galaxy A25 launched in December 2023 and is easily one of the best cheap Android phones for under £250.

A solid little performer, it packs in a 120Hz AMOLED display, 5G connectivity, a decent triple-lens camera, Samsung’s excellent One UI operating system and a long-lasting 5000mAh battery.

The 128GB capacity of the base model means on-device storage could be tight, particularly if you plan on shooting 4K video, but it’s a happy compromise to get the price this low. Plus, unlike even top-of-the-range phones, you can pop a microSD card into the Galaxy A25 for up to 1TB of extra storage.

• Samsung Galaxy A25 with 50GB data: £16 per month, £25 up front, Mobiles.co.uk

Part of a budget sub-brand of Xiaomi, the Redmi Note series strikes a balance between performance and price. The Redmi Note 12 Pro looks and feels a lot more expensive than it is, thanks to its premium materials – most budget phones use plastic – its narrow bezels, neat finish and sculpted squared-off edges.

Switch it on, and the illusion of holding a flagship phone continues. You get a poppy and vibrant 120Hz, full HD OLED screen with excellent contrast and colour reproduction, making this our pick for an entertainment-focused budget phone. The camera performance is decent in daylight conditions, and the battery can go for a couple of days, if you don’t spend hours flicking through Instagram.

• Redmi Note 12 Pro with 150GB data: £18 per month, £9.99 up front, Mobiles.co.uk

Approximately one billion years ago – in an ancient time known as the 1990s – US phone maker Motorola reigned supreme. Today, the brand is owned by laptop maker Lenovo and has become better known for making cheap and reliable Android phones.

The Motorola Moto G54 is the latest in the range, joining the cheaper G34 and more powerful G84 in this year’s Moto G series. You’re obviously not going to get the same performance as you’d find in a phone costing five to ten times as much, but the handset looks good, and manages to feel snappy, thanks to a smooth-scrolling 120Hz display and 5G connectivity.

Camera quality is also fine for the price, snapping sharp pictures, given good lighting, and even including a macro mode for some crude close-up shots. You can unlock the phone with a fingerprint, too.

We’re also impressed by the Moto G54’s neat and plastic-free packaging, a detail often ignored in budget phones.

• Motorola G54 with 50GB data: £13.99 per month, Idmobile.co.uk

Apple is an unavoidably premium brand, so it’s no surprise the cheapest iPhone is still the most expensive phone in this list. The iPhone SE is a thin, lightweight 5G device styled after the classic iPhone 8. It has a smaller 4.7in screen that pales in comparison with the more expensive iPhone 14 range, and a physical Touch ID button. There’s no fancy-pants facial recognition here.

Yet, there’s no compromise on camera quality. Although the iPhone SE has only two lenses to work with (that means no true portrait mode, wide angle or optical zoom), it manages to produce excellent photography in all conditions. That’s thanks, partly, to the powerful A15 Bionic chip – the same found in the iPhone 13 mini – which keeps performance high and helps with processing camera output.

• iPhone SE with 250GB data: £25 per month, £59 up front, Carphonewarehouse.com

The Pixel 7a crams all of the most interesting features of the flagship Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro into a more affordable mid-range phone, without trimming away too much of the good stuff that makes the Pixel one of the best Android phones you can buy.

That means you’re getting all of those headline-grabbing camera features, such as Magic Eraser, Night Sight and Photo Unblur, as well as clever software tricks such as adaptive battery management, which tracks how and when you use your device to tweak performance and extend the battery life.

These are all features found in last year’s Pixel 6a, but the step up to the Tensor G2 makes things faster, more battery-efficient and more secure. You also get Face Unlock, which isn’t found on the 6a.

• Pixel 7a with 30GB data: £21 per month, £0 up front, Fonehouse.co.uk

A cheaper alternative to the top-end OnePlus 11, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G is less than a third of the price and manages to stand out in a crowded budget Android market. That’s partly thanks to its striking blue colourway, fluid 120Hz display, a competent 64MP camera array that produces crisp photography, and its class-leading OxygenOS operating system.

Performance is where the OnePlus pulls away from other sub-£300 phones, though. The Snapdragon 695 is an older CPU, but it’s far from sluggish and helps this cheap and unassuming phone achieve exceptional battery life.

The Nokia G22 is a phone for anyone looking for a basic Android handset for calls and messaging, with a battery life counted in days rather than hours. In an unusual twist for a smartphone, you can repair the G22 yourself at home – iFixit provides replacement parts, tools and guidance for swapping out a broken screen or dead battery.

The functional camera array is competent enough, but won’t be winning any photography contests. The CPU and RAM have been picked out of a bargain bin, but are just about powerful enough to launch apps and navigate around the device without too much lag. The 6.5in display is surprisingly decent, too.

The Nokia G22 is a defiantly boring phone, designed for people who don’t want to think about phones any more than they need to. Cheap, practical and long-lasting, it nails the brief.

• Nokia G22 with 50GB data: £13 per month, Fonehouse.co.uk

Poco is a sub-brand of budget phones from Xiaomi, and the Poco C65 is the cheapest one the Chinese brand sells. For less than the price of a few months of a new iPhone contract, you get a basic Android phone with a classic squared-off design, excellent battery life and a decent-quality screen.

Photo quality isn’t great – Springwatch won’t be showing off your pictures any time soon – and the plasticky finish feels cheap to the touch. But the stylish design of the camera island adds a bit of flair when compared with the competition.

If you want a clean Google experience on a cheap smartphone, the Pixel 6a is the cheapest phone it still makes – though finding one in stock is a challenge.

Costing less than £400, the Pixel 6a is a scaled-back version of the more expensive Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 pro, and a full generation behind the newest Pixel 7 phones.

However, you still get most of the software features that make the more expensive phones great. You get the customisable Material You interface, a host of clever photo editing features, adaptive battery life and Google Assistant smarts, all packed into a 5G phone powered by the same Tensor chip as its larger siblings.

In our review of the device, we said: “The 6.1in Pixel 6a is a pocket-friendly phone in the figurative sense as well as the literal one. It unlocks access to the full suite of Pixel-exclusive features while trimming away some of the super high-end hardware that makes pricey flagships of the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 pro.”

• Pixel 6a with 3GB data: £12.50 per month, £0 up front, Tescomobile.com

Read the full Google Pixel 6a review

Phones don’t get much cheaper than this. The Nokia 8210 4G is a reimagined version of the 1999 classic and takes the “smart” back out of smartphone. What it lacks in modern conveniences – such as a touchscreen and wifi – it makes up for with a frankly enormous battery life, making it a great choice for anyone looking for a cheap emergency phone to throw in their glovebox, take on a hike or give to a kid or relative who struggles with touchscreen devices.

For your £65, you get a really basic camera, a 3.5mm audio jack, a built-in MP3 player and an FM radio tuner.

Read the full Nokia 8210 4G review