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The best budget smartphone you can buy

You can get a great budget device these days if you know how to pick your priorities. | Image: The Verge Some of us take a kind of “I eat to live” rather than an “I live to eat” approach to gadgets. They’re tools that help you get things done, not something you want to invest a lot of time or money in. If that’s you — and there’s no judgment here from a certifiable gadget nerd — then you can probably think of more worthwhile ways to spend $1,000 than on a phone. Budget phones to the rescue. These devices are roughly $500 or under, though not all of them, and they’re more capable than ever. You won’t get all the bells and whistles, but you will save a little money to spend on, I don’t know, actual bells and whistles. It’s your world. How we test There’s no shortcut to properly testing a phone; I put my personal SIM card (physical or otherwise) in each phone I review and live with it for a minimum of one full week. I set up each phone from scratch, load it up with my apps, and go about living my life — stress testing the battery, using GPS navigation on my bike while streaming radio, taking rapid-fire portrait mode photos of my kid — everything I can throw at it. Starting over with a new phone every week either sounds like a dream or your personal hell, depending on how Into Phones you are. For me, switching has become so routine that it’s mostly painless. Strong software support At least a couple of years of OS upgrades and, ideally, three years of security updates. There’s no point in buying even a cheap phone if you have to replace it after just a couple of years because it stopped getting security patches. A good screen Since you look at it roughly two thousand times a day, your phone’s screen is one place you shouldn’t compromise. An OLED has richer contrast and color than an LCD, and the big screens on today’s phones really need at least a 1080p resolution. Faster refresh rates like 90Hz and even 120Hz are becoming more common on budget phone screens, but for my money, a smooth-scrolling LCD doesn’t look as nice as an OLED with a standard refresh rate. Serviceable storage space If you plan to hang onto your phone for a while, you’ll want enough storage space to accommodate all the system files, photos, and videos you’ll accumulate over the years. Ideally you’ll get at least 128GB built in, but at a minimum I look for 64GB with the option to expand space via a MicroSD card. One good rear camera, not four mediocre ones Upgrades like telephoto cameras and optical image stabilization are rare in the under-$500 class, but you can still expect good, basic performance in good lighting from any modern smartphone. Low light is trickier. Phones in this class should offer a night mode to help with non-moving subjects in very dim light. And there are no bonus points awarded for adding extra macro and depth cameras to pad out the rear camera array — those 2- and 5-megapixel sensors are pretty much useless. Many of our picks run about $400 or $500, but there are great options for $300 and under, too. You can find a bright, high-definition OLED screen or a battery that lasts for days. If you can hone in on the one or two features that are most important to you and you’re willing to compromise elsewhere, you can get a phone that suits your needs for half the price of a flagship. In this article The best iPhone under $500 The best Android phone under $500 The best budget phone that performs like a flagship The phone under $400 Other budget phones we tested What compromises can you expect from a budget phone? Some combination of the following: slower processors, less storage, and worse cameras than flagship phones, almost across the board. Many have lower-resolution screens, and most lack official water-resistance ratings, wireless charging, and NFC chips for contactless payment. The best cheap iPhone Screen: 6.1-inch, 1170p OLED/ Processor: A18 Cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.6 with OIS, 12-megapixel selfie / Charging: 20W wired, 7.5W wireless / Weather-resistance rating: IP68 If I was making this recommendation to you face-to-face, you’d hear a heavy sigh. Yes, this is the cheapest new iPhone Apple makes. Yes, it comes with most of the things that make an iPhone an iPhone. But it comes with some significant tradeoffs — some of which make more sense than others — and it’s not exactly cheap. If you’re amenable to last year’s model or a refurbished iPhone 14, one of those might actually be a better option. But for an unfussy person who just wants a new iPhone for the least amount of money, the 16E will do the trick. There’s a single 48-megapixel rear camera on the back, meaning there’s no ultrawide like on the regular 16. That’s an understandable tradeoff — so is the use of the older “notch” design rather than the Dynamic Island. But it’s harder to understand why Apple left out MagSafe here — that’s the ring of magnets built into the back of virtually every other iPhone since 2020. The 16E still supports wireless charging, but it can’t take advantage of the ecosystem of magnetic chargers and accessories on its own; you’ll need to add a magnetic case. This is a silly omission, and Apple should feel bad about it. Another heavy sigh: the 16E supports Apple Intelligence, which you won’t get if you opt for an iPhone 15 or 14. Should you care? It’s really hard to say. What exists of Apple Intelligence so far is underwhelming and the most interesting bits won’t arrive anytime soon. If you want to future-proof your purchase as much as possible, the 16E will be ready for Apple’s AI. But don’t buy one expecting a life-changing experience now. It’s just an iPhone after all, for better and worse, and right now it’s the best price you’ll find on a brand-new one. Read my full iPhone 16E review. The best Android phone under $500 Screen: 6.1-inch, 1080p OLED, 120Hz / Processor: Tensor G3 Cameras: 64-megapixel f/1.89 with OIS, 13-megapixel ultrawide, 13-megapixel selfie / Battery: 4,492mAh / Charging: 18W wired, 7.5W wireless / Weather-resistance rating: IP67 Google offers some very good high-end phones in the Pixel 9, 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL, but it’s the company’s budget phone that makes the most sense. For $500, the Pixel 8A offers a whole lot of what makes its pricier siblings good, but at roughly half the cost. It’s a modest update over the Pixel 7A, which you can still buy, but the 8A comes with one big upgrade over the previous generation: seven years of OS and security updates. If you’re the kind of person who likes to hang onto their device for a long time, that’s huge — especially in the budget category where other phones might only come with one or two platform upgrades. The 8A is also Google’s first budget phone to come with a 120Hz display, so scrolling and animations look super smooth. You also get wireless charging and an IP67 rating for protection against water immersion. The camera system is reliable, but it’s the most obvious place where Google had to make some compromises to keep the price low. It’s a fine all-around camera, but stepping up to one of the latest Pixel models gets you improved low light performance, an updated ultrawide camera, and a whole lot of AI-powered features. If you can hold out for a bit, it’s also worth flagging the heavily rumored Google Pixel 9A, which will reportedly arrive on March 26th. Android Headlines says the phone will start at $499 with 128GB of storage and ditch the camera bar entirely, allowing it to lie flat on a table. Previous rumors also point toward a 5,100mAh battery, a 6.3-inch screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Tensor G4 chip, and 8GB of RAM. Read my full Google Pixel 8A review. The best budget phone that performs like a flagship Screen: 6.78-inch, 1264 x 2780 120Hz OLED / Processor: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Cameras: 50-megapixel f/1.8 with OIS, 8-megapixel ultrawide, 2-megapixel macro, 16-megapixel selfie / Battery: 5,500mAh / Charging: 80W wired / Weather-resistance rating: IP64 The last-gen OnePlus 12R is $500, but it could easily trick you into thinking it costs twice as much. It comes with a very big, very nice screen, with refresh rates that go up to 120Hz and all the way down to 1Hz, making for a smooth scrolling experience when you need it and savings on battery life when you don’t. It’s a feature rarely seen on a phone under $800. The 12R is equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, which is a generation behind 2024’s processor du jour, the 8 Gen 3 (the latter can be found on the $599.99 OnePlus 13R). But the 8 Gen 2 still whips — it’s hard to throw anything at this phone that it can’t handle. Less good: the 12R’s IP64 rating, which means it’s splash resistant but not fully water immersible, like the Pixel 8A. Fast charging is kind of OnePlus’ trademark, and the 12R stays true to the brand with up to 80W fast wired charging in the US (it’s up to 100W in other regions). It’s nice if you want to charge your phone on a more compressed schedule, like during your morning routine rather than at night. Personally, I’d rather have slower wired charging if it meant I could have a feature that’s not present on the 12R: wireless charging. That is, once again, something the Pixel 8A offers. But that’s the beauty of the 12R — it knows what it is and what it isn’t. And if a low-cost phone with a big, high-quality screen and excellent performance is what you’re after, then the 12R is it. Read my full OnePlus 12R review. The phone under $400 Screen: 6.6-inch, 1080p resolution, 120Hz OLED / Processor: Exynos 1380 Cameras: 50-megapixel f/1.8 with OIS, 8-megapixel ultrawide, 5-megapixel macro, 13-megapixel selfie / Battery: 5,000mAh / Charging: 25W wired / Weather-resistance rating: IP67 The Samsung Galaxy A35 5G comes with surprisingly strong specs for its $399 price. They’re the kind of features you won’t really spot from the outside, but they’re important, particularly its IP67 rating for dust and water resistance. Unlike virtually every other phone at this price, the A35 5G is built to withstand water immersion, so you don’t need to sweat it if your phone lands in a toilet bowl or puddle. Here’s another unexciting spec: four years of OS updates and five years of security updates. That’s not the very best in the budget category — the Pixel 8A takes that honor with seven years of updates — but it’s much better than the two or three years we typically see in phones well under $500. The camera is lackluster; it’s fine in bright light but struggles in dim and mixed indoor lighting. It doesn’t have the strongest processing performance you can find under $500, either, and the Samsung-made Exynos processor occasionally stutters when quickly bouncing between tasks. I was horrified — horrified! — when I accidentally texted my husband one of the automatically generated replies because it popped up at the last moment as I was trying to tap on something else. These things don’t happen when everything loads quickly. But overall, it’s a compelling package — especially with a big, crowd-pleasing OLED display and strong battery performance. If you’re a light user and not fussy about camera quality, the A35 5G offers some upgrades that make a real difference in the long term. Other budget phones we tested The 2024 Motorola Moto G Power has all the makings of a good budget phone, including a lovely vegan leather exterior and wireless charging. But it’s loaded with bloatware of the worst kind, and that alone disqualifies it from our recommendations. Read our impressions. We also tested the OnePlus Nord N300, which doesn’t make an appearance among our recommendations. The N300 is very affordable at $228 but cuts too many corners to include fast charging. The pricier 12R that snags our recommendation above offers much better overall performance. Read our review. The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE is another perfectly capable phone that doesn’t quite earn a recommendation here. It’s a little outside the scope of this guide at $649 anyway, but you do get a telephoto lens and a nice, big screen for that price. Still, you’re better off saving a bunch and picking up the Pixel 8A or trying to score a trade-in promo for the new Galaxy S25. Read our review. Finally, if you’re looking for something quite different, the Nothing Phone 2 is an option with its sleek appearance and flashy interface (literally, it flashes) — just know that it’s not fully compatible with Verizon’s network. Update, March 13th: Removed the 2022 iPhone SE and replaced it with the iPhone 16E.

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