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

While the latest and greatest phones from Apple, Samsung and Google tend to grab all the headlines, it’s at the cheaper end of the smartphone market where competition is most fierce. It’s also where you’ll find the best deals.

Choosing the right budget Android or iPhone depends on how much you’re willing to spend and which features you can live without. You might not need a fancy camera or a pin-sharp 120Hz display, or you might just want a basic phone with giant battery life for calls and texts.

Everyone’s definition of a cheap smartphone is different, so manufacturers produce a wide range of devices to suit most needs and budgets. Samsung makes excellent cheap phones for its A-series, while brands such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Redmi manage to cram impressive specs and performance into phones costing less than £200.

Apple and Google have even started to offer budget-friendly versions of their top-selling devices. The cheapest iPhone is still more expensive than most cheap phones, but it marks the American tech giant’s move towards giving users a more affordable alternative to the latest and greatest iPhone.

Because they use less powerful processors, many cheap phones have better battery life than more expensive devices, meaning you can often squeeze days of use out of a single charge. That makes cheap phones an ideal option, and to places where you might not want to carry an expensive piece of technology in your pocket.