Need a new phone and as I’m halfway through a SIM only deal I want to just buy an unlocked phone up front. I do like to have the internet and the Amazon kindle and music apps, but I don’t use it for much beyond that. I do want something that is well built and will last. So what do you suggest, and where should I buy from? Cheers.

*cough*

budget

*cough*

O2 sell most phones unlocked, with the exception of the iPhone, although if you buy direct from Apple the phones come unlocked.

Oh yes. Dunno, £200 or so perhaps.

I recently got a Moto g5 which is well inside your budget.

One of the best things about it (other than being a decent android phone in all the key ways) is it comes with practically zero bloatware on. Which means you mostly only have the apps you actually want and not the ones that the phone maker is presumably being paid to put on and that are awkward to delete and take up a load of memory.

My next (SIM free, Android) phone will likely be a Xiaomi Mi A1 from one of the Chinese sellers. Currently about £170 but might drop for Black Friday – and keep an eye on Hot UK Deals.

Comes with clean Android and all the bands you need for UK use which puts it above most Chinese offerings for me.

I’m in a similar predicament as TGA, got a sim only contract but my 8gb Motorola keeps saying ‘storage space running out’. I tried a micro SD card but that didn’t work (apparently it depends on the app itself as to whether or not It’ll store to an SD card).
I got my current phone from CEX in Harrogate, used, & It’s fine apart from the lack of memory. Might pop in tomorrow & see what theyv’e got that I can swap it for.

I just got a Nokia 6 to replace my aging HTC one m7. £199 sim free from carphone warehouse. Really liking it so far, especially for the money!

If you can’t be bothered researching Chinese phones then whichever Nokia or Motorola you can’t stretch to will come with stock Android 7 and the ability to merge the sd card with the on board storage and deal with your data/app issues.

Are the new not-Nokia Nokias ok then? I had a Nokia windows phone a few years ago which I liked.

They’re Nokia basically. Ex Nokia mobile staff, HMD is invested in and backed by proper Nokia, which is just over the road from the HQ. The stuff is built in China but then so are lots of big names.

Other than that, stock Android not cluttered with operator junk. Promises of regular updates. Build quality seems good on my Nokia 8 and reasonable battery life.

Ah right, sounds good.