Budget of say £200. I’ve looked at OnePlus (One is out of stock, Two probably a git to get hold of), Oppo Find 7 (out of stock), Elephone P7000 (rocking horse poo, rumblings of terrible customer service) and a few others…

Any recommendations?

Motorola Moto G ? £150

Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 has been getting really good reviews, included being called the Moto G killer. I’m waiting for a couple to arrive for my work.

here

Nexus 5 can be got for circa £200 on fleabay

got my Xperia Z1 compact for £160 new, is very good.

The new Ubik Uno? Not a clue what it’s like as it’s new but sounds good, avoids overheating Snapdragons and stock Android.

For less than £200 just get the newer 5-inch screen Moto-G.
They go for about £150 new and it’d still be a good phone at twice that price.

If you can push the budget go for a Moto X 2nd gen. Reduced because the new one will be out soon, better spec and build quality than the G and has loads of extra features (gestures, always-listening google now voice control etc) that IMO make it worth £100 more. It also runs stock android and gets firmware updates pretty quickly, in some cases quicker than Nexus devices.

I’m trying to avoid the Moto G ‘cos the Mrs has one, though it is a bloody lovely little phone for the money. I may well just go for a 2nd gen one of those. Moto X is a bit on the pricy side, I actually had a first gen one till I smashed it up in a crash. I really liked that phone.

The Ubik is tempting too, though I need to read up on the 4G support.

Sony m4 for waterproofnes.

Some of the Archos (http://www.archos.com) phones look good for that kind of cash.

Have a look at the Expansys clearance section. I bought a SIM free LG G2 from there recently for peanuts (about £100). Limited internal storage but that doesn’t matter to me. Nice screen, good camera, fast and the battery life is good.

http://www.expansys.com/nearly-new/

New Moto G coming real soon…

28th July?

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new-product/mobile-phone/new-moto-g-2015-release-date-price-specs-leak-images-moto-maker-launch-invite-3601187/

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/mobile-phones/1403568/motorola-moto-g-3-moto-x-2015-news-release-date-rumours-launching-28th-july

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/134380-third-generation-moto-g-2015-release-date-rumours-and-everything-you-need-to-know

There’s rumour that the new Moto G might be IPX7 too…

Those Archos do look good, but I think Mrs Monkey’s dad has one…

Various Sony Xperias in their outlet store and a 10% off code. The code didn’t work when I types it in so I called up and they did it over the phone.M2s for £99 and Z1s for £149 before discount.

https://outlet.sony.co.uk/shop/Xperia-Tablet-%26-Smartphones/Xperia%26%238482-Smartphones

Push the budget to £230ish and get a good secondhand Z3 Compact. All the power you could want and an astonishing battery life. Decent camera to boot too…

got my Xperia Z1 compact for £160 new, is very good.

I was rapidly going off mine since lollipop because it was getting silly slow. Then I reinstalled it from scratch and it’s back to brilliant. So £160 gets you a very nice, good performing lollipop phone? Deal.

LG g3 directly from Amazon. Just over £200 but amazing specs and camera

G3 and Experia Z3 (cheap offer on HUKD) are in the running, though pushing the budget rather for a good one.

OK, got the Vodafone smart ultra 6 in yeseterday to set up for one of my work colleagues.

It’s essentially a ZTE Blade 6 plus, but rebadged and cheaper.

firstly, it’s bigger than my xperia Z3, but no surprises really, it has a 5.5″ screen rather than my Z3’s 5 ish. screen is bright, not quite as sharp as the sony, but about the same as a moto g. To be honest though if i hadn’t held them next to each other I wouldn’t know the difference in screen quality.

The phone itself is lighter than expected too.

near stock Android 5.0.2 with some vodafone apps on it, but not too cluttered really and all are removable if you wish.

camera is decent, 13MP, takes photos, y’know…

set it up with a few apps, nokia here, email, other bits, ran a few to try to slow it down a bit, but it was pretty quick. no lag doing normal things on it more than my Z3. smooth responsive screen, I’m impressed.

They can be unlocked apparenly, and only cost £125 on PAYG.

That looks good. I have a Moto G, and while it is acceptable, it really needs more internal storage for Android to work without constant user intervention.

Just did some research for an article on budget smartphones, seems the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 mentioned above is top of the shop right now – and well under budget.

16GB storage.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/vodafone-smart-ultra-6-review

Get a commodore smartphone.

A phone on which you can play manic miner and elite?

Just did some research for an article on budget smartphones, seems the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 mentioned above is top of the shop right now – and well under budget.

16GB storage.

yep, 11Gb usable and an SD card slot for lots more.

it’s a great phone by the loks of it. not a lot of cases for it yet though, but they will come.

Huawei Ascend G7.

That looks good. I have a Moto G, and while it is acceptable, it really needs more internal storage for Android to work without constant user intervention.

4g and gen 2 versions sort this with an sd card slot.

Moto X2 looks great but no sd card slot (as with so many higher end phones)!

Pretty much sold on the Voda now, if I can find an unlock code. Not too keen on Voda pricing.

plenty online I believe.

Yup, seems to be a bunch on eBay. That’ll do nicely. Means I can get a Chromecast in budget too (and it’ll just about have paid for my midlife crisis skateboard too).

Naughty hijack…I’m selling a 3 month old Motorola Moto G 8gb (xt1032) on Vodafone . £80 posted.

Cheers for the offer but I’d prefer the better spec of the Voda I think 🙂

That Sony outlet site looks good (not just for phones). I’m rather impressed with the Z1 Compact I have (with a 64GB SD card). Wife has a Sony M2, and although it’s a cheap phone, it’s pretty nice.

To give some context, my work phone is a 64GB Samsung S6 Edge, which although lovely, isn’t 4x better than the Sony.

4g and gen 2 versions sort this with an sd card slot.

No they don’t.

By default Android will run apps on the internal storage. Yes, you can move them to the SD card, but when they update, they move back to the internal storage. And then your phone starts running out of storage. So you move them all back to SD. In an endless cycle. It’s crap.

Edit: And if the app is on SD storage, you can’t run a widget for it on the home screen. Which sucks.

you used to be able to use Darktremors A2EXT script to spread internal memory over a partition on an SD card, but I don’t know if that works with lollipop as it was only on old phones I used it.

I reckon 16gb should be enough for apps (I’m not a heavy user), then I can use an SD card for photos / music / fillums etc. Biggest app I have is True Skate, apart from that I don’t really play games.

lollipop is supposed to let apps run from SD cards, though I’ve not needed to try it.
the 16Gb is decent enough if your pics/movies/music/whatever else, gets shoved on an SD. PC world are kicking out 32Gb SD’s for about £7.

Dig in the drawer for an old Nokia and spend 200 quid on something worth while 😆

I like having a nice phone to play with. So it is worthwhile. But thanks for your input anyway.

That Vodafone is excellent VFM but the video capture is shocking. The worst I’ve seen in years. Would get one but for that reason.