[Closed] Android - best spec for sensible money?

i agonized over this for ages.

Then I got bored and ended up getting a Samsung a3 (2017) for about £17 a month (less data tho). It's absolutely fine. 😆

If i was buying android it would be a one plus model but it depends on if she can cope with the larger phone.

I just bought a Motorola G5 for £150, and pay £5/ month SIM only with ID mobile.

I don't think she wants a 'budget' phone this time around, as it's *always* caused trouble in the past eventually. Either in terms of storage, ram, power or compatibility.

And I think she wants to stay with EE because the network is best around here.

Are you looking for contracts or just buying the phone?

Until a few weeks ago I would have suggested what I bought, if going SIM free.

I got a Lenovo P2 from Three for £199. It's bloody brilliant.
I wrote a few comments about this phone here:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/lenovo-p2-owners

but ElShalimo reckoned that none were available through Three anymore, which does seem to be the case. Plenty of online availability though, but not really shops I have used or heard of before.

I honestly don't know why you would need a better phone than this - unless you really want cutting edge.
Everything about it is good and works well. Took a while to get used to the screen size, but picked up my old phone the other day & it now feels like a kid's toy....

Other brands to look out for:

Huawei
Honor
Motorola G5+

Or get a refurbished phone from Sony or Samsung.....

eldest_oab has a posh Huwaei P8(?) with Three. It was better spec than the S7, for a lot lot less...I think he is on unlimited data and lots of calls for £15 a month for three months, then £20 a month.

The budget ones always seem decent at first, then they always run out of storage or something...

Keep an eye out for Huawei retailers reducing last years model as the new one comes out,

I got a P8 for £150 sim free from the carphone warehouse as the P9 was coming out. That was a couple of years ago, and it's still going strong with a 64GB memory card in.

Recently got a Moto G5 for around £150 - great value for money.

And any suggestions with a sub-5" screen?

I've got a One Plus 3T as my work phone (which is excellent), but I'd like something smaller to replace my personal Xperia Z5 Compact.

I've got an S7 a couple of months ago and am very happy with that, but I specifically wanted a good camera. My mate has just got a wileyfox swift 2 plus and that looks very good. I think I'd be happy with that if I was okay with a camera that is not as good as the S7.

molgrips - Member

The budget ones always seem decent at first, then they always run out of storage or something...

How does a budget phone with 32Gb of storage run out quicker than a posh phone with 32Gb of storage, assuming they run the same operating system and are used in the same way?
Older versions of Android has issues with memory whereby the total memory was split into device memory & internal memory. Eg, my old Xperia T (flagship phone in it's day) had only 2Gb available for apps & OS with the rest available for storage; another 14Gb, I think.
Newer Android phones don't have this limitation; all of the memory can be used for OS & apps.

My P2 has 32Gb, expandable with a micro SD. So you can stick 64Gb of music, vids & pics onto the SD card and have 32Gb for operating system & apps.....
It's also got as much RAM as most flagships - 4GB; although there are some around with more.
Screen - 5.5" OLED
Battery - 5100mAh, which is generally good for 3 full days between charges, although I have also managed 4 without consciously trying to save the battery.
Camera - example pics here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/me96kka/albums/72157682836592593

But, it sounds like you'd be happier with a refurbished 'brand' phone like Samsung or Sony.....

Just changed from Xperia Z3 compact to Moto G5 from Amazon as am on Giff Gaff. Seems good so far, went for the 3GB RAM version

Basic phones in the past have not had 32Gb storage, they've had say 8Gb and a 32Gb SD card. Well you choose to have apps and whatnot stored on the SD card, but they still clog up the internal storage with some stuff.

I think 32Gb of internal storage is a requirement.

But, it sounds like you'd be happier with a refurbished 'brand' phone like Samsung or Sony.

Oh stop it, just not in the mood today.

Huawei P9 lite from Carphone Warehouse does it for me. sure beats the iphone 4S i had before.

Seems like the Moto G5 has enough storage to progress beyond the budget phones of a few years ago, and it's nice and cheap. Also looking at OnePlus and Nokia. Can't seem to find those Lenovo P2 for sale.

Just got a Moto G5+ (32 Gb + 3 Gb ram)+SD card slot & I find it works very well for me. £200 from Currys

I've got a Xiaomi MI5.
Not heard of it?
Thought not.
They're the third biggest manufacturer of phones in the world (iirc) but don't officially import to Britain or the US so nobody writes about them.
Brilliant value for money, similar specs to a Samsung S7 but only £180. Very pleased with mine.
You can only get them directly from China, I used Banggood with no problems at all.

Last autumn I got a Xiaomi Mi-5s for £175. Great spec for the money. I didn't much like their Miui software but after some faffing around I'm running Lineage OS which is great.

Better than my last S7.

.

Mrs owg and one of the Misses owg have both recently got A3(2017)s.They are very happy with them. Both preferred the A3 because it's a sensible size. The other Miss owg got a G5+, which she is also happy with - for her the slightly higher spec outweighed the larger size. Both these phones are the equal of flagships of a couple of years ago.
Work just gave me an S8. It's a beautiful thing, but I'm not sure I'd pay £685 of my money for it.

And any suggestions with a sub-5" screen?

I got a Samsung A3 (2017) like someone up above, it replace my htc one mini 2 and is almost exactly the same size. I'd have preferred a HTC but seeing as they've abandoned small format phones it wasn't an option. Not much other choice either - made the decision easier.

With modern android on some phones the SD card and internal memory can be merged into a single partition, I don't think you can do it on Samsung.

I've just got an S8 as a work phone, it looks nice and takes great photos but i'm terrified of breaking it. But I was happy with my Note 3 that it replaced

I think any decent mid-range phone will be fine these days as someone said above the more you spent often the better the Camera is, the Note 3 took much better photos than a Moto g3 I had even though it was much older.

OP we bought a couple of cheap £100-ish android phones for my FIL and they where terrible. Cheap phones often run really old versions of android and are not upgradable. Even though you can stick a memory card in them it doesn't mean you can use it for apps etc, we found this out to our cost too - related to Android version.

Who do you work for that hands out S8s? We have the most budget of budget phones. We didn't even get smart phones until about 2013.

You can get good contract deals on the high end Huawei / Honor phones

Whatever OnePlus handset fits your budget.

Nokia 3 for ~£110 inc. top up?

Three's exclusive license to sell Lenovo P2s in the UK ends and now they are like hen's teeth to find!

There are rumours of a Lenovo P3 appearing in September if you can wait that long.
New Moto E4plus has the same huge battery capacity as P2 but at a lower spec

Another vote for Samsung A3.

If you want a sensible size, sensible price and reasonable specs, this is the one. It even feels like a premium phone with metal/glass body.

Also, why start a new contract? Go Simfree to unshackle yourself from the upgrade cycle, I often get 2.5 years out of my phone, total cost is significantly lower, and I replace it when I decide the time is right (whether that's sooner or later) and not when my contract dictates.

You can sometimes save a packet by buying the prepay variant, my current phone is an unreliable Z3 Compact, saved £80 on Voda PAYG, even after paying to get it unlocked and using my EE SIM.

I've got the Moto g5 3gb from Amazon, for 165 but seen it in their sale for 135, a week later, if you're not in a rush. Then get orange to price match the cheapest sim only deal about.

Happy with my Sony Xperia phones. On a z5 now, z3 previously was good too. Stopgap cheapy Xperia inbeteeny phone was fine too really.

I bought a Sony z3 compact two years ago, it's still going strong.

Last month When my wife's budget phone started causing issues I bought her the same phone.

It's still a brilliant phone but it was £120 off ebay for a brand new one. Im on a £10 a month sim only contract and my wife is on a similar cost one

Works for us:-)

Just bought a Moto g5 (paid a few £ more than ransos but needed it quickly so bought on the high street).

Virtually no bloatware and a really nice phone for the money.

I also have a Moto g4 supplied by work which has, so far, been excellent.

I took a punt on one of these about 6 weeks ago and have been pleasantly surprised by it:

https://www.review-hub.co.uk/doogee-x6-pro-review/

I paid £65 for it.

Negatives: The camera is OK, not amazing and a weird one is that the charging port is on the top not the bottom. Also, the maximum SD card size is 32Gb.

On reflection I probably should have gone for the X5 because the X6 Pro is quite big.

It is running Android 6

Another for the 2017 A3. Has 2gb ram and 16gb storage which really helps performance. Stick a SD card in for extra storage. Currently paying 19.40 for unlimited calls and 1gb data (Voda). Get the A5 if you want a slightly bigger phone.

His - Motorola g5
Hers - wileyfox swift 2 plus

Wileyfox wins it on spec but my g5 is absolutely fine with no limitations compared to a Galaxy s6.

Both together cost less than an S7 last time I checked.

i bet if she chose herself she'd get an iphone...

Another 2017 Samsung A3 here. My main priority was getting something small as small as possible with decent spec. I really like it, in fact I can barely fault it. If I was nit picking I would rearrange the position of the back/tab buttons. Coming from a Sony I think it's more intuitive and makes more sense based on how we write / think in the west.

It's worth remembering to set up your phone's camera/storage to store on the SD card for cleaner easier file management.

A3 2017 here sim free.Paid £250 and is very good. Feels like a premium phone and performs well Waterproof, sensible size and has fingerprint recognition security.

6 months in to a moto g5 - the one with 3gb of ram from amazon. coming from an z3 compact. it's a great phone, snappy performance and robust too. basically stock android. it's running 7, unknown if it will go to 7.1 or straight android o.
have to say i am very pleased with it, particularly for the money. if i was going to be fussy i'd like it to be 15mm shorter.
samsung were also in the running but have a shit rep for updating phones and adding bloat.

There's an outlet on ebay called xs items, recently (4 months ago) picked up the S7 for my wife after she washed my old OnePlus she was using. It's been perfect and she's really pleased with the camera (she's a pretty decent photographer). It was about £150 less than retail and came in a shabby box, phone itself was mint though.

Have an s7, great phone. But yiur deal sucks a bit. Get on u switch to check the best deals.

Have you done the sums on paying monthly for the phone vs buying handset outright? Just asking as price seems to be an issue.

I usually pay £200-300 for a Nexus handset then £10 a month for calls/data.

Keeping phone for about 2 years, that saves a couple of hundred or so.

Got the daughter a moto c from tesco recently - £80, decent enough spec, £5 per month for calls and data etc.
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