Budget Phone

Feronix

New member
Heya guys!

I'm looking for some phone advice for my sister. She's one of those people that wants a high end phone, but it can't be bigger than 4" or cost more than €180. But of course it needs to have aaalll the features! :lol:

Okay, so we can all ignore that cause we know it isn't possible (unless you know of one, then please do tell!). Long story short; She has always bought cheap Samsung or HTC phones (the ~€120 ones) but they tend to break quickly and well... they're slow as shit so she'll be happy with them at first but want a new phone within a few months.

Last week she had the idea to buy a Huawei Ascend G700, a €200 phone with a 5" screen (720p), Android 4.2 and a 1.2GHz Quad Core Mediatek SoC. I'm not really a fan of Mediatek chips as they're cheap and work, but the Qualcomm SoCs tend to be quite a bit faster.

Didn't take long for me to tell her that the G700 wouldn't really be that good of a purchase and she might be better off with the Motorola Moto G 16GB, a €180 phone with a 4.5" screen (720p), Android 4.4 and a 1.2GHz Quad Core Snapdragon 400 SoC.

At first she didn't really care for it as she was so focussed on the G700 but when she went to the shop last week and checked out the Moto G and came to the conclusion that it was 'too big'. Fair enough, but that Huawei is .5" bigger so that's a no go then.


Fast forward to yesterday when she kept coming up with €120 phones, with SoCs from literally 3 years ago and just overal shit specs. I had to tell her for each individual model that it just wasn't worth spending money on cause it just won't be an upgrade over the old phone (Samsung Galaxy Ace?) she's using right now after smashing 3 phones last month :p

Besides, the low end phones really try to make the specs look good when they're not. "But it's a dual core" - Yeah, from 3 years ago. The only bright side is that they're 4" ish (480p).

So naturally I wanted to find her a phone that would be good for her, but I'm starting to think there's no such thing and it's going to have to be the Moto G or just her being stubborn and buying some crappy device without knowing what exactly she's buying.

Spent until 1:30am last night to find phones and eventually I found one other competitor; The ZTE V5, a €130 phone with a 5" 720p screen, Android 4.3, a 1.2GHz Quad Core Snapdragon 400, 2GB RAM and 8GB storage with a micro-sd card slot. Two huge disadvantages that would certainly put her off buying:
- It's a Chinese brand. ZTE are huge in China but over here almost no one has ever heard of them. Besides, it would require importing the phone and I'm pretty sure she's not up for that.
- It has a 5" screen, so yeah.


TLDR; I'm looking for a phone for a max price of €180 with a relatively small screen (4.5 as absolute maximum), and decent specs like a Snapdragon 400 quad core or an S4 Plus/Pro Dual core at least. Something that could compete with the Moto G, but for the same price or preferably cheaper. Does this phone exist? I'd love to know!

Thanks in advance,
 
- 4 days later -

Alright, so I'll take it such a phone does not exist then :p
I'll probably have to convince her to get the Moto G then.
 
If she can wait till Q1-Q2 2015, thats when Googles Project Ara is scheduled to be released (for <$100). Other than that 180€ is quite a restrictive price. I've recently bought a Nexus 5 and I'd say the price/performance ratio is through the roof, but it's 360€ here, so basically double the budget... It's also 4.9"
 
recently got the blackberry z10, just because i was in the same mindset to reduce bills, and get out of the phone what i at least use, long time android user but was pleased to find the latest os lets you install apks directly, cracking screen, and the bb hub, is probably the best social interface ive used, is pretty speedy, only issue ive come across is the battery only lasts me a day at best, with decent overall useage,

so far very happy with it.
http://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_z10-5251.php
 
How about a Nokia Lumia 625, in the UK, it is around the £100 area, The only problem for your sister might be that it is Windows and not Android. I was in the same position a few weeks ago, after smashing my S4's screen, and not having much money, I went for the 625, and I'm overly happy with it, just enough stuff to play with to keep me happy, and the Cortana feature is pretty cool.
 
If she can wait till Q1-Q2 2015, thats when Googles Project Ara is scheduled to be released (for <$100). Other than that 180€ is quite a restrictive price. I've recently bought a Nexus 5 and I'd say the price/performance ratio is through the roof, but it's 360€ here, so basically double the budget... It's also 4.9"

That's at least half a year away mate. Don't think she'll wait that long :(

recently got the blackberry z10, just because i was in the same mindset to reduce bills, and get out of the phone what i at least use, long time android user but was pleased to find the latest os lets you install apks directly, cracking screen, and the bb hub, is probably the best social interface ive used, is pretty speedy, only issue ive come across is the battery only lasts me a day at best, with decent overall useage,

so far very happy with it.
http://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_z10-5251.php

That's a good suggestion. Bit more expensive (€200) than other phones with similar specs, but then it does appear to be more of an all-rounder with a better camera and such. Screen size is awesome too!

Don't really think she can get herself over the price, but I'll make sure to tell her about this one cause it seems to be pretty good.

How about a Nokia Lumia 625, in the UK, it is around the £100 area, The only problem for your sister might be that it is Windows and not Android. I was in the same position a few weeks ago, after smashing my S4's screen, and not having much money, I went for the 625, and I'm overly happy with it, just enough stuff to play with to keep me happy, and the Cortana feature is pretty cool.

I thought that, but she's already used an HTC 8x ones (one of the phones she smashed (to make it worse she borrowed that one from someone else) and said she simply didn't like the OS.

Quite a shame cause I think WP8.1 has the most awesome budget phones around right now, which would be exactly what she's looking for.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Feel free to toss some more this way cause more choice is always better :)
 
Seriously, I think the Moto G is the way to go. The version of Android is extremely close to stock, and there is almost no (if not any) bloatware, making it very fluid and responsive. I wouldn't go windows phone, simply because there are very few apps, even all of the google apps are not there (not even Gmail or Youtube).
 
Seriously, I think the Moto G is the way to go. The version of Android is extremely close to stock, and there is almost no (if not any) bloatware, making it very fluid and responsive. I wouldn't go windows phone, simply because there are very few apps, even all of the google apps are not there (not even Gmail or Youtube).

I think the Moto G would indeed suit her a little better price-wise and everything, but my sister really does care about 'megapixels' and specs like that, even if she doesn't know what it means and couldn't take a proper photo to save her life :lol:

I've had an HTC 8x for almost a year now and in March I updated to 8.1 and I love it. It has all the apps that I need (I mainly use my phone for music and some social media apps anyway) and it's butter smooth for the €250 that it cost at the time.

You're also kind of right though. My sister likes to play this game called 'Wordfeud' (Yeah, some people are still into that) which simply doesn't exist on WP8(.1). The reason some Google apps are missing is because Google didn't really want the competition as far as I know. Or they wanted to implement too many apps or something like that. There are 'aftermarket' solutions that work well though.

It's just really a shame that she lets one game that she literally only plays with our parents and like one other friend be a dealbreaker to buy a phone cause then she could just spend €130 and have a pretty nice device.
 
Shame about windowsphone. Big fan of it now. Going to ditch my iphone for one some time soon. Honestly though it tends to be better suited to higher end phones.
 
Shame about windowsphone. Big fan of it now. Going to ditch my iphone for one some time soon. Honestly though it tends to be better suited to higher end phones.

Depends, the 8x came out quite a while ago and mine's running a dual core Snapdragon S4 Plus @ 1.5GHz (Krait cores though, not the Cortex A7 ones from the Snaprdragon 400 quad core models). Runs butter smooth, but then again I don't play any games. Guess the full one GB of RAM helps a bit too.

Truth is; If she wants a €130 phone like I said she was looking at in the OP without importing from China it's either going to be some shitty 3 year old LG or Samsung, or a Lumia with WP8.1.

Will probably tell her that she can either go with the Lumia 630 but have WP, get the Moto G. Don't think she'll pay the €200 for the Z10.
 
recently got the blackberry z10, just because i was in the same mindset to reduce bills, and get out of the phone what i at least use, long time android user but was pleased to find the latest os lets you install apks directly, cracking screen, and the bb hub, is probably the best social interface ive used, is pretty speedy, only issue ive come across is the battery only lasts me a day at best, with decent overall useage,

so far very happy with it.
http://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_z10-5251.php

I've had my Z10 for almost a year and half now. One of the only phones that has gotten faster since new. Every update that they release has made good improvements to the phone from big updates to minor maintenance releases. Will be getting rid of it soon for the Z30 though.
 
I've found a phone that'd suit her if it wasn't for the fact it was a 5'. Lenovo A766.

-edit- Slightly off topic but this is the only Android phone I'd get personally.

Checked that one out but sadly the 5" screen will put her off, and tbh the Mediatek SoC kind of puts me off too.

I've told her what the choices were (Lumia 630 or Moto G) and she said she'd think about it.

Then mentioned that she was still considering the Huawei G700 <_<
I'll keep you guys updated.
 
hey dude, dont know if you got it sorted yet, but i noticed on the official blackberry store, reduced the price of the z10 to 159.99 euros, they seem to have a french and german store, something tells me your hollandish (no offence intended), so i couldnt say if that would effect you any. just a drop by seeing as i was on there looking for stuffs.
 
hey dude, dont know if you got it sorted yet, but i noticed on the official blackberry store, reduced the price of the z10 to 159.99 euros, they seem to have a french and german store, something tells me your hollandish (no offence intended), so i couldnt say if that would effect you any. just a drop by seeing as i was on there looking for stuffs.
Blackberry tho.
You're in the minority here if you like them :P.
 
problem is like Feronix says, is getting an android phone at this price point that doesnt completely suck ballz, cept the motoG which as he stated is probably "too big" etc whatevers, not a bb fanboi, just is a solid spec for a phone, in the dimensions that i wanted, androids got "biiiig!" and i just dont want a 6" phone in my hand etc, and the devices that are the same-ish dimensions well they generally blow
 
Yeah, I'm not a massive fan of BB myself, but if it works for her then fair enough. Seems like more of an 'all-round' phone than the Moto G which, let's be honest, has a shit camera and no SD card slot.

I'll make sure to let her know though, thanks for the suggestion/heads up :)
 
Back
Top