10 Of The Best Budget Smartphones

Looking for a smartphone on a budget? Not bothered by having the latest, cutting edge fashion accessory? Then take a look at our guide to the 10 Best Budget Smartphones.

1. ZTE Blade Q Mini
Price: £49.99

The ZTE Blade Q Mini features a 4” 480 x 800 pixel screen, a 5MP camera and doesn’t look too bad for the price.

For a phone that costs £50, this ZTE unit offers reasonable performance and design, even if it isn’t the fastest handset around.

The screen is an ok resolution and size and its dual-core Mediatek MT6572 CPU can be sluggish at times.

The battery isn’t too bad either and will last up to three days with only light use.

2. Motorola Moto G
Price: £124 (8GB), £160 (16GB)

With a great-for-the-price 4.5” 720p screen, this Motorola Moto G is a great smartphone for the price.

Although not as slim or light as other phones in the budget category, it’s still a comely handset for the price. The 720p screen delivers a good, crisp image quality.

The 1GB of RAM and Snapdragon 400 CPU means it handles browsing and playing games with aplomb.

The 5MP camera delivers good images, while the 720P HD video is of a similar decent standard.

The Moto G offers great specs for the price and with a 4G option now available it’s great value for money.

3. Nokia Lumia 735
Price: £180

Probably one of the best cheap Windows phones out there, this smartphone features a high quality 5MP selfie camera, 4G connectivity and a crisp 4.7” display.

The Lumia 735 is 4G LTE enabled for great transfer speeds, and the 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor & 1GB of RAM will give you a fast, efficient experience.

Despite its plasticky looks, it’s well-constructed and the 5MP selfie camera is capable of delivering decent images, and, along with the 6.7MP rear camera, it offers better picture taking abilities than you would expect to find at this price-point.

4. ZTE Kis 3 Max
Price: £69.99

The Kis 3 Max by ZTE packs a 4.5” screen, dual-core processor and 5MP camera. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat and has attractive looks for its budget price.

There’s a reasonable 2MP camera on the front for self portraits and there’s a microSD card slot that allows you to increase its small 4GB of storage by an additional 32GB.

It offers video capture and playback, a 1.3GHz dual-core processor, but no 4G connectivity option.

5. EE Kestrel
Price: £99.99

Kestrel from EE is a great value PAYG smartphone on the UK’s biggest network. With 4G internet, a powerful processor and a large, stylish screen, the Kestrel Android smartphone features a slim design and a large 4.5″ screen.

This phone features a 5MP camera and is powered by a quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM. Storage is only 8GB, but can be increased by 32GB with the microSD card slot.

6. Sony Xperia M2
Price: £140

The Sony Xperia M2 features a 4.8” screen, an 8-megapixel camera and is 4G compatible.

This follow-up to the Xperia M has a larger screen but disappointingly only manages a 960 x 540 resolution. It has an 8MP camera with multiple fun camera modes and uses Sony’s custom interface and Android 4.3.

The Snapdragon 400 CPU means this phone is a slick operator and the battery can last for around a day and a half between top-ups.

7. Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini
Price: £89.99

The Galaxy S3 Mini is the compact version of Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S3.

The Galaxy S3 Mini features a 480 x 800 pixel 4” Super AMOLED screen, a 5MP camera for quality images and video capture, and 8GB of internal memory (expandable to 32GB).

The Galaxy S3 Mini is quite fast, powered by Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and a Dual Core 1GHz processor. The battery has a reasonable life of 15 hours standby time / 470 minutes of talk time.

8. Huawei Y550 4G
Price: £69.99

The Huawei Y550 4G comes with two choices of Android interface – Huawei’s Standard Android Interface for smartphones or its Simple Android Interface. Simple Android has been built for smartphone first-timers, and makes it even easier to access the Y550’s features.

Supporting the Android KitKat 4.4 operating system, Internet access is available at 2G, 3G and 4G speeds, depending on your package.

The Y550 comes with a 854 x 480 pixels 4.5” touchscreen, a 5MP main camera with video recording, and a 2MP front facing camera for those essential selfies. Storage capacity comes in at 1GB of internal memory, expandable to 32GB. The battery life extends to 510 hours standby time / 530 minutes talk time.

9. EE Alcatel One Touch Pop C1
Price: £19.99

For a real budget entry to the smartphone market, then look no further than this EE Alcatel One Touch Pop C1 handset.

The Alcatel One Touch Pop C1 smartphone is a fashionable-looking little phone that designed for simplicity and ease of use, while still being fast enough to play games and stream and record videos wherever you are.

This smartphone features a compact 320 x 480 pixel 3.5” display, a 2MP camera, Android v4.2 operating system and 512MB/4GB of internal memory, expandable to 32GB with a microSD card.

The battery offers up to 433 hours standby time / 168 minutes talk time.

10. Vodafone Smart 4 Turbo
Price: £54.99

This premium 4G-ready smartphone comes packed with all the features you need without a huge price.

This Smart 4 Turbo has features and processing power to rival smartphones at the upper end of the smartphone market.

Great for browsing the web, playing games and watching videos, this phone’s fast 4G and clear 854 x 480 pixel 4.5” LCD screen, gives you an ultra-wide viewing angle, perfect for viewing images and videos taken with its 5MP camera.

This phone features Android 4.4.2 Kitkat operating system, a Quad-Core Processor and 4GB of internal memory, expandable to 32GB with a microSD card.

Battery life runs to 660 hours standby time / 390 minutes talk time.