OT: Good value smartphones

secretsam

Wanted: good value non-Apple smartphone to replace failing Samsung Galaxy s3. Don't need pointless gimmics, just the basics: storage for music, decent browsing and the ability to make phone calls (!)

spasypaddy

moto g latest generation

cougie

Gadget show reviewed budget smart phones a few weeks back. Prob on their website still. No real need to go for the iPhone other than the cachet.

daniel_b

I have a Huawei Honor 7, which was a little over £200, but they seem to be more now.

Not sure if you class that as good value or not, but it's a vast improvement over my 3 year old Galaxy S2 - I stuck a 64gb memory card in it too, and it flies.

andy9964

spasypaddy wrote:

moto g latest generation

+1
No bloatware, sim free, 4G and accepts micro USB for expanding storage. Might even be dual sim, my 2nd gen is

bendertherobot

Define budget! LG G4 at £199 is great. Moto G as stated. Good price on the 3rd gen moto g here
https://www.giffgaff.com/motorola/motor ... ne-details

SME

I bought a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact. I'm not a great lover of large phones, hence a compact. It's waterproof, has a really good battery life, and has ANT+ built into it. With the app I have loaded it makes a good GPS ride logging device.

dyrlac

Andy9964 wrote:

spasypaddy wrote:

moto g latest generation

+1
No bloatware, sim free, 4G and accepts micro USB for expanding storage. Might even be dual sim, my 2nd gen is

+2, great phone. Also water resistant.

stuaff

+1 for the Moto G- got the first gen & probably still would be happy with it but for the lack of a Micro SD slot. If you don't mind a bigger phone, the Moto X Play is fantastic- takes a 128GB card (Moto G and a lot of other cheaper phones are limited to 32GB), which can take all my music & room for much more, and the battery life is incredible for a smartphone.

wolfsbane2k

Budget? I had a moto e first gen for a long time, only cost £30 as the 2nd gen had just come out, would still have it if the kids hadn't knocked it off the side. Its quieptr amazing what you can get for your bucj.
Screen size limits?
The Sony z5 compact is a beaut, but not cheap, however the z3 and z1 versions are cheaper now obviously.
And there is always the Wiley fox swift

mcstumpy

StuAff wrote:

+1 for the Moto G- got the first gen & probably still would be happy with it but for the lack of a Micro SD slot. If you don't mind a bigger phone, the Moto X Play is fantastic- takes a 128GB card (Moto G and a lot of other cheaper phones are limited to 32GB), which can take all my music & room for much more, and the battery life is incredible for a smartphone.

Moto g and X both quality, value for money phones, my teenagers have one of each.

I have LG G2 , great phone and more than you need for day to day.

secretsam

Thanks all

"Budget"=£200 to buy or decent contract under £15-20 pcm

Did get offered a good dealon a Sony a while ago, should have taken it.

Smaller phone preferred, some current smartphones are like kindles in size! !

chris_bass

As people have already said, moto g seems to tick all the boxes you want it to, make sure you get the 2gb ram/16gb rom version though

Big_Paul

Just get a S/H S4, my one is past it's 3rd birthday and has hard a hard life but just keeps going. Peanuts to buy now.

ayjaycee

Here's another shout for the Moto G 3rd Gen. I have found that it has great battery life and a good screen plus it's also supposed to have some degree of water resistance. I have never actually dunked it but have had it in my non-waterproof jersey back pocket when it unexpectedly peed down (I mean really peed down!) and it was AOK. As somebody else said, go for the 16GB / 2GB RAM version and you can then stick a 64GB card into it for all the storage you would probably ever need

Sleeper Service

spasypaddy wrote:

moto g latest generation

Another +1.

Definitely get the version with 2GB internal memory and 16GB RAM though.

crossborderreiver

I've got a Huawei Ascend. £35. It does everything I need it to do.

mroli

I've had a couple of phones on this list. My Hauwei was ok in that it did everything, but wasn't exactly an enjoyable experience.

I have a Moto G now and again - it is ok. I get a blank screen occasionally, some hang ups and from what I can see from mates with top end smart phones, it lacks a little in speed, reliability etc. Put it this way - if I want to use Apps etc and I've got wifi, I'll go to my ipod mini or even my ipod touch.

I've also had a windows lumia and actually the phone experience on that was as good as anything and it was cheap as chips. the problems are - limited apps and some of those that are on there are pretty clunky. Being on the windows architecture(?) is pretty handy if you're used to that sort of thing though, but really you want android or IOS.

I dunno - I'm in the same boat as you really with my Missus and she is thinking about biting the bullet and splashing a bit more cash.

I however don't use my phone that much for stuff, so am happy to "put up with" my Moto G (the Android stuff is pretty helpful sometimes)....

Although I am really interested to hear if anyone has used a One Plus phone - they get good write ups and seem to have decent specs (although never come across anyone who uses one): https://oneplus.net/uk

secretsam

mroli wrote:

I've also had a windows lumia and actually the phone experience on that was as good as anything and it was cheap as chips. the problems are - limited apps and some of those that are on there are pretty clunky.

Got a Windows phone for work, and find it frankly a bit weird and clunky! Much prefer Android.

essex-commuter

I have the X Play, very pleased with it. Ticks every box for me.

kingstongraham

Sleeper Service wrote:

spasypaddy wrote:

moto g latest generation

Another +1.

Definitely get the version with 2GB internal memory and 16GB RAM though.

+1 again

It is way faster than the previous version which struggled a bit, camera is better, and is waterproof. Wish the whole thing was a bit smaller to fit in the pocket more comfortably, but that's the way things are these days.

wolfsbane2k

KingstonGraham wrote:

Sleeper Service wrote:

spasypaddy wrote:

moto g latest generation

Another +1.

Definitely get the version with 2GB internal memory and 16GB RAM though.

+1 again

It is way faster than the previous version which struggled a bit, camera is better, and is waterproof. Wish the whole thing was a bit smaller to fit in the pocket more comfortably, but that's the way things are these days.

When it first came out, I loved the G, but the steady increase in size has put me off.
Wish they would release a "compact G", in the E's form factor.

dinyull

Can anyone point me in the direction where I can get a 16gb Moto G on contract?

Carphone Warehouse, O2, EE etc only seem to offer the 8gb version.

alan_sherman

Amazon exclusive in the UK

alan_sherman

Oh - and the motog 3rd gen takes a 128GB micros SD. I put one in both mine and my wife's.
I have had some slow down on the phone at times, often related to update installs, a reboot seems to complete them and restore the phone's performance. The 16GB phone would be better, especially the larger RAM, but I couldn't justify the price increase. Mine was from Tesco and came with a £20 Tesco voucher.

One thing I miss from Samsung is the physical home button to switch the screen on - I have to find the power button on the side now. Also when I put in the micro SD i set it up as an external SD so I can pull it to use in an device. The downside of this option is that the onboard 8GB fills rapidly, I do have to move stuff that I have downloaded to the SD using a file explorer app (Chrome doesn't let me specify the download folder location, Whats App uses the internal storage).

In hindsite I think I should have set the SD card to be used as 'internal memory'. My content (photos and videos mainly) gets backed up onto a NAS drive and Google photos anyway.

Sleeper Service

Wolfsbane2k wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Sleeper Service wrote:

spasypaddy wrote:

moto g latest generation

Another +1.

Definitely get the version with 2GB internal memory and 16GB RAM though.

+1 again

It is way faster than the previous version which struggled a bit, camera is better, and is waterproof. Wish the whole thing was a bit smaller to fit in the pocket more comfortably, but that's the way things are these days.

When it first came out, I loved the G, but the steady increase in size has put me off.
Wish they would release a "compact G", in the E's form factor.

It's tricky. The Moto G3 that I have is about as big as I'd go, and stretches the margins of comfortable use for even a big lad like myself. That said, I wouldn't go much lower on screen size - the most comfortable and nicest phone I've had recently was a Nokia Lumia 925, which had a 4.5" screen. I really only switched to Android because Windows Phone's app situation is really poor. Shame, as I think the actual OS is better.

schlepcycling

How about Wileyfox, either the Swift (£129) or the Storm (£199) https://www.wileyfox.com/ both SIM free, 4G, dual SIM, and expandable memory.

dinyull

Sorry for the slight hijack. Would the 8gb hd 1gb ram Moto G be sufficient for my needs?

I currently have a 8GB iPhone 4s - uses for phone aside from calls and texts are only really twitter, whatsapp and strava......and strava won't be needed once I buy a garmin in a few months.

Iphone is full despite not having anything on it, so I'd plan on a SD card for the G.

chris_bass

the 2gb version is only £25 more and definitely worth it. it is currently £150 on amazon.

kingstongraham

Chris Bass wrote:

the 2gb version is only £25 more and definitely worth it. it is currently £150 on amazon.

Agreed - the 2gb RAM makes a difference.

Snakebite the 2nd

I've had HTC on contracts now for 5 years.
On the Desire 6220 now and it does everything I want or need from a phone.

However I'm not 12, so I don't really know what's good or not.