Best Phones on a Budget 2025
Great Phones at a low price
But Why?
he Samsung Galaxy A16 punches above its weight in the budget phone category. Its vibrant OLED display is a standout feature, offering rich colors and deep blacks rarely seen at this price point, making media consumption a joy. 128GB of storage provides plenty of room for apps, photos, and videos, a welcome upgrade over the often-limited storage found in other budget devices. Paired with a decent amount of RAM (typically 4GB or 6GB depending on the region), the A16 handles multitasking and everyday tasks with reasonable smoothness. The 50MP main camera captures surprisingly crisp and detailed images in good lighting, offering versatility for everyday photography. A long-lasting battery (often around 5000mAh) ensures you can get through a full day of use without needing a recharge. While performance might not be flagship-level, it’s more than adequate for daily tasks, social media, and casual gaming. If you’re looking for a phone with a great screen, ample storage, a decent camera, smooth performance for everyday use, and all-day battery life without breaking the bank, the Galaxy A16 is definitely worth considering.
The Samsung Galaxy A16, while a strong budget contender, does have some drawbacks. While the main camera is decent, low-light performance can be a bit noisy and lacking in detail. The processing power, while sufficient for everyday tasks, might struggle with more demanding games or heavy multitasking. Also, the plastic build, while durable, doesn’t feel as premium as some higher-end devices. Finally, depending on the region, it might lack some features found in other budget competitors, like a higher refresh rate screen or faster charging.
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The Moto G85 is a decent mid-range phone with a beautiful curved screen and a sleek, modern design. It runs a clean, near-stock version of Android, which many users appreciate. It handles everyday tasks well, though demanding games might be a bit much. The camera takes good pictures in well-lit situations, but struggles in low light. Battery life is decent, and it charges quickly.
Overall, it’s a good choice if you prioritize a nice screen and solid everyday performance, but serious gamers or low-light photographers might want to look elsewhere. While the G85 offers a premium feel and clean Android experience, the Samsung Galaxy A16 might be a better choice for those prioritizing a more versatile camera system and longer software support, though it may lack the G85’s sleek design and smooth display.
The CMF Phone 1 is a budget-friendly smartphone offering a unique modular design with customizable back panels and accessories, making it a potentially fashionable choice for those who like to personalize their tech. It features a vibrant AMOLED display, impressive battery life, and fast charging. However, its camera performance is underwhelming, particularly in low-light, and it lacks an ultrawide lens, a feature present on the similarly priced Samsung Galaxy A16. The phone’s plastic construction might also be a drawback for some.
In short, the CMF Phone 1 is a decent choice for those prioritizing affordability, a customizable and potentially stylish aesthetic, a good display, and long battery life, but those focused on camera quality, especially the versatility of an ultra-wide lens, should look elsewhere, perhaps towards the Galaxy A16.
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But Why?
The Nokia G20 is a solid option if you are looking for a stock Android 11 experience with guaranteed software updates and amazing battery life for under £200. The device has a 5050mAh battery paired with an almost stock Android experience that results in two days of battery life, the only downside to the battery performance is that the phone only supports 10W charging, so expect the device to take a while to charge, the phone has 64GB of internal storage and 4GB of RAM which is standard in this price point, and is more than enough for most users, the device also has a 48MP main camera which delivers nice detailed pictures and comes with a quad-camera set up for extra flexibility the three other Cameras are an ultrawide, depth and macro although I would only recommend using the main and ultra as the other two don’t really add much and are more just there to have a quad-camera set up. The display is a 720p IPS 6.5″ screen which actually has nice colours and seems fairly sharp. Some of the negatives of this phone are the processor the Helio G35 which even at this price point is quite slow, you will notice the occasional stuttering and apps do not load the quickest, you will especially notice the phone struggling if you plan on using it for more demanding tasks like gaming, don’t expect to play in anything other than low settings. The design of this phone is also a negative for me, the bezels around the screen are quite chunky and I’m not a fan of the Nokia logo on the chin of the phone, with the big battery and bezels around the screen result in a very bulky phone so if you don’t like large phones this isn’t the phone for you. Although I like the colour options more interesting than the standard boring black.
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The Apple Watch is one of the best smartwatches on the market with tonnes of features, both health related and smart, and offers lots of customisation. Plus with Apple Pay you can conveniently make payments.
If you want a watch with smart features that you don’t have to charge every night, then this is for you. It’s has lots of health tracking features and even gives you notifications from your phone, in a traditional watch build.
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But Why?
The Moto G50 is a good choice if you are looking for a stock Android 11 experience, with good smooth performance and 5G futureproofing. The Moto G50 is Motorola’s cheapest 5G phone for 2021, although I feel like Motorola need some praise for not including 5G in the name, the phone has a 5000mAh battery and Android 11 out of the box, giving you solid battery life, this is paired with the Snapdragon 480 5G and 4GB of RAM which is a reasonable chipset for this price point, you should be able to get decent performance when gaming and the phone runs nice and smooth thanks to the 90Hz display, which is good to see at this price! The phone comes with 64GB internal storage which is on par for this price, you wouldn’t really want any less storage than that in 2021, you get a 48MP main lens which is what you expect on a budget 2021 phone, it does give some nice natural colour tones in the images when compared to Samsungs at this price. This phone surprisingly only has a triple-camera setup unlike most quad-camera setups at this price and unfortunately, this doesn’t even include a useful ultra-wide camera, this only includes depth and macro lenses, both of which are basically pointless and are just there to up the camera count. One of the biggest downsides to this phone is the Moto G30, which if you are not too fussed about having 5G gives you better cameras and similar performance as the G50 which is about £20 cheaper, so if you don’t care about the future-proofing of 5G I would recommend saving a bit of money and going for the Moto G30. Finally with the device having a 6.5″ display and a 5000mAh battery does, unfortunately, mean the phone is big and bulky like most are in 2021 so if you want a small phone this isn’t for you.
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Probably the best Windows laptop, great build quality, great display, fast performance and good battery life. Not the best for gaming but you’d want to look into a gaming laptop for that.
Not a fan of the Touch Bar and thick bezels? The MacBook Pro 16 takes the M1 Mac Pro 13 and puts it on steroids, giving you better performance, screen and more ports. But it can get very expensive.
