{"id":478,"date":"2025-06-13T23:25:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T19:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/the-best-budget-smartphone-you-can-buy\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T23:25:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T19:25:26","slug":"the-best-budget-smartphone-you-can-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/the-best-budget-smartphone-you-can-buy\/","title":{"rendered":"The best budget smartphone you can buy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You can get a great budget device these days if you know how to pick your priorities. | Image: The Verge<\/figcaption><\/p><\/figure>\n

Some of us take a kind of \u201cI eat to live\u201d rather than an \u201cI live to eat\u201d approach to gadgets. They\u2019re tools that help you get things done, not something you want to invest a lot of time or money in. If that\u2019s you \u2014 and there\u2019s no judgment here from a certifiable gadget nerd \u2014 then you can probably think of more worthwhile ways to spend $1,000 than on a phone.<\/p>\n

Budget phones to the rescue. These devices are roughly $500 or under, though not all of them, and they\u2019re more capable than ever. You won\u2019t get all the bells and whistles, but you will save a little money to spend on, I don\u2019t know, actual bells and whistles. It\u2019s your world.<\/p>\n

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How we test<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no shortcut to properly testing a phone; I put my personal SIM card (physical or otherwise) in each phone I review and live with it for a minimum of one full week. I set up each phone from scratch, load it up with my apps, and go about living my life \u2014 stress testing the battery, using GPS navigation on my bike while streaming radio, taking rapid-fire portrait mode photos of my kid \u2014 everything I can throw at it. Starting over with a new phone every week either sounds like a dream or your personal hell, depending on how Into Phones you are. For me, switching has become\u00a0so routine that it\u2019s mostly painless<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Strong software support<\/p>\n

At least a couple of years of OS upgrades and, ideally, three years of security updates. There\u2019s no point in buying even a cheap phone if you have to replace it after just a couple of years because it stopped getting security patches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A good screen<\/p>\n

Since you look at it roughly two thousand times a day, your phone\u2019s screen is one place you shouldn\u2019t compromise. An OLED has richer contrast and color than an LCD, and the big screens on today\u2019s phones really need at least a 1080p resolution. Faster refresh rates like 90Hz and even 120Hz are becoming more common on budget phone screens, but for my money, a smooth-scrolling LCD doesn\u2019t look as nice as an OLED with a standard refresh rate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Serviceable storage space<\/p>\n

If you plan to hang onto your phone for a while, you\u2019ll want enough storage space to accommodate all the system files, photos, and videos you\u2019ll accumulate over the years. Ideally you\u2019ll get at least 128GB built in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One good rear camera, not four mediocre ones<\/p>\n

Upgrades like telephoto cameras and optical image stabilization are rare in the under-$500 class, but you can still expect good, basic performance in good lighting from any modern smartphone. Low light is trickier. Phones in this class should offer a night mode to help with non-moving subjects in very dim light. And there are no bonus points awarded for adding extra macro and depth cameras to pad out the rear camera array \u2014 those 2- and 5-megapixel sensors are pretty much useless.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In this article<\/strong><\/h5>\n
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