Budget

Budget smartphone of the year for its specs, design and focus on battery life.

Realme crams in every spec it can, with bold designs he finds delightful though some might think they look like toys.

Surprisingly good even in 2022, and a smart start for Xiaomi thanks to its low price and software.

Strong specs and a better camera, but the design looked less desirable than Samsung's Galaxy S4.

Given as an example of great-value budget Android phones.

A worthwhile, slightly more camera-focused alternative to the Poco.

By far the best spec phone for the money, though it needs some fiddling with ads and launcher.

An impressive budget phone with a great screen, battery and build, but he warns that the 5G, software and camera hide compromises.

Honourable mention for extreme price-to-performance.

Best budget phone of 2021, shockingly well-rounded for about 250.

Honourable mention in the budget category as one of two pretty special phones.

Just-announced budget phone given an honourable mention.

The original Redmi Note impressed him with premium hardware at a price nobody could guess.

He sees it as a rebadged cheap Chinese phone sold at a huge markup with a misleading privacy pitch, and says not to buy it.

The 2020 budget phone the Freedom Phone appears to be a copy of, using a chipset with known vulnerabilities.

Mentioned as a cheaper alternative that is fantastic value.

Cheap phone that matched or beat the rugged phones in durability tests once given a cheap case.

A Xiaomi Mix rip-off with an impressive near bezel-less design for about $170, before Doogee turned dodgy.

Rebadged Oppo phone that gets away with it because it is still good value.

A seven-year-old phone that looks and runs amazingly well with Ubuntu Touch.

Arguably better value than the Realme 7, with lots of good stuff for the money.

Beastly hardware and excellent battery life for the money, but let down by ads in the software and some shady pricing and marketing, though…

Used as a price comparison in the UK, it looks like it is from a different decade next to the Poco X3.

A 2010 phone that barely works today and was unusable for any real tasks.