The best budget phones are a vital part of the market as not everyone wants to spend $1,000 or more on a phone. For our purposes we set the upper limit for budget consideration at $500, there are a number of options for much less, but that's the ceiling.
If you are fine spending more than $500 you can check out our best smartphones, you'll find a few of budget options there along with the $600 to $1,200+ flagship phones. With that said, stick around and see if you can save yourself a lot of money with one of these more affordable phones. Whether you value a great camera, excellent battery life, or even a stylus, we can find the best budget phone for you.
At $499 the Pixel 7a sets the upper end of our cheap phone charts, but it earns its top spot on this list by punching well above its weight with its cameras, performance, special features, and software support. If performance and software support are your biggest concerns for your budget phone then look no further than the iPhone SE (2022). Samsung's Galaxy A54 is another potentially compelling budget option with a 120Hz display that puts the Pixel and iPhone to shame, strong software support, and a premium look and feel that holds up against Samsung's best.
The best budget smartphones
- Google Pixel 7a
- iPhone SE (2022)
- Samsung Galaxy A54 5G
- OnePlus Nord N200 5G
At $499 the Pixel 7a is the best value in the phone world, that's why it is the first phone to land at the top of both best budget phones and best smartphones. The Pixel 7a features improved cameras, a new 90Hz display, and dramatically improved battery life.
While the lack of a true telephoto camera and the relatively weaker Tensor G2 chipset keeps the Pixel 7a from being a true flagship, it's powerful enough for any typical smartphone task and all but the most intense games. And on the telephoto front, the Pixel 7a delivers excellent photos with its 8x digital zoom, so it may not be a "Space Zoom," but it has some reach when you need it.
Google made it clear in recent years that it wants to be known as a great "value proposition" in the market and the Pixel 7a represents that notion perfectly.
See our full Google Pixel 7a review.
Apple’s latest iPhone SE makes one major hardware update to the iPhone SE (2020) with the leap to the same A15 Bionic chipset found in the iPhone 13. It makes multitasking and mobile gaming a breeze on its bright and colorful 4.7-inch Retina display. It’s not the only premium feature that was transplanted over from other premium devices, with the SE able to use wireless charging and retaining the signature iPhone glass and metal design.
However, the SE’s camera remains its downfall, at least on paper. We know the brains of the iPhone 13 managed to make the jump to the SE, but the eyes didn’t. While the 12MP rear camera is fine, that’s about all it is. The SE’s powerful SoC will attempt to boost that relatively weak camera with enhanced computational photography prowess, but we'll need to see it in practice.
The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G does a solid impression of its pricier siblings for $450, including that 120Hz display, an impressive four years of OS and security updates, and a modern design that looks like a colorful version of the Galaxy flagships.
The Galaxy A54 also boasts a triple camera array on the back, unlike many of its budget competitors, but sadly the wide and ultrawide are joined by a macro lens rather than a telephoto. Overall it still delivers solid photos, but the Pixel 7a easily outclasses it.
If you can get a deal on a Galaxy S23 to score one for under $600 then by all means there are reasons to pay up for the flagship Samsung phones, but at $450 the A54 is a solid all-around phone that should hold up well for years of use.
The OnePlus Nord N200 5G is easily the most affordable 5G phone that we've seen so far at just $240. The phone boasts a premium look that holds up to phones that sell for 2-3x as much.
This is the best sub-$250 phone I’ve used all things considered. I am still blown away by the fit and finish OnePlus delivered in a phone this cheap, but of course there are some tradeoffs to hit that price point.
The camera is my biggest complaint camera, if photos and videos are a major concern for you with your phone then the Nord N200's cameras fall flat. It’s always possible for OnePlus to improve the software, but don’t buy the phone counting on that happening.
Software support is my other major critique. It’s a budget phone, but you only get one software update which is arriving within a few months of this phone launching — that's unacceptable even at this price point.
If you can look past those two flaws, this is an otherwise fantastic phone. If you want a premium-looking phone without spending a premium price then this belongs on your short list.
See our OnePlus Nord N200 5G review
