And customers ate it up, with the Nord becoming the best-selling phone in Europe the month it launched. But last year the company did a bit of a course correction and released the OnePlus Nord, a budget option costing half the price of the flagship which was almost as good. OnePlus was the original purveyor of top quality but budget smartphones – and then it lost its way. As it stands, the top-tier OnePlus 9 costs up to £929 – a premium phone at a premium price. Why we like it: It’s basically flagship qualityįrom £25 per month with £19 upfront, Three So, without further ado, here’s my guide to the best budget and mid-tier smartphones… In the below reviews, I’ll outline the key features of the cheaper models and advise how they stack up to their top tier counterparts. If you don't care about those things, you can save a pretty penny. Costs are cut by taking out features like wireless charging, extra camera lenses, or by making the phone's chassis from plastic rather than strengthened glass. First brands like OnePlus and Honor came along to challenge the idea that you have to pay top dollar for a decent device and then the big players took note. Apple, Samsung, and Google have all started to release cheaper versions of their devices to suit those on a tighter budget.Īnd – honestly – these devices are generally very, very good. Although the flagship devices ( reviews of which you can read here) such as iPhone 12 or Samsung Galaxy S20 are technically superior, usually it’s in ways that don’t really matter to the average version. You could easily buy a used car for the price of a brand new iPhone these days.īut recently, small pockets of resistance to ever-escalating prices have formed. Consequently, smartphone prices ballooned. Phones stopped being a useful tool to communicate with others and became status symbols – the more expensive they got, the higher the social capital they bestowed. Since the first iPhone arrived in 2007, the smartphone arena has had a 'premiumisation' problem. If I had to name my favourite tech trend of the past five years, I would have no hesitation in choosing the rise of the budget smartphone.
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