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Ask HN: Cheap but decent quality Android smartphone?
Looking to purchase phones that are being used by customers on a rental basis.
- WheelsAtLarge 10y agoI use a LG Optimus Zone 3 - black - 4G LTE - 8 GB - CDMA - smartphone. It's a good basic phone. I bought it for about $10.00. It's hard to beat. Overall it's a good basic phone, apps run at an acceptable speed. I can run the major apps. The screen is large enough but not too large to get in the way. The camera is very basic but it does the job. I don't play games so I can't speak to that. The biggest draw back is the amount of memory available for apps. It's very low. I only keep a 2 or 3 of the major apps at one time. You can't beat it for the price. Specially since I could probably buy 30 of these phones and still be below the price of some of the expensive popular android models.
- beagle3 10y agoWhere do you get it for $10? Amazon sells it for $40, verizon for $70
- WheelsAtLarge 10y agoI looked at my invoice from Best Buy and it was $9.99. I guess it was on sale but even at $40.00 it's not a bad deal.
- ValentineC 10y agoAre phones sold at such cheap prices carrier-locked?
- WheelsAtLarge 10y agoYes, but in my case I am a Verizon customer so it does not matter. I've read that they will unlock it after a year of service.
- Fej 10y agoDefine "cheap".
- tixocloud 10y agoWas looking at about $100 max.
- manvsmachine 10y agoMoto G4 or G5 (when the 5 comes out). The Moto G pretty much invented the category of inexpensive, solid performing phones with a non-tampered-with Android experience.
- zwerdlds 10y agoSeconded. I have a Moto G3. Cheap, solid, beater that IDGAF about key scratches. Never had any hardware issues. Root-ready by the mfg, running Cyanogen from day 1.
- undersuit 10y agoMy Moto G(1) has been my phone since October 2014. I've even been running Android N for most of 2017. My only wish is that I had got the LTE version, but StraightTalk wasn't offering LTE at the time... and I honestly thought I'd have a new phone by now.
- 0942v8653 10y agoWas just about to suggest the Moto G. A computer science class in high school (we paired up with a tech school) used these phones as a class set. Solid build, not too expensive, good stock experience, not-noticeably-bad performance.
- auxym 10y agoOwn a G4 Play, highly satisfied. Long battery life. Minor downside: no compass.
- eb0la 10y agoI've had some trouble with moto G4 - just google for phantom touch. If you use the device for email, etc.. probably you won't notice. For development/testing is a mess.
- lurker_primo 10y agoPlease note that Moto G4 doesn't have the compass. That means Google Maps is not as accurate. I've had problems with inaccurate location(or current location jumps around) on Maps when I'm in situations where there is a mix of stop and go, and freeway traffic. I didn't have this issue with Nexus 5 which has a compass. (It could be an issue with Moto's GPS receiver too)
- el_isma 10y agoXiaomi redmi, all the models, according to your budget.
- xeromal 10y agoI tend to use this site when making recommendations. https://www.stockdroids.com/ https://www.stockdroids.com/ I believe this was posted to hackernews a few months back.
- bussierem 10y ago> Limit size to 4.7" screen (size of my iPhone 6s) > Most recent releases that aren't made by CAT are in 2015 Seriously, why can I not find a good REASONABLY sized phone?!
- jseliger 10y agoAnandtech has got you covered: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9770/best-android-phones http://www.anandtech.com/show/9770/best-android-phones
- bussierem 10y ago$600, "High end", $450, followed by "We have no suggestions for a budget category in the US right now" OP specifically asked for "cheap" phones. This article doesn't seem to give him any good options.
- atmosx 10y agoI have a Elephone P9000 it is decent but has flaws and for one it is not half as smooth as a half-powered iPhone 5S but does the job and I enjoy the extra disk space and the clear, huge screen, playing HD videos. I bought it online at 200 bucks, not sure if its cheap or not. Was cheap compared to my previous mobile, the iPhone 6S
- gaspoweredcat 10y agoi had a p9000 and was reasonably impressed too, while maybe not the best battery life and its fingerprint reader was somewhat inaccurate for the price it was a generally good phone (not a patch on the lenovo p2 that replaced it for the same amount of cash though) Mine started having issues though, very random ones too and no matter what i did software wise i couldnt seem to fix it, eventually i noticed why, although it had seemed to survive my motorcycle crash it was in fact bent like a banana!
- maxerickson 10y agoGet at least 16 GB, people will complain a lot when 8 isn't enough.
- krbotmario 10y agoI agree
- tixocloud 10y agoHas anyone heard of InFocus phones? We were able to rent these in Hong Kong but I've never heard of them before.
- imauld 10y agoSamsung Galaxy J7
- gaspoweredcat 10y agoLenovo P2 a damn fine device all round that packs one real killer feature, the best battery life you will see on a smartphone. its combination of the snapdragon 625 chip and gargantuan 5100mah battery have seen me through 4 days of my normal usage (around 11-12 hours SOT) not only does it pack solid battery life but its a generally nice device, 4gb ram, an AMOLED screen, dual sims (or a sim and microsd) running a pretty close to stock android (recently updated to android N) im from the UK so prices will be in GBP here, im not sure how they translate to the US but the phone can be had on contract for £20 a month or £199.99 on pay as you go from Three (Unlocked)
- thorin 10y agoIf you are in the uk I've had a good experience with wiley fox phones. Have a look on their website and on amazon.
- Indronil 10y agoxaiomi has a lot of low cost amazing phones
- Indronil 10y agonote 4, redmi 3s , I have a redmi 2 prime for almost over a year now its amazing
- Malarius 10y agoWiko, has pretty solid products in the range 80-200€. http://world.wikomobile.com/p-wiko-new-products http://world.wikomobile.com/p-wiko-new-products