Affordable Android Excellence: Best Smartphones Under $200 in 2024
Affordable Android Excellence: Best Smartphones Under $200 in 2024
Experience the best of Android without breaking your budget! Explore our selection of top-rated Android phones under $200.
While flagship smartphones boast impressive features, spending $1,000 is not a prerequisite for a satisfying Android experience nowadays. If you’re in need of a new smartphone and have a budget of approximately $200, there are numerous excellent options available. Surprisingly, some of the best Android phones under $200 come equipped with features like 5,000mAh batteries, multi-lens camera setups, and the promise of extended software updates.
We thoroughly evaluate various Android phones to ensure optimal performance without encountering unexpected issues down the line. If we were to recommend one Android smartphone in the sub-$200 price range, it would be the latest addition to Samsung’s lineup, the Galaxy A15 5G. Boasting a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED screen, a sizable battery with 25W fast charging support, and more, it offers a compelling package. Alternatively, consider Motorola’s Moto G Play (2024) for a straightforward yet functional device.
I just wish they were smaller. I'd love to have a Nexus 4-sized phone again.
Sony made compact versions of their flagship phones until somewhat recently. They were good, and even had basic open-source OS support. I hope they revive that product line.
Another thing I'd like to see more of is relockable bootloaders, so that we can have something like GrapheneOS without Google hardware.
This is the main reason why I buy the a series pixel phones. Generally they are smaller. Not small enough IMO, but smaller than the major flagships for sure.
This! I recently bought a new smartphone and I don't get why screen size has constantly inched up, and pretty much across all price ranges! I'd understand if it was just gaming or photo-oriented ones..
If this goes on we'll all end up with comically large clown phones.Looks at my Mode one Retro ii Tiny? Check! All day battery? Check! 200$? Check! Do I get called "flip phone" now? Big check!
Unihertz!
...tempting! I enjoy the QWERTY keyboard phones as well. Wonder if they'll bring back the fold-out keyboard that I lusted over back in 2011...
And then how long do you get any updates?
Updates matter shit these days. Honestly. If you have Android 10 or higher 99% of Playstore Apps work today and honestly after Android 10 we haven't gotten any noteworthy new features.
Not talking about App compatibility but Security. The packaged Linux Kernel literally doesnt get any updates.
Afaik Android apps can have a min SDK and a target SDK, and if an app wants to support a modern SDK with all the cool features it cannot have a very low min SDK. And also afaik Playstore apps need to be updated often to stay on there, but not sure how strict
Article is copied from https://www.androidcentral.com/best-android-phones-under-200
Their recommendations seem a little bit arbitrary though. And Androidcentral recommended 6 models but Gizchina left one out, the Nokia N100. No idea why.
Because it is not Chinese.
Samsung isn't Chinese either.
Damn, Nokia G100 seems to not be available on the German market. :(
They are all shit they all come with bloat/adware harvesting your data. So may as well get a cheap one if you need to have one. You're getting taken for a ride either way. If you can buy one with a vanilla or hardened and privacy oriented one then thats another story.
When I bought my phone a few years ago, motorola offered one with relatively stock android, no forced install of facebook or whatever, several years of (timely) android updates, and a large battery. A few years down the line, I'm still getting updates and the battery still lasts days.
And it was plastic and came with a cover, so it's survived the occasional fall just fine.
Honestly don't get why you'd spend more on something that can so easily be stolen.
Also they are probably not repairable at all.
Part of the high cost is ensuring that you support the phone not just software wise but also with spare parts for some time and those ultra cheap phones usually do neither
No, opposite on the hardware front. The cheap phones tend to be much more physically repairable, and 3rd parties make parts essentially forever.
Honestly in my mind the best phone is a used one with lineage, like my oneplus 8t was $130 it's in great shape with 256gb and I'm relatively confident it'll receive updates for years to come from Lineage.
I’m sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but do older phones running Lineage still receive updates? Say, Samsung S9, is it worth installing the OS despite its age? Not too knowledgable on this area, just wanna learn!
Looks like Samsung Galaxy S9 is still receiving updates. Last build (nightly) was like today.
Budget Redmi 4A from 2016 just got updated to android 14.
Yeah this is absolutely true, I bought a used oneplus 9 last year for $200 and it is so much better than anything new you can get for that price.
I'm running lineage on a moto g7 I got for $150. It works pretty well for the most part, but it chugs a bit when I try to use a browser
This article seems like each piece was written by the companies themselves. Like it says the A15 only.charges at 25w and then uses words like " charges rapidly at 18w" on the next phone. Really shitty writing.
gizchina.com is an unreliable source for impartial information?!
NO WAI!
Almost like they just threw a bunch of press releases into an AI and let it jumble them into an "article".
My elderly clients tell me $200 is too much for a phone. They want it to be $50 max. It's always a big hassle
$200 is too much for a phone. That’s why it’s also web browser, Walkman, gaming device, TV, recipe book, accountant, computer … of course, you know this.
Right, but to them it's all worthless features. Except YouTube they like that
Flip phone
Surely they won't complain then...
I got a flip phone for $20. They're not wrong if all they need is calling and possibly texting.
Used Moto G then
I'm currently using a pixel 5a with grapheneos. A little slow, but otherwise great! Usb-c AND a headphone jack? I feel like that gen was far too short.
200 really is enough for a phone if i am being honest unless you need grapheno or camera you are never gonna see a difference.
If you are shopping for sub 200$ buy used. I have bought a Note 9, S10E, LG G8, ... for under 80$ each. Imagine what 200$ gets you.
None of these are getting updates though.
Although I daily hate the operating system, my cheapish xiaomi has 120w charging and I never knew I'd love that so much! I can charge to 100% in half an hour!
I bought Pixel 8 for about $650 and installed GrapheneOS on it. Pretty happy so far.
My experience with the galaxy a series is they break the first time you drop them . But it's been about 2 years maybe it got better .
I've had the A34 for a couple of months now and everytime it's fallen off from bed it has withstood the fall
It depends mostly on the surface material. I can comfortably drop my phone from head hight onto a wood flor, but a drop onto a tile or cocrete floor is leathal from waist height.
I've been rocking a Galaxy A52 bought new up to now. Dropped it many times than I could count. No issue except for the back panel glue breaking apart. Nothing I had to break my bank fixing.
Nice . I had much worse luck . I broke 3 galaxy A phones ( can't remember the exact names , one was the A5 ) my Galaxy S21 seems in destructible. I slipped on some ice and my phone flew 10 feet in the air and landed on pavement with no issues . Also dropped it in a bunch of cat used cat litter someone had dumped in the garbage for my apartment and had to wash it with dish soap and water . Plus my son dropped it a few times from shopping cart height.
Their parts are pretty cheap and easy to repair.
I bought a Moto G Stylus 4G a few months ago for $39. The Blue Box had some online special for some reason. It's hard to believe how cheaply you can get a nice phone.