What's the new favourite budget phone?

[Guest sej7278]

My sister's thinking of replacing her Blade (I know, traitor!) for Xmas as she's fed up of crap 3G battery life and was wondering what's the new < £200 favourite Android?

The Skate, Crescent, Moto Defy+ and Huawei G300 that I could think of look a bit old now.

She'd want ARMv7 and stock ICS (JellyBean via CM10 is fine). More than 512mb RAM would be nice too as she's always running out of space even with move-to-SD.

Are the cheaper Moto Droid, LG Optimus, Sony Xperia or Samsung Galaxy models worth looking at?

Not interested in 2nd hand or on contract.

Has to be SIM/bootloader unlockable and rootable.

Probably completely the wrong place to put this, but its the place i hangout and respect the opinions of you lot

Edited October 30, 2012 by sej7278

[Guest Sulthekk]

What about Nexus 4? It's basically an Optimus G, but with pure Google support (Which means lots of updates) ...

I'm not sure about the british price, but I read something like 299$, which I think is under 200£.

[Guest ..Abel..]

nexus 4 is the best option!!!! Phone that can beat even the s3

[Guest sej7278]

What about Nexus 4? It's basically an Optimus G, but with pure Google support (Which means lots of updates) ...

I'm not sure about the british price, but I read something like 299$, which I think is under 200£.

as usual us brits are getting screwed over, £239=$384 for the 8gb model or £279=$448 for 16gb.......

[Guest t181]

Maybe ZTE Grand X ?

[Guest sej7278]

Maybe ZTE Grand X ?

at £200 its a bit pricey for the spec - 512mb, tegra2, horrible responsiveness.....

[Guest Sulthekk]

at £200 its a bit pricey for the spec - 512mb, tegra2, horrible responsiveness.....

Grand X IN (the Intel Atom version)?

[Guest xondrax]

what about ZTE U950? new phone from today...http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/29/ztes-u950-tegra-3-phone/

Edited October 30, 2012 by xondrax

[Guest lineone]

maybe this thread might interest you :)

[Guest b4da55]

Dont think the zte is available in uk yet.may be wrong. You say the g300 a bit old but 6 mths after release there's no phone for the price that can beat it that i know off. It also has the specs you require. Like ^ though china is doing amazing things at the moment. Damn parentage :D

[Guest sej7278]

don't fancy an atom cpu, the ones i have in my netbook and netop's are crap and the number of arm apps must really outweigh the x86 ones.

zte u950 looks ok, no idea why vendors are still selling ics phones though, we're already on the 3rd version of jellybean ffs. huawei honour 2 looks better but twice the price. not sure if either will come to the uk though.

gotta say the nexus4 is a lot of bang for the buck - you'd have to be insane to pay twice the price for an s3 or iphone5. full aosp support is nice too (albeit boring for tinkerers).

[Guest -ION-]

My next one will be the JiaYu G3

[Guest]

The Huewei G330 is coming out soon, that has dual core 1ghz cortex a5 and Adreno 203 graphics, 512mb ram and 4gb rom. That looks to be around £150-160 ish. The tegra 3 zte u950 is decent too and zte and lenovo are bringing out a phone with a MediaTek MT6589. This supports LTE i think and is 28nm so good battery life, quad core cortex a7 1.2ghz: http://www.gizmochin...mt6589-chipset/

So i'd hold off buying at the moment seeing as all these nice new phones are coming out soon.

All of these lower end companies thinking of charging £250 for these mid-range phones are going to have to lower their prices now that the nexus 4 is under £250 delivered.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Guest

[Guest iShubham]

What about Nexus 4? It's basically an Optimus G, but with pure Google support (Which means lots of updates) ...

I'm not sure about the british price, but I read something like 299$, which I think is under 200£.

I strong agree this! I myself will go for nexus 4 when it comes out! :)

specs are worth more than what cost it is..

[Guest]

New ZTE Nubia Z5 quadcore phone announced: http://translate.goo...ne-brand-nubia/

There are very little specs available unfortunately. It is out in China in december.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Guest

[Guest Shahmatt]

I've ordered a Jiayu G2. The dual core 1GHz version with 1GB RAM, 2000mAh battery and dual sim.

It's slightly more than a 100 pounds and can be rooted easily.

I haven't got it yet. Will post a short review when I try it out.

[Guest]

huewei ascend d2 announced too: http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/2012/10/31/huawei-and-zte-tease-5-inch-tabletsmartphone-hybrids/

[Guest sej7278]

lol 5" screen is crazy for a phone, no wonder it comes with a 3000mah battery! any ideas what the ascend d2 will cost?

1gb/quadcore phones are definitely coming down in price! i guess phone manufacturers have to aim well under £250 or their potential customers will just go for a nexus4.

[Guest ufizo]

sony TIPO?

[Guest Santiago97]

The San Diego... its a great phone... no custom ROMs at the moment, but it'll get there as well...

[Guest]

some phones will be quad core cortex a7. You are right that huewei, zte and other smaller manufacturers won't be able to charge more than £240 due to nexus 4. I reckon £220 is the max they can charge for their highend phones otherwise people will just buy nexus 4.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Guest

[Guest sej7278]

The San Diego... its a great phone... no custom ROMs at the moment, but it'll get there as well...

lol, with intel chipset its unlikely to get any custom roms either.

[Guest El Pablo]

The Huewei G330 is coming out soon, that has dual core 1ghz cortex a5 and Adreno 203 graphics, 512mb ram and 4gb rom. That looks to be around £150-160 ish...

I've been looking at the HTC Desire X and Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 which are a similar spec to the G330, but are available now for around £230-£250 respectively. I was wondering whether to wait for the G330, but now the Nexus 4 pricing is announced, it's made a lot of (perhaps all?) mid range and high end phones seem poor value. It's as if my choices are low-end budget android phone or Nexus 4.

[Guest sej7278]

I've been looking at the HTC Desire X and Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 which are a similar spec to the G330, but are available now for around £230-£250 respectively. I was wondering whether to wait for the G330, but now the Nexus 4 pricing is announced, it's made a lot of (perhaps all?) mid range and high end phones seem poor value. It's as if my choices are low-end budget android phone or Nexus 4.

yup. its either < £100 or nexus4 or > £500 iphone/gs3, the mid-range is dead now.

[Guest Snap.IT]

yup. its either < £100 or nexus4 or > £500 iphone/gs3, the mid-range is dead now.

I'll probably buy an Alcatel OT 995 Ultra for about £130.

It seems nice enough and cheap enough at the moment.