8 Best Cheap Phones (2025), Tested and Reviewed

Samsung Galaxy A36 for $400: With a higher price, you’d think the A36 would be even better than the A26, right? Wrong. The Galaxy A36 (6/10, Wired Review) hits many highs, including a bright display, good battery life, and solid cameras, but storage isn’t expandable, and performance was oddly more choppy. 6 years of software support is nice, but if operating the phone is already annoying, I can’t imagine what it will be like in 6 years. It’s an okay phone, but you can do better.

TCL 60XE Nextpaper 5G for $250: TCL’s 60XE (7/10, Wired recommended) has an anti-reflective matte screen called NXTPaper that limits blue light entering your eyes for better sleep and reduced eye fatigue. There’s no evidence to suggest that blue-light blockers work, but if you ignore those claims, this is still a great budget phone with a pleasant matte screen. There’s a switch on the side that lets you flip between different display modes that take the screen closer to a monochrome or color E Ink experience, which is great for fans of e-readers. The display is good, the camera is good, and there are extra features like a headphone jack and a microSD card slot. The only problem is that the screen is difficult to read in direct sunlight.

Motorola Moto G Power 2025 for $300: The Moto G Power (7/10, Wired Recommended) is a notch below the Moto G Stylus 2025 above, and while I think it’s a good smartphone, the performance is more sluggish than competitors like the CMF Phone 2 Pro. You get some of the same features as the Stylus, like an IP68 water resistance rating, a headphone jack, a microSD card slot, and wireless charging, but it has an LCD panel, and the starting storage is 128GB.

Moto G Play 2026 for $180: Motorola’s new Moto G Play 2026 adds 5G connectivity for the first time. However, performance is still quite sluggish, with apps and webpages taking several seconds to load. If you want to pay a lot less money, this will work, but I think you should buy the Moto G Power 2025 instead, as it’s often on sale for around the same price. Although the Power’s performance isn’t amazing, it’s significantly better than the Play, and has stronger cameras and more features.

Motorola Edge 2025 for $400: The Edge has a waterfall display, which is a cool effect where the glass edges of the phone sink into the edges, creating a bezel-less effect. This is a dying breed of phone because, turns out, the glass edges can obstruct the touchscreen and make using the phone annoying. It’s not that big of an issue here, but my main issue is that the performance is a little tough for a phone at this price. The weak software update policy makes it hard to recommend over competitors like the Pixel 9a.

Minimum phone for $499: Do you want to reduce your dependence on smartphones? The minimalist phone (6/10, Wired Review) has an e-paper touchscreen and a physical keyboard, but it runs Android. This means you can still access every app you want through the Google Play Store, but the experience is going to suffer due to the phone’s low refresh rate (good luck watching videos on this thing) and small monochrome screen. Still, if you want to get rid of doomscrolling it’s a good option (or maybe even a second phone).

Samsung Galaxy A16 for $200: Samsung’s Galaxy A16 still hasn’t quite reached the heights of the Galaxy A14, and that’s largely due to the sluggish performance. Sure, Samsung is promising six years of software updates, but that remarkable update window means nothing when the phone is frustratingly slow, and you want to throw it out the window. If you plan to barely use this device, but want something from a trusted brand that will remain secure, the Galaxy A16 is fine. Its performance isn’t competitive with other similarly priced phones.

Nuu N20 for $130: Right after testing the Galaxy A16, I moved on to the cheaper Nuu N20. The color surprised me. Yes, it may still be sluggish, but the performance on this nearly $100 phone is far better and manageable. I used it for a week and had no major problems. Well, except for one: the GPS on this device isn’t great. The few times I used it for car navigation, it had difficulty finding my location, and it was slow to update the map. The other big problem? The N20 currently runs Android 14, so it’s already out of date, and the company told me there is “no exact schedule for software updates.”

Sonim XP Pro 5G for $550: This robust phone is only sold through Verizon, but I tested it on Google Fi and had no connectivity issues. (Fi is powered by T-Mobile’s network.) I’ve dropped this Android phone on the sidewalk (intentionally) several times, and the screen hasn’t cracked. It is quite durable, and that is the main reason to buy it. By itself, this isn’t entirely impressive—you can buy more powerful, feature-rich phones for more money. The camera is particularly bad, constantly delivering blurry shots unless you stand still like a statue. But performance is good, it comes with 256GB of storage with a microSD card slot, and it has a customizable button that you can set to trigger shortcuts or open apps.

Nothing Phone (3A) Lite for £249: The Nothing’s Phone (3A) Lite (6/10, Wired Review) is one of the confusing smartphones in its lineup. The CMF Phone 2 Pro exists and is similar in price (CMF is a sub-brand of Nothing), and in general, there are better phones you can buy for that money. The cameras are weak, and there’s a lot of bloatware, which seems contrary to Nothing’s philosophy. The performance is good, as is its battery life, but this phone also isn’t launching in the US.

Which phones should you avoid?

hmd vibe
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

if you have your eye on someone Cheap Phones, try to stick to name brands. There are many smartphones you’ll find cheap on Amazon, but whatever you buy you’re going to be loaded with your personal information and photos – it’s important to make sure it’s a reputable brand with good security practices (or at least some kind of record that it releases security patches).