The Best Budget Phones in 2021

Featured Product: Samsung Galaxy A52 5G | $500 | Amazon

Today’s flagship phones pack a punch, but many of the top options are pushing four figures. That’s wild. Truth by told, you might be surprised at how good today’s best sub-$500 phones are.

Spending less than $500 on a phone means you won’t get the most power or crispest screen on the market, but it’s entirely possible to get one with a great camera, smooth performance, and possibly even 5G support. Budget phones aren’t usually flashy, but the best of ‘em have it where it really counts.

Here’s what our friends at Gizmodo think of today’s top smartphones under $500.

Best Budget Phone: Google Pixel 4a

Google’s Pixel line, like the Nexus phones that came before it, showcases pure, slimmed-down Android. You don’t get the customized manufacturer interfaces, extra apps, or other nonsense: just Android, as Google intended. And the Pixel 4a slims things down even further, eschewing the flashy extras for the most important features in a smartphone, at an affordable price.

“You get a single flat screen, a camera in the front, a camera in the back, a fingerprint reader, and a headphone jack for $350,” explains Sam Rutherford in Gizmodo’s review. “If the Pixel 4a is supposed to be the essence of smartphone simplicity, I think Google nailed it.”

You don’t get the extra color choices (originally; there’s now a Barely Blue variant), size options, or a multi-camera layout, but it does the important stuff well—including that camera, which is better than you’re likely to find on most budget phones. It’s also one of the more powerful devices on this list, which is good for longevity—as are the software updates you get straight from Google.

It doesn’t have an official water resistance rating, which Rutherford notes is a sour point for that peace of mind, but the overall package is still incredibly compelling. “It’s damn near impossible to find a better phone in this price range without turning to one of its spec-heavy Chinese rivals,” he notes—which rarely work well on US networks anyway. If you want a solid Android phone at a more budget-friendly price, the Pixel 4a is it.

Best Budget 5G Phone: Samsung Galaxy A52 5G

Samsung may be best known for its top-end flagships, but the company’s mid-rangers have become significantly more appealing by the year. The newly-released Galaxy A52 5G is the best version yet, delivering a big and beautiful 6.5” 90Hz display, strong cameras, good performance, and sub-6Ghz 5G support. It’s not the most stylish-looking phone, but neither is its chief competitor, the Google Pixel 4a 5G (see below).

At $500, it’s a killer all-around handset. Gizmodo’s Sam Rutherford writes:

“The A52’s biggest weakness may be its lack of personality, because you don’t get any other color options to choose from, and while its design is quite solid, it doesn’t have a feature or trait that gives it a real wow factor. But when it comes to everything else, Samsung has you covered. The A52 has a big screen with beautiful OLED colors, good battery life, and even expandable storage and a headphone jack. For $500, the A52 isn’t just a good deal, it’s probably the best value in mid-range phones right now.”

Best Budget 5G Phone (Runner-Up): Pixel 4a 5G

The standard Pixel 4a should be just about enough for anyone, but if you want more—especially if that more in question is 5G support—then the more recent Google Pixel 4a 5G should do the trick. It’s a little bit larger with a 6.2” screen and packs in a secondary ultrawide camera sensor and longer-lasting battery, plus a tiny bit more processing power.

However, the biggest upgrade is arguably 5G support. It doesn’t support the complete spectrum of current 5G connectivity, leaving out the super-fast mmWave 5G that is very sparsely deployed as of now (such as Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network), but the standard sub-6Ghz flavor of 5G here is up to a few times faster than what you’re used to with 4G LTE.

“The Pixel 4a 5G’s most important components are some of the best you can get for the money,” explains Gizmodo’s Sam Rutherford in his review. “It’s got a big OLED screen when almost every other phone in the price range is using LCD. It offers strong performance and full 5G support. And its cameras are straight up unmatched. And then there’s the Pixel experience, which ensures you get day one Android updates, three years of support, and nifty software tricks like Call Screener, Duplex, the Pixel Recorder, and more.”

Best Budget iPhone: iPhone SE

I’m tired of people talking like Apple only sells $1,000+ monstrosities. I’m as quick to dunk on Apple as anyone (terrible keyboards, flexgate, dongles aplenty … the list goes on), but the iPhone isn’t only for rich people anymore. In fact, Apple has offered affordable iPhones for years, and the latest iPhone SE is the best yet. The new SE contains the same A13 Bionic processor as last year’s iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max, albeit slightly downclocked, which means the internal hardware should last you for a good number of years.

Instead of skimping on power, Apple cut costs by ditching the unnecessary stuff like an edge-to-edge screen and multi-camera layout. While those are nice-to-haves, you still get the most useful goodies, like a fingerprint scanner (which I much prefer to face unlock), wireless charging (goodbye cables!), and IP67 water resistance—plus Apple’s fantastic software support. The iPhone 12 is undoubtedly the better phone, but if I only had $400 to spend, I’d gladly take a phone that’s designed to last instead of one that tries (and fails) to act like a modern flagship. In fact, Gizmodo’s Caitlin McGarry called it “the best iPhone for most people right now,” which I’d agree with—if I were an iPhone user, it’d be at the top of my list for the next upgrade. You can get it new from Apple directly, or grab it refurbished on Amazon or Back Market for even less. (Sadly, Apple isn’t selling it refurbished yet.)

Best Sleek Design: TCL 10L

Sure, $250 may sound like a bottom-of-the-barrel price, but you might be surprised what a couple Benjamins will get you these days. The TCL 10L sports an edge-to-edge display, four cameras (okay, three plus a depth sensor), and a programmable Smart Key that you can use to launch any app you want. More importantly, budget phones tend to keep a lot of old-school niceties that flagships have abandoned, like expandable SD card storage and headphone jacks.

There are sacrifices here, of course. In Gizmodo’s budget Battlemodo, Sam Rutherford called the TCL’s camera an “adequate shooter,” with a slight edge over the Moto G Power (see below) for its ability to “nail exposure more often and with better focus.” It doesn’t handle dim light as well as some more expensive cameras, but if you don’t take a ton of pictures anyway, you’ll probably be satisfied. The Snapdragon 665 processor is far from the fastest on the market, but more than usable—Rutherford noted that “compared to budget phones from just a few years ago, it’s encouraging to see how smooth both phones are during everyday use” (referring to the 10L and G Power). “if you’re playing a game while installing an Android update, neither phone suffers from lag or stuttering.”

Don’t expect the world, but for $175 currently with a coupon clip at Amazon, the TCL 10L will get the job done.

Best Battery Life: Moto G Power

For years, many of us have clamored for slightly thicker phones with better batteries. While flagships haven’t really gone in that direction, Motorola’s G Power line has heeded the call for a few years, at a crazy-good price. This year’s version boasts a 5,000mAh battery, which Rutherford found lasted 15 hours and 44 minutes, well over the 12 hours of the TCL 10L—all while keeping the same performance and high-end perks, like an edge-to-edge display and multi-camera layout. It also has better speakers, if that’s one of your must-haves.

The G Power doesn’t have the 10L’s programmable button, though, and its camera isn’t quite as good. Couple that with a slightly chunkier build, and the TCL may edge it out for some in terms of design. “But if you’re looking for a new daily driver” at this price point, Rutherford says, “the Moto G Power is the one you want, thanks to its fantastic battery life and much better speakers.”

This story was originally published by Whitson Gordon on 10/23/2020 and updated by Andrew Hayward with new information on 05/06/2021. 

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