Recs for Android smartphone around €200-€300?

YumCha

Hi,

Am finally upgrading from my dumb phone, and have decided on getting an Android, but am pretty overwhelmed with the choices out there, as well as the various networks/plans etc.

Here's what I'm looking for:

Features: Pretty basic, just standard things like bus times, maps, email, social media, whatsapp etc. - don't care much about camera quality or listening to music... I do care about speed though, as anything that's a pain to use will just annoy me!

Handset cost: Am happy to pay around €200-€300-ish for the handset (prefer the cheaper end). Don't mind buying secondhand either.

Operator: Currently spend around €20-ish per month on top ups with Vodafone but not fussed about staying or going. Am a pretty low-volume user (mostly texts, only a few calls) and don't see that changing.

I'd prefer to stay on pre-pay if possible although given that I've had my current phone for the last 5 years it's not really out of the question to go billpay either.

Initial thoughts from my limited research are maybe the Nexus (but not sure which one!) or Samsung Galaxy mini?

Thanks

Stormington

Hello,

Just spotted this and figured I'd throw in my 2 cent, while the euro currency still exists.

I do care about speed though, as anything that's a pain to use will just annoy me!

If that's the case I recommend you go for something with at least 1 GB RAM: I've gone from an Xperia P to a Huawei Y300 and the speed difference is noticeable but not enough to bother me, personally, as I simply haven't been playing games lately. For everything else its fine (Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, Face, Gmail, Twitter, Chrome) and there's little to no lag.

Phone: For around the €300 mark you should be able to pick up an S3 second-hand online while around €250 gets you a new S3 mini. If there's a 50 squid difference between a new S3 mini and a second-hand S3 I'll tell you to spend the €50 every single time, though. But that's just me.

You can always go for a Chinese phone (Jiayu, Oppo, Meizu) but that involves the risk of buying from outside the EU: some lads on here have bought some of them already and they're apparently great phones but there's always the problem of what happens if they're faulty. Some places have great customer service, and some don't. You might want to ask around to find out more about it.

Another option is the Nexus 4, although getting one is easier said than done. They come unlocked so swapping between networks isn't an issue. They're about €350 for the 16gb version which I recommend as a minimum for a phone without expandable storage.

My own phone is a Huawei y300 and was only €99 from emobile and I paid €5 for it to be unlocked online. I mention it as it's probably the best of the 'cheap' Androids, which I normally tell people to avoid like the plague as they give Android a bad name for being laggy and frustrating to use (Sony Tipo/xperia e, Samsung Galaxy Ace/Mini/Y, Vodafone Smart 3 mini, Alcatel OT903 - those kind of phones). I would recommend you not buy Sony, as a general rule.

Networks - there's actually a good choice of networks here in Ireland. If you're mostly texting and only making a few calls then I'd suggest 48 as for €20 a month you get Unlimited mobile calls (60 mins to landlines), unlimited texts and 5gb of data which will be more than enough for all of the apps I named earlier. Tesco, Lyca and 3 are others I would recommend in order to keep the costs down for payg users.

I tend to avoid Billpay as most of the deals are quite expensive in the long run, even if you factor in the cost of a phone although its probably an easier way of getting your hands on a high-end phone like the S4 or HTC One.

Dermighty

How much would a 1 year old HTC One X sell for?

I'm due an upgrade in September, maybe I can offload my old phone when I buy a new one.

donegal.

i bought one of these guys. Go for a grade a and it'll be like new
http://www.smartfonestore.com/buy_product.aspx

add £20 for postage, and you'll need to buy a usb charger.
samsung s3 works out at about €275.
iphone 4 for €210

Brianrh

I bought a sim-free Huawei Ascend P1 a few weeks ago for £175 from Expansys:

http://www.expansys.com/

After my Samsung Galaxy W running CyanogenMod CM10.1, it was a lot quicker and I am very pleased with it. Battery life is excellent being able to get over 3 days use between charges.

Brian