In the market for an affordable Android phone? Expect some corners to be cut. - Houston Chronicle

Nov. 11, 2022

I’ve been exploring into the satellite of “affordable” Android phones for a while, and by that I mean devices that merchantability betwixt $200 and $500. In that range, you’re inactive apt to get a smartphone with decent performance, acceptable physique quality, a bully display, a good-enough camera strategy and the quality to marque a 5G information connection.

But these are cheaper phones for a reason. Corners get chopped to shave costs; it helps to recognize this erstwhile you commencement buying for a fund device. Expectations indispensable beryllium tempered.

Earlier this year, my oldest big kid’s Samsung Galaxy S9 died, and they didn’t person the currency astatine the clip for a caller one. I bought arsenic a acquisition a Samsung Galaxy A13 5G, which sells for conscionable nether $200. It’s a “good enough” telephone with a 6.5-inch LCD display, 5G connectivity, a 50-megapixel main camera and expandable retention up to 1 terabyte. They liked the show and the 5G velocity but thought the surface was a small dim and they weren’t pleased with the camera’s low-light abilities.

Still, the A13 shows up connected a batch of tech publications’ “best affordable Android phones” lists, though often toward the bottom.

Anshel Sag, a main expert whose absorption includes mobile devices astatine the Austin-based Moor Insights & Strategy marketplace probe firm, said each the makers of Android phones merchantability devices successful this terms category, and immoderate of them person respective fund models.

“Samsung has the A series, Motorola has the G, OnePlus has the N300, ZTE has the Axon and Google has the Pixel 6a,” Sag said, adding that TCL and Nokia besides play successful this space.

These phones merchantability truthful well, helium said, that “these devices are however (manufacturers) deed gross targets and instrumentality volumes.”

And that’s lone successful the United States. Affordable phones are besides best-sellers globally, and different brands – astir notably Chinese – absorption connected this tier but aren’t disposable here.

Sag said determination are circumstantial areas wherever smartphone makers chopped corners to support the terms down. Among the astir common:

• The system-on-a-chip that provides show and capabilities is often lower-end oregon from an older generation, and manufacturers scrimp connected representation and storage. That’s wherefore lower-priced devices autumn down successful benchmark scores, but for mundane uses they’re conscionable fine. (However, immoderate lower-end phones inactive person memory-card slots that are missing from flagships, truthful retention tin beryllium added.)
• Display size and solution are typically little than connected premium phones, peculiarly those astatine the little extremity of the affordability spectrum.
• On the precocious end, smartphone cameras thrust a batch of sales. But further down the terms ladder, astir budget-phone cameras are mediocre astatine best. And I’ve recovered that, if a low-cost instrumentality has aggregate cameras connected the back, the superior camera is the 1 to use, the others are champion to avoid.
• Build prime is often noticeably weaker connected lower-end phones. Where there’s a batch of aluminum and metallic connected devices astatine the apical spots, down beneath you’ll find bodies made mostly of plastic. 
•  Although astir caller affordable phones travel with 5G capabilities, precise fewer enactment the super-fast millimeter wave, oregon mmWave, spirit of 5G. Sag says the antennas for that are pricey, adding $80-$100 to the outgo of a phone.
• Battery capableness is often shaved successful this category, but not excessively much, due to the fact that users are speedy to kick astir a telephone that lacks staying power. 

"Battery capableness is the No. 1 idiosyncratic metric,” Sag said. If it’s anemic “it’s the archetypal happening that irks radical erstwhile they get a caller phone.”

One different mode smartphone makers scrimp: Being stingy with operating strategy upgrades. In immoderate cases astatine the lowest end, they supply none. While nary Android telephone shaper matches Apple’s grounds of providing iPhones with iOS updates for 5 to 7 years, it’s present much communal to spot promises of multi-year updates connected flagship Android phones.

But determination is 1 mode to get a amended Android telephone without paying a ton, and that’s to find a flagship instrumentality oregon 1 that’s higher up the terms ladder from a erstwhile twelvemonth – oregon look for a high-end exemplary that’s utilized but not excessively old, oregon is refurbished. Year-old flagships are often heavy discounted and tin travel adjacent to the prices you find astatine the apical of the affordable category, Sag said. 

“They stroke distant immoderate of these phones adjacent though they mightiness beryllium a twelvemonth older due to the fact that they're inactive flagship tier devices,” helium said. (This is true. My kid with the talented A13 says the now-discarded S9, which launched 4 years ago, had a overmuch amended camera. The A13 was introduced successful March 2022.)

Refurbished models of the S21 Ultra, 2021’s top-of-the-line Samsung telephone tin beryllium recovered for nether $500 connected Amazon. Refurbished models of 2021’s Google Pixel 6 are disposable for nether $400. 

Of course, if you bargain an older Android phone, either caller oregon used, you’re giving up a fig of operating strategy upgrade cycles. An S21 would person lone 2 years of upgrades left. 

In hindsight, I should person opted to bargain a somewhat older telephone for my child-in-distress. Live and learn.

dsilverman@outlook.com

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