Our list of the best smartphones available in 2020 to buy with a budget of £100
A few years ago you had to fork out a significant amount to get your hands on a phone with a decent display, good performance and the ability to browse the internet. But the price of smartphones has decreased rapidly in recent times, meaning there are some true bargains to be had.
We’ve picked out the best smartphones that are priced under £100 (SIM-Free or on Pay As You Go). You’ll be pretty amazed at what you can get for your money, but if you've got a little more money to spend then jump to the end of the article for some slightly pricier - but still very affordable - options.
All the mobiles listed, from the incredibly affordable Moto E5 Play and Nokia 1 Plus, to the surprisingly accomplished Samsung Galaxy A10, are available to buy in the UK and we’ll continue to update our list throughout 2020 and beyond.
Anyway, enough talk and on with our list of the best smartphones available for under £100 - along with the cheapest widely available smartphone we can find, and a few other handsets worth considering if you can stretch your budget a little bit further.
With prices fluctuating and varying from store to store, we can’t definitively say that the Nokia 1 Plus is the cheapest smartphone, but it’s certainly one of the cheapest widely available ones.
Yet, it also has one of the best versions of Android, as it’s more or less as Google intended, rather than being wrapped in an intrusive skin and full of bloat, as many rival handsets are.
With a 5.45-inch 480 x 960 screen, a 2,500mAh battery, a quad-core chipset, 1GB of RAM and a single-lens 8MP rear camera, there’s not much that’s ‘Plus’ about this phone, but then the price couldn’t be described as that either.
What the Nokia 1 Plus does give you is a great take on Android, a reasonable design and build, and all the basics covered, at a tempting price.
Motorola has long been making great phones for an affordable price, and the Moto E5 Play is one of its cheapest yet, coming in at just around £80.
So just what do you get for your money? More than you might think, starting with a 5.3-inch 18:9 screen, so it’s got a modern aspect ratio.
On the back meanwhile there’s a fingerprint scanner, plus an 8MP camera, while the front has a 5MP selfie camera, complete with its own flash – which is something far pricier phones often don’t offer.
Don’t expect top-tier performance from the Moto E5 Play’s Snapdragon 425 chipset and 1GB of RAM (despite the name this won’t be great for gaming) but for general navigation and all the smartphone basics it should do just fine.
Rounding out the specs there’s 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot and a 2,100mAh battery. However, one of the most interesting features is the software rather than the hardware, as this thing runs Android Go, which comes with minimal bloat and lighter versions of key apps, so the space goes further and your phone runs more smoothly.
The Honor 8S has a 5.71-inch 720 x 1520 screen, which is a good size and one of the highest resolutions you’ll find at this end of the market.
It also has a nice design, with a small notch at the top and a 19:9 aspect ratio, making it look like a slightly pricier phone than it is.
Elsewhere it’s less impressive but still very solid for the money, packing a 13MP main camera, a 5MP front-facing one, a 2GHz quad-core chipset, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 3,020mAh battery.
The Huawei Y6 has a similar resolution to the Honor 8S, coming in at 720 x 1560, but it’s much bigger at 6.09 inches. That means it’s marginally less sharp, but you have a lot more screen real estate to play with.
Surprisingly for a budget phone it also has reasonably good speakers, with more volume and bass than most handsets at this end of the market. The screen and speakers combined make the Huawei Y6 great for media.
Other specs include a 3,020mAh battery, a fingerprint scanner, a 13MP rear camera, an 8MP front-facing one, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a quad-core MediaTek Helio A22 chipset, which are all solid for the money.
At 4,000mAh, the Nokia 2.3’s battery is one of the biggest you’ll find at this end of the market, and coupled with the generally low specs of the phone it’s beefy enough to last for up to two days between charges.
But that’s not all the Nokia 2.3 has going for it. It also has a sizeable 6.2-inch 720 x 1520 screen, and even a dual-lens camera, with both a 13MP main sensor and a 2MP depth sensor.
Plus, you get a near-stock version of Android, which is always appreciated, and a design which – for the money – is reasonably stylish.
Power impresses less, with the quad-core Helio A22 chipset and 2GB of RAM being about the minimum you’d need, but for basic smartphone tasks it gets the job done, and it’s comparable with rivals there.
The Samsung Galaxy A10 is one of the cheapest recent Samsung phones available, but it still manages to pack in a decent selection of specs.
You get a 6.2-inch 720 x 1520 screen, an octa-core chipset (so there’s more power here than most rivals), a 13MP rear camera, a sizeable 3,400mAh battery, a reasonable design, and facial recognition – though note that there’s no fingerprint scanner.
At the time of writing the Samsung Galaxy A10 is usually slightly over £100 SIM-free, but it can often be found for under that sum on Pay As You Go, allowing it to squeeze into this list.
There are other great handsets that you can pick up for not much more than £100, so if you can stretch your budget you might want to consider the Oppo A5 (2020), which has a massive 5,000mAh battery, a quad-lens camera, a 6.5-inch 720 x 1600 screen, and a mid-range Snapdragon 665 chipset, all for around £180.
Or you might want to consider the Honor 10 Lite if you can afford £130. This has a 6.21-inch 1080 x 2340 screen, an octa-core chipset, a dual-lens rear camera and 3GB of RAM.
You can also get the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T or Motorola One Macro for around £160. The former has a big 4,000mAh battery, a 6.3-inch 1080 x 2340 screen, and a quad-lens camera, while the latter has the same size battery, a 6.2-inch 720 x 1520 screen, and a triple-lens camera, but has a stock version of Android, so the software is better.
Whether you are on a really tight budget or just want to save a bit of money, one of these phones should suit.
The Nokia 1 Plus is the cheapest widely available smartphone we can find, so if you just want to spend as little as possible, that’s the one to go for.
Then onto our list proper, the Moto E5 Play is in last place but it’s remarkably cheap, the Honor 8S has a great screen, the Huawei Y6 is great for audio and video, the Nokia 2.3 has the best battery life, and the Samsung Galaxy A10 takes first place as a top all-rounder coupled with an entry-level price.
But if you can stretch to beyond £100 you can get a little more for your money with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T, Motorola One Macro, Honor 10 Lite or Oppo A5 (2020).
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