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 Alcatel 1, to the surprisingly accomplished Samsung Galaxy A10 and the stylish Moto E6s, 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 Alcatel 1 is the cheapest smartphone, but it’s certainly one of the cheapest widely available ones, coming in at as little as £30 on Pay As You Go at the time of writing.
For that, you get a 5.0-inch 480 x 960 screen, a quad-core 1.3GHz chipset, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, a 2,000mAh battery, a 5MP rear camera, and a 2MP front-facing one.
It’s extremely basic then, but it runs Android, so it’s certainly still a smartphone, and as it runs Android Go its core apps are also small in size and power requirements, so the Alcatel 1 runs better than you might expect.
Having said that, unless you really just want to spend as little money as possible we’d recommend any one of the following phones over this.
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.
The Moto E6s scrapes in just under £100 but packs in a lot for that money, including a 6.1-inch 720 x 1560 display, a dual-lens camera (with a 13MP main sensor and a 2MP depth sensor), a 5MP selfie snapper, and a 2GHz octa-core Helio P22 chipset.
That’s a low-end chipset, but still decent for the money, and it’s paired with 2GB of RAM – which is fairly standard at the price.
Other notable points include a 3,000mAh battery, a 3.5mm headphone port, a rear mounted fingerprint scanner, and a colourful plastic shell that’s sure to catch the eye, and helps it stand out amongst other super cheap phones.
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 or from smaller stores, allowing it to squeeze onto 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 A9 (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.
There’s also the Samsung Galaxy A20e, which costs around £140 and has a 5.8-inch 720 x 1560 screen, a dual-lens camera, an octa-core chipset, and a fast-charging 3,000mAh battery.
You can also get the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T for around £150 or the Moto G9 Play for roughly £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 a 5,000mAh battery, a 6.5-inch 720 x 1600 screen, and a triple-lens camera, as well as a near 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 Alcatel 1 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 Honor 8S is in last place but has a great screen for the money, the Huawei Y6 is great for audio and video, the Moto E6s has style on its side, 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 Samsung Galaxy A20e, Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T, Moto G9 Play, or Oppo A9 (2020).
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