Our list of the best smartphones available in 2018 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 Pixi 4, to the surprisingly accomplished Alcatel 3V and LG K8 (2017), are available to buy in the UK and we’ll continue to update our list throughout 2018 and beyond.
Anyway, enough talk and on with our list of the best smartphones available for under £100 - along with a few other handsets worth considering if you can stretch your budget a little bit further.
At around £45 the Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) is one of the cheapest smartphones you can get, yet it handles the basics well, with 4G, a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek chipset and 1GB of RAM.
It also has a microSD card slot, so though there’s only 8GB of storage built in there’s plenty of room for expansion.
The Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) is a chunky phone, but reasonably well built, and the 2,000mAh battery is removable, which is an increasingly rare feature and makes it easy to replace.
The Pixi 4 (5) also sports a 5.0-inch 480 x 854 screen, an 8MP rear camera and a 5MP front-facing one. Just be careful you buy the right model, as there are several versions of the Pixi 4, each with a different number in brackets at the end. They’re all solid budget options, but the Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) is our pick.
Wileyfox isn’t a big name in phones, but it’s carving out a space in the budget niche, and one of its cheapest handsets is the Wileyfox Spark.
At around £75 this is very affordable, yet includes a 5.0-inch 720p screen, which is bigger and higher quality than most sub-£100 phones. The Spark also has 8MP cameras on both the front and back and a decent build quality.
The Wileyfox Spark supports 4G for speedy data, has a removable 2,200mAh battery, which is a decent size for a 5-inch phone, and it sports a 1.3GHz quad-core chipset and 1GB of RAM.
It even runs Android Nougat, which is a newer version than some budget phones, and it has a microSD card slot, so you can boost the 8GB of included storage by up to 32GB more. It’s only a small step up from the Alcatel Pixi 4, but it’s also only slightly more expensive.
At just £50 SIM-free the Huawei Y3 is remarkably cheap, and that low price tag is definitely the best thing about it, but it’s a surprisingly functional smartphone too, that even stands out in some ways.
Beyond the price the Huawei Y3’s main highlight is its long-lasting 1,730mAh battery, which will easily last a day and can potentially stretch to two.
The camera is pretty good for the money too. It’s just a 5MP snapper, but it has a dual-LED flash, which many pricier phones lack, so it can take decent shots even in low light, while the 2MP front-facing camera is perfectly capable of taking a social media-worthy selfie.
The Huawei Y3 is a basic phone in other ways, with a quad-core processor and a 4.0-inch screen, but as a back-up phone or a super cheap option it’s a strong choice.
LG is making a number of impressive budget phones, with both the LG K3 and the LG K8 available for under £100.
The LG K3 is a mere £70 on pay as you go, which is an entry-level price, but it’s got a strong selection of specs and features for the money.
These include a sizeable 4.5-inch screen – which is almost as big as the iPhone 8’s, and enough pixels for a clear 218 pixels per inch.
The LG K3 is also on a more recent version of Android than some cheap phones – Marshmallow, to be precise, so it benefits from a polished interface and many of the latest software features.
And with a quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM there’s plenty of power for basic tasks, while both front and rear cameras should have your photography needs covered and the K3 even has 4G and NFC, which are rarities at this price.
The Nokia 2 is more basic than you might expect given its £100 price, but it still has enough going for it to justify a high place in this list.
For one thing, you get a near-stock version of Android Nougat, which is a refreshing change to the manufacturer bloat found on many Android phones.
The Nokia 2 also sports a quality screen, with a 5.0-inch 720 x 1280 panel delivering a pixel density of 294 pixels per inch, which makes it decently sharp for the money.
But the real highlight is surely its enormous 4,100mAh battery, which could potentially last you two days between charges if you don’t push it too hard.
The Snapdragon 212 chipset and 1GB of RAM mean this isn’t overly powerful and there’s only 8GB of storage, but you can augment that with a microSD card.
Priced at around £90, the LG K8 (2017) is at the upper end of pricing among phones that can be had for £100 or less, but it’s also one of the best, thanks in part to its quad-core MediaTek MT6737 chipset. That’s a low-end chip to be sure, but it’s still got many in this price range beat.
The LG K8 also has 1.5GB of RAM and a fairly stylish design, with a textured plastic back that’s comfy to hold and easy to grip.
The front stands out too, thanks to 2.5D arced glass on its 5.0-inch 720 x 1280 screen, which comes in at a crisp 293 pixels per inch.
The K8 sports a removable 2,125mAh battery, which can see you through a day and – as it’s removable – also makes this a great choice if you’ll be away from a charger for longer, as you can simply carry a spare battery with you.
With a 13MP rear camera too along with a 5MP one complete with gesture controls there’s a lot to like here, especially considering the low price.
The Alcatel 3V is newer than most phones in this list and it’s also better, giving you a really quite staggering amount for under £100.
It has a massive 6.0-inch screen that’s sharp too at 1080 x 2160 (coming in at 402 pixels per inch), and it has a modern 18:9 aspect ratio.
The Alcatel 3V also has a dual-lens camera on the back, made up of 12MP and 2MP lenses, plus there’s a fingerprint scanner, so there are a lot of fairly high-end features here.
Elsewhere the specs are more ordinary but by no means disappointing given the price. It has a very shiny plastic back, a 3,000mAh battery, 16GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, a microSD card slot and a quad-core MediaTek MT8735A chipset. Oh, and it runs Android Oreo. Not bad at all. Note however that its sub-£100 price only applies on certain pay as you go plans - it's closer to £150 SIM-free.
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 Samsung Galaxy J3, which has a fairly large and fairly sharp 5.0-inch 720 x 1280 display, a respectable 1.5GB of RAM for solid performance and a decent 8MP camera, all for just £120.
Then there's the Honor 5C, which is ever so slightly pricier at around £125, but more than justifies the outlay with a stylish metal build, a 5.2-inch 1080p screen for crisp visuals, a powerful octa-core processor and even a strong 13MP rear camera and 8MP front-facing one.
Or how about the newer Honor 6A? That's actually slightly cheaper than the 5C at around £120 and includes a 5.0-inch 720p screen, an octa-core chipset, a 13MP camera and a metal shell. Or for just a little more you can grab the Honor 7A, which packs a bigger 5.7-inch screen and a dual-lens rear camera.
Or you could grab the ZTE Blade V7, which comes in at around £130 and with a slim metal body, a 5.2-inch 1080p screen, an octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM and solid a 13MP camera is hard to resist if you're shopping on a budget. The ZTE Blade V8 is better still, but costs closer to £200.
And then there’s the Moto E4, which is a super-cheap option from Motorola, though still comes in at around £120. It sports a 5.0-inch 720 x 1280 screen, a near stock version of Android Nougat, a quad-core chipset, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP rear camera, a fingerprint scanner and a 2,800mAh battery which supports fast charging.
Or for around £10 more you can get the Moto E5, which has a bigger 5.7-inch screen, a much bigger 4,000mAh battery and more power, among other things – we’d say it’s worth the extra.
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 Pixi 4 (5) comes in last place in our list, simply because it’s not as good as the other entries, but with its amazingly low price it’s still worthy of a place. The Huawei Y3 and Wileyfox Spark are almost as cheap but pack slightly more of a punch, the LG K3 is a great basic option for the money, the Nokia 2 has superb battery life, the LG K8 (2017) has style on its side and the Alcatel 3V 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 an awful lot more for your money with the Honor 5C, Moto E5 or ZTE Blade V7.
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