Phone fans are always waxing lyrical about the best phones on the market, with their 4K displays, 200MP cameras, and 10-second charging times. It may seem hard to find recommendations for people whose budgets don't cover those features. Luckily, lurking away under the premium surface, there's a gold mine of amazing mid-range and budget phones that don't get talked about as much. Well, now I'm talking about them.
To give you some guidance on which phones released this year offered great value for money, here are a few hidden gems that you should consider buying if you're on the market.
To make this a true 'hidden gems' article, I've excluded the phones on our list of the best cheap phones: the iPhone 13, Pixel 8a, OnePlus 12R and Samsung Galaxy A35. I've roughly listed them in price order, so don't bother scrolling very far down if you're looking for a bargain, but it's not exact as there are some overlaps between currencies.
Samsung Galaxy A16
Many phone fans (and Samsung itself, if its website is anything to go by) ignore the Samsung Galaxy A-range of budget mobiles beyond the A3- and A5- entries, but that's a shame because this family of phones offers some decent value for money.
Take, for example, the Samsung Galaxy A16: at $269 / £169 (roughly AU$420) it's one of the company's least exciting phones. It doesn't fold, it doesn't come with a stylus, it doesn't have a camera so powerful that it can see through the fabric of time. But who needs those features anyway?
That low price tag will get you a big 6.7-inch screen, 5G connectivity, a generous 5,000mAh battery, three rear cameras (50MP main, 5MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro) and six years' of Android updates. Can you really be sure that a $1,000+ slab of fragile glass will last that long?
The Galaxy A16 is obviously not going to wow phone fans and from my experience, these Galaxy A-series phones are quite slow, but slow and steady is what most people want in a mobile anyway.
Moto G85
A list of cheap phones would never be complete without an appearance from Motorola. It's spent the last few years dropping foldable phones and premium mobiles in an attempt to convince you that it's butting head with Samsung, but it can't fool me: I'll always see Moto as one of the most reliable makers of cheap and cheery Androids.
Take, for instance, the Moto G85, which is one of the more premium entries in Moto's G-series. It costs $240 / £299 but it could almost pass for a member of the companies' mid-range Edge series.
The specs list is impressive when you consider the price: it has a Snapdragon 6- series chipset, 6.67-inch 120Hz FHD+ display and 5,000mAh battery with 30W charging. As many Moto phones are, it's not exactly a photography powerhouse, but its curved-edge screen looks like something you'd normally have to pay twice as much for.
Honor 200
We wrote a glowing Honor 200 Pro review, but did you know that many of that mid-ranged phone's features are also present in this more affordable alternative? It costs £499 ($630, AU$1,000) normally but it's already been reduced down to £299 (around $380, AU$600) so it's going here in the list.
The Honor 200 has a 50MP main and 50MP telephoto camera, joined by a 12MP ultrawide snapper, and it touts all the portrait modes that we loved in our Pro review.
Elsewhere, it has 100W charging, a 5,200mAh battery, a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, a 6.7-inch FHD+ 120Hz display and a range of really funky designs. It's everything you'd expect from a mid-range phone plus a few cutting-edge extras.
OnePlus Nord 4
In my OnePlus Nord 4 review I found it to be a powerful little fellow, more so than you normally see in low-cost phones, making it great for gaming. However my favorite aspect was its screen, which has tech to make it easier to press when your fingers are wet. It sounds minor, but it's really, really useful.
This phone costs £429 (roughly $550, AU$820) although there are pricier options with way more RAM and storage than you need.
The chipset that makes it fast is a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, paired with 12GB or 16GB RAM, and its display is 6.74 inches diagonally with a FHD+ 120Hz check-box. It has fast 100W charging for its big 5,500mAh battery, and its cameras are a 50MP main and 8MP ultrawide combo.
In my review, I found that the software was a little buggy, but that was conducted four months ago, so updates have probably smoothed some rough edges.
Oppo Reno 12 Pro
Perhaps pushing the 'budget phone' part of this list is the Oppo Reno 12 Pro, which I include because I called it a Google Pixel 8a rival in my review and that's in our best cheap phones list.
It costs £499 / AU$999 (roughly $640, but it's not on sale in the US, and those similar-looking ones on Amazon are cheap knock-offs), so it's the priciest option on this list. Despite that, it has some trappings that make it obviously a budget handset, like its bland design and software that's chock-full of bloatware.
But the Oppo Reno 12 Pro brings the heat where it matters. It has a punchy display, some impressive camera features and lovely fast charging. It ticks all the boxes of a mid-range phone and exceeds a few expectations, too.
Oppo is talked about a lot for its premium mobiles, like the Find X8 Pro this year, but I've always maintained that its Reno line of mid-rangers are the ones to watch. The Reno 12 Pro is evidence of this with competitive features for its cost.
