Best cheap phones 2025 tested — March top picks

There's a fierce battle for the best cheap phones title, and who you pick comes down to how much you want to pay for your phone. In a stunning change, the Nothing Phone 3a Pro takes the top spot for the sheer amount of features it offers in a sub-$500 phone. And even though it's probably going to be replaced by a new model, the Pixel 8a continues to prove that even budget phones can get access to robust AI features.

Oddly enough, no iPhone makes our list despite the iPhone 16e now being the cheapest phone from Apple. It doesn't make the cut because of its higher $599 cost, which is significantly higher than the previous iPhone SE 2022.

After testing multiple phones that cost less than $500, I believe that most shoppers can find everything they need in these lower-cost devices, whether you're looking for an affordable iPhone or an inexpensive Android handset. No matter the model, no one needs to spend upward of $800 on a flagship device when you can easily find a handset that delivers comparable features while costing hundreds of dollars less.

You'll need to make some trade-offs to get a cheap phone — forget about the most powerful processors or versatile zoom cameras — but in many cases, you'll find cameras that are good enough to get the job done and even big displays with adaptive refresh rates. And 5G connectivity is basically a given these days.

Even though I reviewed my fair share of affordable phones, my other colleagues also contribute collectively as a group for our picks for the best cheap phones under $500. If that's still too much to pay, check out our guide on the best cheap phones under $300.

Written by

Written by

John Velasco

I'm the senior editor for mobile at Tom's Guide, where I've been working since 2023. I've been covering mobile tech for 16 years in total, starting with old school feature phones and early smartphones powered by Palm OS and Windows Mobile. I'm a New Jersey native and keep up with the latest mobile tech.

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Best cheap phone overall

Google and Apple better be worried because the Nothing Phone 3a Pro redefines what it takes to be a phone on a budget. Rather than stripping away features to reach a sub-$500 price point, it actually throws in more features than what you'd expect.

Not only does it still flaunt a unique design with its translucent case that gives you a peek into its insides, but it's polished off by the Glyph Interface it employs to light up the different LED light strips on the back of the phone. For real, this phone looks and feels more like a flagship model.

Another big change is the triple camera array on the back of the phone. It's honestly unheard of among budget phones, so it only adds to its utility. What's more satisfying about them, though, is the performance is much improved — especially around low light that was a big struggle for the Nothing Phone 2a.

Over on the software side, Nothing dives into AI with the Essential Space and Key, which aims to organize everything you do on the phone so you don't forget important tasks. It also boasts all-day battery life that charges really fast with its 50W wired charging.

Read our full Nothing Phone 3a Pro review.

Best AI Phone

Google did everything right in making the Pixel 8a better than the Pixel 7a before it. Most notably, it's getting a tremendous boost over on the software side with its slew of AI features — like Magic Editor and Best Take — which it inherits from the more expensive Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro models.

If that's not enough, it sets the benchmark for all other cheap phones with its unbelievable software support. Whereas other phones barely get three years worth of software updates, the Pixel 8a goes the distance with its 7 years of major Android update, including security updates.

Over on the hardware side, the Pixel 8a benefits from a much brighter, more vibrant display that offers a 120Hz refresh rate. It battery life is also extended thanks largely to its bigger battery and the power efficiency of its Tensor G3 chip. While its camera improvements are minor, it's still one of the best in its class.

Add all of this up, while still coming up at the same $499 cost as its predecessor, the Pixel 8a is without question the best cheap phone money can buy,

Read our full Google Pixel 8a review.

Best cheap phone design

Who says that you have to sacrifice looks for a cheaper price? The Nothing Phone 3a still delivers the stylish translucent look and helpful Glyph interface as its other siblings, but packages in more features. My colleague, Philip Michaels, praises its bright and crisp 6.7-inch AMOLED display, which offers an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz, as well as how long this phone lasted on our battery test.

With a price of $379, it might be tough to track down to buy one given the limited release in the U.S. through Nothing's developer beta program, but it's worth waiting for given the big improvements around its cameras, which now includes a dedicated telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom.

Even though the Moto G Power (2025) is the longest lasting phone on this list, the Nothing Phone 3a's time of 15 hours and 24 minutes on our battery benchmark test is pretty impressive.

Read our full Nothing Phone 3a review.

Best cheap phone under $200

If you don't mind the kind of compromises you have to make to get a phone's price to drop below $200 — in this case, those would be tepid performance and a dim display — the latest version of the Moto G will appeal to your budget-minded needs. And the phone may actually surprise you with what it does offer at that price.

At this point, it's not surprising that the Moto G lasts a long-time on a charge, as Motorola makes that a key selling point with its budget phones. With a time of just over 18.5 hours on our battery test, this is the lowest-cost device to crash our long-lasting phone rankings. And 30W wired charging speeds can fill up more than 50% of the battery in just half-an-hour.

Even though you're limited to a main camera and a dedicated macro sensor, the Moto G (2025) takes surprisingly good photos, though features like portrait mode can be inconsistent. And a nice vegan leather back panel makes the phone feel a lot fancier than its budget price would suggest. Credit Motorola for finding a way to add some nice touches to its new Moto G while keeping the price nice and low.

Read our full Moto G (2025) review.

Best cheap phone from Samsung

While the rest of the world gets access to the Galaxy A55, U.S. shoppers only have the Galaxy A35 aa a midrange option from Samsung. At least the phone is a solid performer, and its $399 price amps up the appeal.

My colleague Philip Michaels praised the design of the Galaxy A35 as well as its bright, colorful display, which matches the Pixel 8a for brightness. You'll really enjoy gaming and watching videos on the 6.6-inch screen thanks to vibrant colors that proved pretty accurate on our testing. The cameras produce solid images, though you'll want to pay up for the Pixel 8a if having the best cheap camera phone is high on your wish list.

Samsung's biggest mistake as using the same Exynos 1380 chip found in its 2023 midrange models, as the Galaxy A35's performance lags behind phones with more recent silicon. That said, the Galaxy A35 offers some AI capabilities like Circle to Search support — something you don't always see in a sub-$400 phone.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy A35 review.

Best cheap phone under $300

The Moto G Power 2025 is a budget phone that prioritizes battery longevity. That's why power is in its name, as it's packed with a 5,000 mAh battery that's among the best phone battery life we've tested at 17 hours and 13 minutes.

Complementing that is its speedy 30W wired charging that gets it to 53% after 30 minutes of charging. And for a phone that costs $299, it also includes wireless charging support, which seems more like a luxury for cheap phones.

However, its Mediatek Dimensity 6300 chip underperforms, and as a result, can exhibit sluggish performance for demanding tasks. The camera system, a dual camera arrangement, can still capture high-quality images — but mainly when the lightning conditions are ideal. That's because it struggles under low light.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that Motorola now offers two years of major Android upgrades and three years of security updates. This means you can expect to hold onto this budget longer, while gaining some of the best new features of Android.

Read our full Moto G Power 2025 review.

What to look for in the best cheap phones

After you've found a phone at the right price for your budget — that's why you're considering one of the best cheap phones in the first place, after all — consider what features one of these devices has to offer and which ones you're sacrificing for a lower price tag. Battery life, the number and types of cameras, display refresh rate and the type of chipset powering the phone are all ways that cheap phones can distinguish themselves.

In some cases, you'll be able to compare phones to more expensive options to help crystalize what compromises you're making for a lower-cost model.

Generally, one area in which phone makers cut back for budget models is materials. They'll use plastic for the phone's case instead of metal and glass. Cheaper phones may also turn to LCD panels instead of OLED screens, though that's becoming less frequent among some of the best cheap phones running Android.

One other area to consider is software updates and support. We've seen cheaper Android phones either ship with older versions of Android or promise very few upgrades to future versions. Samsung has one of the better upgrade policies with its Galaxy A lineup, and the iPhone remains a standout for usually supporting five years of iOS updates.

How we test the best cheap phones

We evaluate budget-priced phones the same way we do flagships. We perform real-world testing and synthetic benchmarks over several days to evaluate it's performance and value. This includes our own battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over cellular at 150 nits of screen brightness. The devices that make our best phone battery life list tend to last over 11 hours.

In terms of performance, we use Geekbench 5 to measure overall speed and compare versus phones in the same price range. And the same thing goes for 3DMark's Wild Life Unlimited for graphics testing. We also perform our own video editing/transcoding testing using the Adobe Premiere Rush app to gauge real-world speed.

For evaluating cameras on cheap phones, we will take multiple photos in different conditions and will use other affordably priced phones in the same scenarios in order to make side-by-side comparisons.

For more information, check out our how we test page for Tom's Guide.