Best cheap phones 2025 tested — February 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. The Google Pixel 8a delivers premium features in a sub-$500 phone, costing just the same as its predecessor. And even though it's been replaced by a new model that costs more than $500, the OnePlus 12R still offers a top experience for phone buyers on a budget.

Despite being the latest budget model from Apple, the iPhone 16e doesn't make the cut because of its higher $599 cost. However, that doesn't prevent iPhone SE 2022 from remaining on our list because it's still widely available.

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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The best cheap phones you can buy today

Best cheap phone overall

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.

Longest-lasting phone

The OnePlus 12R is the first R series phone from OnePlus to get a global release, and it's a welcome addition to the world of smartphones. The phone draws its design cues from the OnePlus 12 flagship, while scaling back some features for a lower price tag. For instance, the OnePlus 12R runs on last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, but this isn't really a hardship — the Qualcomm silicon delivers outstanding performance and long battery life, with the 12R lasting more than 18 hours on our battery test.

Cameras don't perform as well as the ones on the Pixel 7a, so turn elsewhere if you want a low-cost camera phone. Also be aware that the $499 model of the OnePlus 12R is not available in Europe — there, you'll have to buy the more expensive 256GB version of the 12R. But if you can get your hands on the sub-$500 model, you'll find that the OnePlus 12R excels at performance and staying power — two things that are good to have in any phone.

OnePlus has released the OnePlus 13R but that phone costs $599, as there's no 128GB edition of the new model to keep the price under $500. As a result, it's out of contention for best cheap phone, though it's still a great alternative to flagship phones, especially since OnePlus improved the camera performance on the new version.

Read our full OnePlus 12R review.

Best cheap phone design

Who says that you have to sacrifice looks for a cheaper price? The Nothing Phone 2a still delivers the stylish translucent look and helpful Glyph interface found on the Nothing Phone 2, but for hundreds of dollars less. We're also impressed by the big, bright 6.7-inch display, which offers an adaptive refresh rate, as well as how long this phone lasted on our battery test.

Nothing is giving this phone a global launch, though U.S. shoppers will need to order it through the phone maker's developer program. With a price of $349, that phone may be worth tracking down, even with some disappointing low-light camera performance and choppy graphics. The Nothing Phone 2a looks good enough to overcome those flaws, and it delivers in some other key areas like battery life, fast charging and value.

Even though the OnePlus 12R is the longest lasting phone on our list, the Nothing Phone 2a's time of 15 hours on our battery benchmark test is pretty impressive.

Read our full Nothing Phone 2a review.

Customizable design

Although it's not as stylish as some of Nothing's phones, the CMF Phone 1 is just as much of a standout as one of the best cheap phones around thanks to its modular design.

Even though the specs paint it as an entry-level model, I really love how the CMF Phone 1 offers an adaptable design unlike anything else I've seen thatlets you swap out its casing for other and attach additional accessories like a lanyard, phone stand, and even magnetic wallet. Powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G, it doesn't reach the same high scores as other phones I've tested, but this Android phone offers just as much utility when it comes to the basics. I also like how Nothing OS 2.6 looks on this budget phone, with the same dot-matrix style layout with the icons and widgets.

Best of all, its battery life for its size and price point makes it hard to overlook. In our testing its 5,000 mAh battery propels it to reach 15 hours and 19 minutes on a full charge, which makes it one of the most power efficient phones out there.

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.

Bigger Pixel Savings

The Pixel 8a may be here, but that doesn't mean the Pixel 6a has to go away. You can still find the phone for around $349 through other retailers, which makes for a better case than how the Pixel 7a is still being sold by Google for $499. For that cost, we recommend going with the Pixel 8a.

The Tensor G1 chipset inside the Pixel 6a adds to its appeal. That’s the same silicon inside Google’s more expensive Pixel 6 flagships. As a result, the same AI-powered tricks Google’s flagship phone can pull off are available to the Pixel 6a, too, including the photo-editing Magic Eraser tool and on-device translation.

Even as an older device, the Pixel 6a provides excellent photos that measure up well against other budget devices. Android OS support will continue to run until 2025, so this phone won't have the shelf life of the Pixel 8a, but it's still a viable option among the best cheap phones.

Read our full Google Pixel 6a review.

Best cheap iPhone

When it debuted nearly three years ago, the iPhone SE 2022 took cheap phones to the next level of performance by including Apple's still-powerful A15 Bionic chip. That was the same chip Apple used in the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 14, and even though Apple's now up to the A18 on its latest flagships, that older chip still packs some punch.

Even with just one camera, the iPhone SE 2022 benefits from software features like Smart HDR 4, Magic Fusion for better detail and Photographic Styles. That kept the iPhone SE among the top-performing camera phones for under $500, though the more recently released Pixel 8a easily beat Apple's phone in a 200-photo face-off.

The iPhone SE features the same design as the 2020 model, so that means a small 4.7-inch display and big bezels. Even though Apple announced its successor, the iPhone 16e, this model sees a significant price hike at $599. Paired with how the iPhone SE 2022 continues to be available from a variety of retailers, we're keeping the third generation model on our list.

Read our full iPhone SE 2022 review.

Best phone under $300

The OnePlus Nord N30 5G isn't as capable as the phones we've ranked above it, but it also isn't as expensive, either. At $299, this is the phone to get for people with a hard budget of $300, as OnePlus' budget phone nails the important details people look for in a mobile device.

You get a big screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, and while the OnePlus Nord N30 isn't a performance powerhouse, it does manage power efficiently. The Nord N30 lasted 12.5 hours on our battery test, with its display in adaptive mode, which is a very impressive result.

The 108MP main lens looks good on paper and captures more detail than you may be used to from a budget camera. But it's inconsistent camera performance that keeps us from being more enthusiastic about the OnePlus Nord N30. Nevertheless, for less than $300, you get a very capable phone that delivers more value than you might imagine.

Read our full OnePlus Nord N30 5G 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.