Even cheap smartphones are now replacing navigation systems, cameras, music players and much more. We show the ten best cell phones up to 200 euros that you can get in 2022.
High-end smartphones today easily cost more than 1200 euros. They have great cameras, top notch screens and an incredible amount of features. But for most tasks – social media, Spotify, Netflix, web browser, navigation and many other apps – a much cheaper model is sufficient.
Fortunately, the times when cheap mobile phones were basically useless are long gone. Entry-level devices already come with extraordinary equipment and have long stopped disappointing with no-go features such as resistive touchscreens or a lousy display resolution. In fact, some representatives of this price range lure with OLED, 90 Hz screen and 5G. Nevertheless, a few things should be considered if you want to buy a cheap smartphone. We show what they are.
Age and Android version
The age of the devices plays a role that should not be underestimated. Although older models are cheaper than when they were launched, even high-priced smartphones often no longer receive updates after two or three years at the latest – even if that is fortunately slowly changing. This is often the case with cheaper smartphones, so there are neither new Android versions nor patches for security gaps.
An exception are smartphones with Android One (best list: top 5) , which usually have an update guarantee of two years and receive security patches for three years. Unfortunately, there are almost no more current Android One smartphones. But that doesn’t matter: All smartphones in our list use Android 11, some even Android 12 – that’s remarkable for smartphones under 200 euros. Because of the update problem and because we are now in the second half of 2022, we have only included smartphones from the current year in our list of the best.
Storage
Not only older smartphones have little memory, even halfway up-to-date models sometimes offer very little space. Certain limits should not be undershot even with cheap smartphones up to 200 euros. RAM should not be smaller than 4 GB, below that it quickly gets stuck.
The internal data memory should not fall below 64 GB in times when even mobile games can have more than 1 GB and can be expanded via micro SD card. All the models listed here are beyond any doubt, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal, usually expandable memory are easily available for up to 200 euros. It even comes with 6 GB of RAM and/or 128 GB of mass storage – so why should you settle for less?
screen
The display size is basically left to your own taste, but the image sharpness should not fall below a certain level. As a guideline: below 275 pixels per inch, content quickly appears blurred, but 300 ppi (pixels per inch) and more are welcome. This can be tight with HD resolution, but you are on the safe side with Full HD displays (1920 × 1080 pixels or more). Accordingly, all of our listed models have Full HD+. AMOLED displays are still rather rare in the lower price regions, but there are exceptions and there may even be more in the future.
