The best budget smartphones under £200 in 2024: Top picks perfect for budget buyers

It's particularly uncommon to find a phone under £200 with 5G connectivity, and yet the Samsung A34 can do precisely that. A brand new entry-level smartphone that's ideal for strong internet connectivity in even the most rural areas, the A34 stands on the shoulders of Samsung's flagship giants, taking valuable lessons in modern design and workhorse-like performance.

A breath of fresh air in the cost-efficient phone market, the Samsung Galaxy A34 shines with its 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and rock-steady Mediatek Dimensity 1080 processor. Browsing and navigation on the A34 is undoubtedly the smoothest of its competition, made remarkably stronger by the A34's brisk 120Hz refresh rate, doubling the standard refresh rate of phones in this price range.

We found the photography of the Samsung A34 to be particularly stellar, made only more mesmerising by its richly coloured full HD screen. Of course, photography is rough around the edges, with night images still eluding budget phones almost entirely.

Concerning battery life, the A34 has room to boast with its 48 hours of power, providing tech-addled phone wielders time enough to reach a charging point before switching off entirely.

Though there's a fantastic range of Samsung smartphones on the market, few are quite as compelling as the Samsung A34, a smartphone under £200 worth picking up almost immediately.

A cornerstone of the budget smartphone market, the Nokia G42 smartphone is impressively well-made, with a tough design, dependable hardware and best of all - a great camera for even darker settings. Rather impressively, the G42 has a brand-new Snapdragon 480 processor with 5G connectivity, providing seamless connectivity wherever life may take you.

Performance in general proves to be strong with the G42, leaving no room for lag or sluggishness when you're on the go. With 4GB of RAM, a baseline level for phones under £200, the Nokia G42 isn't suited to rigorous gaming or multitasking, but it can certainly handle its own with longevity.

Sitting comfortably with a whopping 72 hours of battery life, the Nokia G42 takes its equally respectable competition by storm, offering days of wire-free use even under moderate usage.

As for its main draw, the Nokia G42's primary 50 MP camera is solid in and of itself, but when paired with its post-processing AI functionality, the G42 truly shines. With bold, rich and detailed photography, the G42 excels without having the best lenses or the highest camera resolution, reaching a quality that is rare among cheap phones.

Yes, its simpler post-processing techniques compared to high-end smartphones might appear heavy-handed, occasionally oversaturating images in a bid to pack pictures with colour, but the G42 is ahead of the curve compared to its competition. If you're looking for a terrific phone for photography, that's less than £200 (by a strong margin), you must consider the Nokia G42.

A fantastic smartphone offering reliable multi-day performance, the Honor X7b has a spectacular design comparable to that of a far costlier device, with impressive hardware that vastly exceeds its 2022 predecessor, the X7a.

Adopting a far more modern design, the X7b ditches its garish quadruple camera square which often exposes budget phones, for a far more contemporary, minimalistic aesthetic. Combining an enticing full HD screen and 90Hz refresh rate, the X7b's display looks and feels fresh, separating itself from the majority of budget phones.

We particularly enjoy the Honor X7b's punch-hole camera aesthetic, which doesn't detract from its screen space with intrusive screen islands or rigid home buttons. Instead, its modern design maximises its 6.8 inches of screen space for the best possible visuals at its price.

Compared to its more recent competition, however, the X7b's screen does appear duller, despite its full-HD resolution. Smartphones such as Samsung's A34 offer stronger visuals than the X7b, but simultaneously lower smoothness when browsing, leaving budget shoppers to decide between aesthetics or performance.

Photography on the X7b proves to be solid on the X7b smartphone, working best in daylight with detailed, clear images, all thanks to its 108MP triple camera. On paper, a 108MP triple camera might sound remarkably good for its price, just don't expect miracles from this budget device: the Honor X7b can suffer from distortion in low-light conditions and lacks the refinement of high-priced smartphones, so picture-taking isn't as easy to perfect on a higher-priced model.

If you're lured in by the promise of new technology and therefore stronger hardware, prepare to be sufficiently satisfied: the X7b's impressive 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage greatly bolster the X7b's potential as a primary device. Browsing, multitasking and navigation feel fantastic for a phone of its price, and Honor certainly doesn't disappoint in delivering reliable functionality with the X7b.

Its most reliable feature, however, is the X7b's battery life, which lasts nearly three days without a whiff of charging. Such a high capacity on a smartphone is rare, even amongst flagship phones, so we were more than impressed with the X7b's survivalist smartphone potential.

When it comes to value, few phones can go toe-to-toe with Honor's X7b: from its impressive screen technology to its general performance, build quality and battery life, it's one of the best phones for battery life of the year - let alone one of the best phones of the year at its price.

A remarkably cheap smartphone from Motorola, the 2023 Motorola Moto G54 performs incredibly well at a budget price, combining a strong 120Hz screen with 8GB of silky-smooth RAM. Using the G54 for typical functions, be it social media scrolling, or general navigation is perfectly satisfying, but there's certainly a snappiness to it that greatly exceeds its price.

Though not the best quality smartphone build, its appealing design certainly excels compared to other smartphones in its price range. The size of the smartphone's 6.5-inch screen makes it an especially good choice for binge-watching YouTube, which works well on the go thanks to its extensive battery life.

Certainly a point of contention for some users is the G54's mediocre camera, which sounds promising on account of its 50 MP lens but doesn't meet expectations of such a high resolution. Colours and sharpness suffer from the G54, with images appearing either dull or entirely too saturated depending on light levels.

Be that as it may, the Motorola Moto G54 remains a strong contender for one of the best gaming smartphones on the market, with hardware that is unparalleled by smartphones that are double its price.

An incredibly popular choice amongst smartphone enthusiasts and value buyers alike, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 is a promising phone under £200 with boundless storage, a tasteful design and trusty performance that'll see users through hours of scrolling apps, messaging, and more.

Robustly designed with IP53 waterproofing and a tough plastic shell, the Redmi Note 12 feels reliable, not only in its performance but its build quality too. Under the hood of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12, you'll find a MediaTek helio processor with 2GHz of performance, which is serviceable, but not extraordinary, along with a fairly standard 4GB of RAM for largely stable browsing.

What truly shines about the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 is its 128GB of SSD storage, leaving a huge amount of space for apps, games, music and photos. Speaking of photography, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 doesn't reinvent the wheel with its redesigned infinite camera design that looks vastly better than its predecessor, the Redmi Note 11. Pictures look solid but offer nothing more than you would expect from a budget smartphone, albeit from a stronger selfie mode than most cheap smartphones on the market.

And yet the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 is nothing if not reliable: its rugged build quality and stable performance on a full HD screen paired with its lengthy battery life provide an all-around solid smartphone experience, so it's truly difficult to fault. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 is a brilliant pick for budget buyers, we cannot recommend it enough.

A great choice for those on a strict budget, but aren't inclined to buy a smartphone that's likely to break after a single drop, the Nokia G22 is one of the toughest smartphones on the market. Nokia, renowned for its great build quality, has recently released the G22 smartphone, equipped with plenty of respectable specifications that offer a competitive edge to cheaper phones.

With a solid, slightly heavier feel in hand, it's easy to tell that this smartphone is well-made, which lends to the phone's environmental sustainability too. Nokia's G22 is designed with an easy repair ethos, so if anything happens to break, which is unlikely, you can certainly repair it.

Of course, at less than £100, the hardware of the Nokia G22 isn't exceptional it's 4GB of RAM and slower CPU don't offer a whole lot, which might be disheartening, but at its price, it's hardly unexpected.

One of the best environmentally friendly smartphones of the year, as well as the cheapest, the Nokia G22 is a staggeringly good deal, one that any budget buyer should consider.

A phenomenal pick for under £100, the brand-new A15 Samsung smartphone is a bargain for great performance, a gorgeous design that's comparable to the S24 flagship line, and a reliable 48-hour battery life for multiple days of performance.

Tough, durable and solid in terms of performance, the A15 brings together the best aspects of cheap phones into one ultimate low-budget phone that's all-around brilliant for day-to-day use.

Of course, performance can be limited on cheaper phones, and the A15 is no exception. With 4GB of RAM and a slightly limited processor, performance on the A15, while solid, isn't groundbreaking. That being said, photography is surprisingly solid on this cheap phone, with some roughness around the edges, especially in darker settings.

For the ultimate phone for battery life, the Samsung Galaxy A15 is a spectacular pick, providing unparalleled value, a solid design and good photography.

Shattering all expectations of what a smartphone under £200 can truly be, Samsung's Galaxy A14 5G is the perfect phone for powering through your busy day-to-day and has plenty to offer users for its low price.

From the incredibly solid 50MP triple camera to the particularly stunning Infinity-V screen with nice, narrow bezels for a clean and sophisticated look - the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G has the look and feel of a premium phone, but how does it run?

Unsurprisingly, Samsung has knocked it out of the park in terms of great performance with this budget Samsung phone - it runs very, very well for its price. With 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM (which isn't small for a phone of its price), multi-tasking, switching between tabs and jumping into apps feels crisp and responsive - it's genuinely difficult to fault.

And if you want to save even more cash, pushing closer to the £100 mark is the Samsung Galaxy A14 4G version. You won't get the fastest mobile network data connection, but it'll still suit most general users.

This P30 from HUAWEU is a bit of a triumph of hardware specifications and budget - it manages to deliver a full HD screen larger than 6 inches too. And that screen has a certification for eye comfort, so using it for longer gaming or browsing sessions is nice and easy on the eyes.

Camera-wise, you have a 120-degree wide-angle lens as part of the staggeringly good 48MP triple rear camera array. And photography has been made even easier thanks to some AI scene recognition technology. It'll recognise what you're taking shots of from 22 categories and make adjustments to suit. So, your shots are really going to pop with this smartphone.

Lastly, under the hood you get 4GB of RAM - that's not the highest in a smartphone, but paired with the Turbo 2.0 GPU and Kirin 710 CPU, this thing really zips along. So, it's great for your gaming needs too.

A fraction of the price of competing smartphones, and yet it still manages to hold its own, the DOOGEE N50 is a startlingly brilliant phone for less than £100 and brings a lot to the table in terms of performance for its price.

Not a groundbreaking smartphone by any means, the DOOGEE N50 is a reliable replacement for your smartphone when you're short of cash, and it'll handle your usual social media, browsing and gaming decently well.

Don't expect much out of the DOOGEE N50's photography or its gaming capabilities, however - they're certainly serviceable. Still, they could use some extra grunt to get you to play the year's best games.

Big, bulky, and indestructible, the X10 embodies all of the design ethos that the Nokia 3310 had - a tough, reliable phone that'll last you for years to come. With an impressive 1080p screen, a nice chunky plastic body, and sizeable bezels, the X10 feels pretty premium for a budget phone. Paired with Android 11, browsing is a total breeze, you really can't knock the quality.

Much like the Nokia 3310, the X10's battery life is seemingly limitless by modern standards. At 4400 mAh, it'll last you 48 hours at least before it's totally flat, making it a great companion on a night out when your phone is needed most.

Photography on the X10 is also pretty fantastic, with a quad camera that takes some lovely natural-looking photos in the right conditions, and while they're not mind-blowing, they are still impressive for a budget phone.

Of course, it isn't all roses; there's the weak mono speaker, which becomes tinny at high volumes and is easily covered by accident during use. Then there's the slow and outdated 18W charging which is all but entirely outmoded by modern 30W chargers, making charging an absolute chore.

Overall, however, we're really impressed with everything the X10 has to offer, it's a great phone for the busy commuter, a late-night club goer, or anyone in between.