Best smart phone for <£200?

Willeh

Hey guys,

Some research has told me that the best-value-for-money phones right now are the -

Huawei Ascend G300 £100
Sony Xperia U ~£160
Sony Xperia Arc S ~£200

Just posting to get some of your thoughts on the best smart phone for £200 as the limit of my budget - obviously the less of that amount used the better.

I'd probably use it for around 12 - 18 months before switching again. Those 2 year contracts are way too long in my opinion

And currently using a Nokia X6
Thanks in advance

latecomer

You can get an Xperia U via E2save for £7.50/m for 24 months which is £180 including the phone, mins, texts and data. If you are thinking about buying the phone then definitely worth a look - possible Quidco too.

The Ascend G300 - had a quick play with a colleagues, feel solid and was smooth albeit with very quick play,. For £100 you probably cant go wrong.

MillicentBystander

Go for the Huawei and save the extra money for a great night out! then look at the plethora of amazing SIM only minimal commitment deals out there to power it with. No idea what sort of mins/texts/data you need but Talkmobile currently doing a great 6 month SIM only smartphone deal

SIMple £8, 6 months
300 minutes
1,000 inclusive texts
500MB data included

£25 cash back from TCB with this deal so it works out at £4/mth!

buscape

The Xperia U is alot of phone for £160, don't think you can get a dual core phone for less. The screen is is 3.5" where the G300 has a 4" screen so if you're not bothered about dual core, the G300 is probably the better bet. Comparison.

The Xperia arc s is too expensive, it's internal memory is too small and it's other specs aren't that much better than the Huawei and yet it costs twice as much. Comparison

smartphone

I think it depends if you want to spend the whole £200 or if you'd prefer to save some of it. As buscape says, the Sony Xperia U is good value for £160, and there will be plenty of accessories to go with it. It's also worth thinking about what you generally want to use the phone for...if it's browsing, I would tend to go for a decent screen size and quality. If it's just for apps, it doesn't matter as much.

MillicentBystander

Aside from the smaller screen size compared to the Ascend G300, the major drawback with the Experia U is the non-expandable memory. If you don't want to use your phone as an mp3 player maybe it's OK but if you do it's no good at all. The G300 has a micro SD card slot that allows cards up to 32gb to be used. The Sony badge gives it the necessary kudos, though.

cally6008

Huawei Ascend G300 £100 .... excellent phone, my first smartphone and i love it

martinchris

Recently I purchased a Sony Xperia U for my wife. She is very happy after getting this phone as her gift. It's a perfect package of lots of functionalists at affordable price.

Timalay

What network will it be on? If it's orange you may want to also consider Orange San Diego. You get an awful lot of bang for buck with that phone.

Holiday

Huawei Ascend G300. Locked to Vodafone at the moment but ebay unlocking for £5.

Great phone.

MillicentBystander

It will be interesting to see what happens when the Vodafone 3 month exclusive deal ends on the Ascend G300. If it is indeed going to be £100 from all the networks (big if at the moment) then T Mobile, for instance, currently give a very reasonable £20 cash back (TCB/Quidco) on a £100 PAYG phone. £80 net would be more than a steal for this phone!