New phone £200-£250 help.

Glad

Other half has just bought a Samsung Galaxy A25 5G 128GB for £147.99 and is very pleased with it

from Amazon

400ixl

Also make sure it is running a 64Bit Android OS version. Some of the cheaper Motorola phones only run the 32Bit version despite it having a 64Bit processor.

Many apps (increasingly more banking apps) only install on 64Bit OS's now and this is only going to become more common as Google are killing the 32Bit version.

How long it will get security updates is also important as mentioned.

The Samsung A25 mentioned above gets 5 years which is as good as Apple promise on their flagships.

mark_cycling00

Xiaomi redmi note 13 is really good for £150 on Amazon too. Xiaomi used to be 3rd biggest mobile manufacturer in the world but they've lost some market share this year.

Camera is 108MP which is better than the Samsung although it might not run 5G.

It's probably less stealable due to the brand being unknown in UK.

Generally I find they give you a lot of control and don't force their own apps on you 

frankiesowner

I've gravitated between Nokia and Motorola.  I tend to avoid the brands with a lot of bloatware and the chinese brands. Sadly two of my recent Nokia phones have packed up due to faults so I personally wouldn't recommend them. Motorola have become my go to budget phone. Not the most exciting but enough features to be keepable for a few years..and dependable.

flaneurs_lobster

Glad said:

Other half has just bought a Samsung Galaxy A25 5G 128GB for £147.99 and is very pleased with it

from Amazon

That's a very good price, £100 less than the usual retailers.

Was the phone OK? UK version? Not a refurb or an unsealed box?

RetSol

mark_cycling00 said:

Xiaomi redmi note 13 is really good for £150 on Amazon too. Xiaomi used to be 3rd biggest mobile manufacturer in the world but they've lost some market share this year.

Camera is 108MP which is better than the Samsung although it might not run 5G.

It's probably less stealable due to the brand being unknown in UK.

Generally I find they give you a lot of control and don't force their own apps on you 

I have a Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC which I have been very pleased with.  It is now on the EOL list, alas.

Xiaomi don't have the best record for updating etc although they are getting better, it seems - https://www.androidauthority.com/phone-update-policies-1658633/.

Updating policy is an issue which I am going to pay more attention to when I buy the next phone.

We live and learn! 

Glad

flaneurs_lobster said:

Glad said:

Other half has just bought a Samsung Galaxy A25 5G 128GB for £147.99 and is very pleased with it

from Amazon

That's a very good price, £100 less than the usual retailers.

Was the phone OK? UK version? Not a refurb or an unsealed box?

The phone was brand new in a sealed box, very pleased with it. I have a Samsung S24 and apart from a better quality camera with editing features, it is pretty much the same

Grumpy_chap

trickydicky14 said:

Looking for suggestions for a new Android phone, nothing fancy just reliable, good storage, good battery life and a half decent camera. Budget £200-£250. Is this doable and if so, what would you recommend please. My current phone is a moto g 9 play if that helps.

My wife and I have been fans of the Moto G-series from G4, G5, G7, G9.

My G7 recently failed so I popped out and purchased the G13 from Argos for £100.  They also had the G14 for a little more outlay.

My new G13 would seem to tick all the boxes you mention, plus the familiarity of the Moto G carried forward.  The one comment I would make is the fingerprint recognition on my new phone is less good than the previous G7 - so much so that I am using the pin code instead.

I just wondered, for the budget of £200-odd what you hope to obtain by way of additional features that the G13 or G14 would not have?

I juts looked on the Argos website, and the G13 is now £10 cheaper than I paid a fortnight ago, so even better value.  There are also the G14, G34, G54 and G84 all under £200.
I am not sure that you can do much better than picking the most suitable of the Moto models available.  I have to be honest that I find it difficult to assess the differences between models in the range.

bob2302

Grumpy_chap said:
.

I am not sure that you can do much better than picking the most suitable of the Moto models available.  I have to be honest that I find it difficult to assess the differences between models in the range.

What do you intend to do 19 months  from now when it runs out of security updates? 

When the end of support for Windows 10 came up in another thread, no one advocated using it beyond that. At that point my laptop will have had 13 year of support and it was an old model when I bought it. The model of phone OS updates is outdated, but if no one values the security of their data, identity and financial transactions, it will never change.

mark_cycling00

RetSol said:

mark_cycling00 said:

Xiaomi redmi note 13 is really good for £150 on Amazon too. Xiaomi used to be 3rd biggest mobile manufacturer in the world but they've lost some market share this year.

Camera is 108MP which is better than the Samsung although it might not run 5G.

It's probably less stealable due to the brand being unknown in UK.

Generally I find they give you a lot of control and don't force their own apps on you 

I have a Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC which I have been very pleased with.  It is now on the EOL list, alas.

Xiaomi don't have the best record for updating etc although they are getting better, it seems - https://www.androidauthority.com/phone-update-policies-1658633/.

Updating policy is an issue which I am going to pay more attention to when I buy the next phone.

We live and learn! 

That's a good article.
We should all treat updates and patches to phones and laptops with the same importance as not getting caught by phishing and scam emails and calls.