Budget Android Phone for wife - good camera recommendations?

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Soldato
Joined
14 Jul 2007
Posts
3,443
Following on from my request yesterday about backing up my wifes Samsung s5 neo I now come onto part two of the equation.....what phone to get her next.

Obviously she wants a step up from the S5 Neo but in truth I have no idea what that means in reality. I have an S7 edge and use my phone for almost everything, she has none of the requirements that I have so instead of projecting what I like onto her I thought I would ask here for some recommendations.

First things first - we are broke! Well we aren't really but she really doesn't want to spend much money, we are in the process of doing up a house and have only recently had our first child so all spare funds are already earmarked. A fancy phone just isn't on her list. She pays a £20pm Vodafone contract and isn't interested in paying out any more than that.

What she wants

The best possible camera. She is constantly borrowing my phone to take shots of the wee one and her camera on the S5 neo just doesn't come close. Is there anything at the budget end of the market that would suit her? Is that just an unrealistic expectation?

She would use the phone with a couple of fitness apps, Spotify account and maybe music on a memory card and really that's about it. The camera is the biggie.

I was looking at some of the phones in the "£200 android phone" thread and wondered if something like the Leagoo T5 would be a good option just to buy outright and go PAYG or sim only? Is there any of those types of phone that would be suitable from anyones personal experience or would there be anything that she would get as an upgrade from Vodafone that would work (I'm sceptical).

I just don't have the knowledge to offer her much advice and if she ends up with something that has a poor camera then she will still be borrowing my phone so it would be a pointless exercise! Maybe we just need a bigger budget and have to suck it up!

Any help, as always, is much appreciated.
 
The Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra, which i bought for my mum, is a good phone. The new XA2 is also a good phone. A little above your £200 budget but if you shop about you can find some close to that. The price on these just jumped this year. The camera on this is the same 23 mega pixel camear on the sony z5 rage on phones which is still quite good but not as good as the XZ1 range but honestly for me its not much difference apart from the low light shots.

Not sure what size you are looking for, but if its small in size then maybe a XZ1 compact which has a good camera but is about £100 above your budget. Given Sony is about to release the new phones hence these should drop in price if you can wait. You can also buy the XZ premium on the ebay for about £350 if you shop about. A bigger budget will get you a better camera.

I have seen some second had galaxy s8 go for £300-350 range and that would be a great phone price on these New will also drop given the S9 has just released.

There are some good Chinese phones out there for £200 but i just could not be bothered with sending back to china if a fault develops with the phone.
 
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Schizo said:
What about a cheap phone and a decent point and shoot camera.
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Ah now, you are applying a logic here to a completely illogical situation!!! :D

We have a state of the art camera and a camcorder too but the phone seems to be the natural thing to reach for the quick snap. Ive sent for a sony XA1 from Vodafone just to see how the camera compares. We live on a small island so the ability to pop along to a phone shop and test drive the various options isn't available to us - hence me asking what may appear to be blindingly obvious questions here!!
 
the Sony Xperia XA2 is getting decent reviews on you tube seen it for 19 quid per month on virgin 24 month deal 1000 min talk time, it can shoot 4k video too sim free it's £269 I'm tempted my self but my z3 is still going strong does well against the s8


 
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She has the XA1 right now and is trying it out today, this will provide a decent reference point. If its good enough then happy days, if not then we at least know what standard we have to beat. The phone itself does everything she needs it to happily so its just going to come down to the camera quality I think.

I feel a bit guilty because I have an S7 edge and will be looking for the S9+ when my next upgrade is due but truth is our requirements are so different so a high end phone would be complete overkill and I have to be careful not to project my fondness for gadgets onto her!!
 
Raggs said:
the Sony Xperia XA2 is getting decent reviews on you tube seen it for 19 quid per month on virgin 24 month deal 1000 min talk time, it can shoot 4k video too, sim free it's £269 I'm tempted my self but my z3 is still going strong
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Sony had a really good phone with the XA1 but with the XA2 they have improved on it. The camera is most probably the best in its class for the price not including the Chinese phones imports.
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She has the XA1 right now and is trying it out today, this will provide a decent reference point. If its good enough then happy days, if not then we at least know what standard we have to beat. The phone itself does everything she needs it to happily so its just going to come down to the camera quality I think.

I feel a bit guilty because I have an S7 edge and will be looking for the S9+ when my next upgrade is due but truth is our requirements are so different so a high end phone would be complete overkill and I have to be careful not to project my fondness for gadgets onto her!!
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If the camera is your primary concern then you wont be disappointed just look at the video posted above for a comparison. My mums XA1 takes very good photos and just as good as my old Z5 compact and not much worse than the XZ1.
 
AMDPower said:
Sony have always had more natural true to life colours, even on their TV's and Cameras. The Samsung range of phones are knows for their slightly exaggerated/saturated colours.
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True.
It is like Samsung's software increases the digital vibrance by a fair amount, resulting in this colours saturation.
It looks beautiful but in real life, the colours are little bit more ordinary, to say...

By the way, Android 7 should have settings for the contrast, brightness, sharpness, colours saturation, blue light level, etc. When it comes to the images on the screen.
 
She seems happy with it so far but didn't have much chance to use it yesterday. She'll know by the end of today and if she likes it will do the transfer of everything across to the phone.

What I did notice even with just a quick glance is that as "budget" phones go it seems an impressive bit of kit. Ive always had quite high end phones on a two year cycle but this did make me wonder if what I pay for is worth it. Probably just an initial impression and its limitations will become clear over time.
 
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