Budget phone replacement recommendations (up to £200 now)

GeorgeStorm

GeorgeStorm

GeorgeStorm

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Joined
12 May 2011
Posts
181
Hi all,
My moto g6 plus is really starting to struggle just to do anything and so whilst I've considered upgrading before now might be the time I actually do it.

Not looking for anything fancy, happy with the size, will probably be nice to have something more up to date (I think it's running android 9 maybe?) although I haven't had any issues with apps not being able to run, just slowly!

Was thinking maybe a pixel 6/7 (depending how much I want to spend) 2nd hand might be the best bang for buck whilst being fairly solid and reliable etc. Otherwise I had looked at various xiaomi phones new that come down from £200+ into that mid £100s kind of price range but I think in terms of performance they'd be potentially quite a bit worse than the older pixels, on the other hand are new with warranty etc...

Any suggestions or one I've missed?
 
Ended up spending slightly more, but bought a Pixel 7 refurb about 16 months ago and a Pixel 8a a few months back as budget options.

The nice thing is that they've got decent support periods, so I'm expecting to be able to hold onto them for a good length of time. I'm also a fan of the operating systems being very simple and the performance is plenty for me - I'd rather something reliable than squeezing a smidge more raw performance out but the user experience being poor.
 
Jim99 said:
Ended up spending slightly more, but bought a Pixel 7 refurb about 16 months ago and a Pixel 8a a few months back as budget options.

The nice thing is that they've got decent support periods, so I'm expecting to be able to hold onto them for a good length of time. I'm also a fan of the operating systems being very simple and the performance is plenty for me - I'd rather something reliable than squeezing a smidge more raw performance out but the user experience being poor.
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Yeah I mean my phone has been out of support for literally years I think so I'm not that fussed, but it's definitely a positive of the pixel range, even an older 2nd hand pixel will probably be support just as long as/if not longer than some new android phones.

Regardless in theory performance will be improved so I'm not worrying too much about it in absolute terms. One positive about some of the newer cheap phones is yoiu can get them with 256gb, and since the pixels can't take a sd card they're stuck at 128 and I've hit the 96 limit on my phone a bunch before.
 
I've got the A34 128GB which I purchased in August 2023 for £205 it's still a decent phone with plenty of future Android updates coming but I got the upgrade itch and ordered the new S25. The A36 is due out soon apparently that would be a good bet.
 
nlel1975 said:
I've got the A34 128GB which I purchased in August 2023 for £205 it's still a decent phone with plenty of future Android updates coming but I got the upgrade itch and ordered the new S25. The A36 is due out soon apparently that would be a good bet.
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Hadn't really considered a new 'main' brand as assumed the price/performance would be way off but I'll have a look thanks!
 
Begbie said:
My pixel 8a was £220 or something. Does anything any other pixel does apart from zoom lens.
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Yeah there were a couple of deals late last year I missed out on I think, even then I think I'd be happy enough saving £70+ and getting the 7/7a instead.

nlel1975 said:
Sold my Samsung A34 128GB with a 256GB MicroSDXC card for £70 on FB Marketplace.

A good deal it was immaculate and had a good battery.
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Oh at that price definitely a winner.
 
Had another look and could get a pixel 7 for £130 vs Pixel 6a for £110, both in good condition (some marks on the back maybe), guessing the 7 is probably the better option with such a small difference, and will certainly be a massive upgrade from what I currently have! (then again so would the 6a no doubt!)
 
Had a couple of people suggest I look elsewhere other than a pixel and realised I hadn't actually looked at many options assuming that the pixel was a 'safe' bet and was told to check out the oppo x3/x5 (various versions) and the cmf phone 1.

Looks like on eithe ebay or cex I can get phones either similarly powerful or more so vs the pixel and with 256 or expandable storage for not that much more, anyone have suggestions for/against them?
I did also consider some samsung models with a bit more oomph than the a34 (fell down the rabbit hole of comparing benchmark results, even though I know the a34 is much more powerful than my current phone seeing the lower numbers vs others hurts :D), but also ended up totally confused over how many models there are etc, I have seen some A52S for <£100 which seems to be slightly better than the A34 maybe and may be worth a shout.
 
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The Pixel 7a is a good phone, with a great camera, good battery, not too big, and plenty of support going forward. It would get my vote
 
Dyson said:
The Pixel 7a is a good phone, with a great camera, good battery, not too big, and plenty of support going forward. It would get my vote
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Yeah I think if I'd seen a 7a for a similar price to the 7 I'd seen I probably would have gone for it, biggest downside to me is the 128 without expandable storage and that would be why I would want to pay closer to £200 for one as for that much I think I can get similar/better performance and more storage I think (oppo find x5 for example I think for £150ish?), only downside being less long term support, but I'm not sure how big of a deal that is considering I think I'm on Android 9 and have been for a while I think and haven't (yet) had any issues with it, so going to 14 instead of 15 might be completely irrelevant!
 
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