What is Your Favorite Phone Under $250? Share Your Thoughts/Win Prizes! [sponsored]

[XDARoni]

What is Your Favorite Phone Under $250?​

Any phone under $250 is considered a "budget phone". But just because you're only spending a fraction of the cost of the flagship phones, doesn't mean you're getting a bad device. This year we have seen a bunch of new budget phones hit the market that have impressive specs, cameras, build quality ect.

Honor reached out to us to ask our community what their favorite phone under $250 is right now. Think of all the different devices that have an MSRP of under $250, and think about which one seems the most impressive to you. Leave a detailed comment in the comments section below. Let us know why you want that particular device, or why you might already own it.

We are curious to see which phone is the budget favorite among the XDA community.

Prizes
Out of everyone that shares their thoughts in the comments section, three winners will be selected to win a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

thank you to everyone who participated in this thread. We have selected three winners which are dimitrispas22, tliebeck, and CJ2311.

We thank Honor for sponsoring this post. Our sponsors help us pay for the many costs associated with running XDA, including server costs, full time developers, news writers, and much more. While you might see sponsored content (which will always be labeled as such) alongside Portal content, the Portal team is in no way responsible for these posts. Sponsored content, advertising and XDA Depot are managed by a separate team entirely. XDA will never compromise its journalistic integrity by accepting money to write favorably about a company, or alter our opinions or views in any way. Our opinion cannot be bought.

 

[Dadarocks]

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro, hands down. A great set of cameras, Okay software experience, great chip inside backed up by adequate battery capacity is anybody's dream. This delivers just that. Most other phones in this segment lacks in one or the other department.. This one delivers in most..

 

[culiacanazo]

Well just because it isn't offered anywhere else for the price bracket, I'll have to say the LG Stylo 3, which for around 100 bucks has
• FP Sensor
•Alright capacity battery AND removable at that
•3.5 (sad we got to this state where this needs to be mentioned!)
•Ext SD
•Pen
•nougat (so not so old), rootable, alright processor, camera, screen, etc

 

[steven360]

Definitely the Mi A2 and the Mi A2 lite. Personally I prefer the Mi A2, but it just depends on the user. They offer great specs for a great price, I really like Xiaomi since Huawei is not being a ***** to the community.

 

[AndyYan]

Zenfone Max Pro M1 or Mi A2.
Notchless screen, current-gen Qualcomm chip, readily BL unlockable, good dev support.

One certain manufacturer here leaves a lot to be desired in these aspects...

 

[dimitrispas22]

xiaomi redmi 5 plus!
low price ¦ almost excellent performance (for its price) ¦ 3,5 for wired headphones
Bluetooth to connect bt headphones without a problem ! ¦ great camera and even better if you add root it and enable camera 2api for google camera with portrait mode. eis, motion and etc greate community on the custom forum! ¦ great IPS display rather than Huawei y... pro (which is even more expensive )
great speaker! ¦ 5ghz wifi ¦ IR blaster ¦ all day battery 6-8 hours sot!
and so on! /
missing parts > usb type c and lack of nfc

 

[saturday_night]

Is XDA so horny for the money that you cant stop having a sponsor that doesnt support your own community?!? I still cant understand why anybody is making an article or thread for sponsoring of huawai/honor devices. But as we saw with apple in 1997 everybody takes money from everybody if they need it even if apple takes money from microsoft to avoid bankruptcy. But i dont think the servers of XDA would go down if one sponsorship ends. Just start using your brain instead of your wallet.

 

[tliebeck]

Xiaomi Mi A1. Tried it as a daily driver for a while. Has an unlocked bootloader. Good XDA support including full LineageOS support, which I made use of. Xiaomi spent their budget well on the product, as everything works pretty well (rather than some cheap phones which allocate too much cost on one gimmick in exchange for poor performance elsewhere).

And not sure if this really counts as "sub $250" even though I paid $249 for it new: Essential Phone, my current daily driver. Presently $309 on Amazon, which doesn't fit this thread. Stock UI, unlocked bootloader, Pie on day one, has yet to crash. Works great with Magisk. Best phone I've owned in a long time, using it as my daily rather than Samsung stuff that cost 3x that.

Personally I wouldn't enter my email password on a Chinese-made phone with a locked bootloader/stock ROM. I'm very impressed by the product, but wouldn't touch it (for real personal use) due to security concerns. Chinese OEMs are well insulated from US law by way of the Chinese government, so they have little to lose by non-compliance.

 

[Weirdo-I-Know]

Galaxy Core LTE G386W.

It does what I need, is small enough, is cheap. Don't know why I would need more. And on Kitkat it works very well it never lags or shutters. I am really happy with the phone.

But I assume that for this contest, you will need to give a Honor phone to win because huawei cannot find legit good comments about their phones. Keep copying apple huawei, you will only be less of a brand and more of a ctrl-c + ctrl-v.

Plus locking bootloader for better UX should have made the whole xda community be angry at Huawei, not crawling for their money. Shame on xda staff. Shame

 

[wyldnewbie]

Not sure what your limits are

But i just purchased a new LG V20 on ebay for about 230USD. So far, i am totally pleased with it (Specifically, an H918).
Good size, nice display removable battery.

 

[EzhilG]

Hi guys,Thanks for this giving wonderful oppurtunity to share my favourite phone under $250

Hey guys,Here are the top 6 features of MiA2 that I loved and I will also include the rating that I will be giving to each aspect of this Smartphone.

DESIGN- 9/10. There is a camera hump that is why I gave 9.
CAMERA- 10/10. The best camera at this price.
PROCESSING- 10/10. The best class processor at this price.
BATTERY- 8/10. Just 3000 mAh battery instead of giving 4000 mAh battery.
SOFTWARE- 10/10. Fully stock android.
HARDWARE- 8/10. It is because there is no 3.5mm Headphone jack.

-----------------------------------------------------
BELOW ARE THE TOP 6 FEATURES OF Mi A2:
-----------------------------------------------------
1. DESIGN: It comes with a fully metallic design and also the beautiful 5.99" Full HD+ Large display with Gorilla Glass 5 Protection. It has the fingerprint sensor on the back.

2. CAMERA: It comes with those 20MP+12MP Rear AI dual camera and 20MP front facing camera. These can Take clearer daytime photos with the 12MP lens and large 1.25μm pixels and also Low-light photos are brighter with
the 20MP lens.It has 4-in-1 Super Pixel, based on pixel binning technology.These Dual cameras takes beautiful pictures with the combination of AI. On the front,it has 20 MP font facing camera with AI Beautify 4.0. The best thing about it is that there is a single camera on the front but still that camera takes Amazing portrait shots.

3. PROCESSOR: It is powered with Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 and it has also the AI engine. The multitasking is great and you can play high end games flawlessly.

4. HARDWARE: It comes with USB Type-c and also Supports with Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0

5. SOFTWARE: It is a smartphone that comes with Android one support which means that it will get faster android updates in time and it runs on fully stock android. It just now runs on latest Android Oreo 8.1 and lastest security patch!

6. PRICE: This is main and very exciting thing about this smartphone. At this price this smartphone has great features and I think this is very less price for this Smartphone and everybody should take a look at this device in this price range.

Verdict : ONE word it’s competition KILLER at AFFORDABLE price. BEST PHONE under $250 EVER.

 

[CedArctic]

Galaxy J7 (2017)

Taking into consideration the current market standing, the Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) has to be my favorite choice in the segment.

While it doesn't push the budget limit too much (you can pick it up for around $185 or less), it still has many benefits:

• Fair price to performance ratio at its current price
• Really good cameras for this budget segment
• Extremely solid build quality which I value in a budget phone
• Solid support
• Active XDA Community
• Good battery life
• Harmonic balance between Bloated Stock Skin and Barebone AOSP

 

[Awesomeness_1307]

I would say the best phone in this budget has to be the Honor 8X. It has a massive 6.5 inch display with a notch, but that can be hidden, so no issues there. The movie watching and gaming experience is really awesome. The design too, for the price, is absolutely magnificent. The chipset too, for the price, is a very capable one, and one of Huawei's latest chips. The cameras are also pretty good. The inability to unlock the bootloader might be off-putting, but there is a chance it could be unlocked, as with some other Huawei devices. But you can just put Nova Launcher on it if you want. It's a really great phone and according to me, the best in this price range.

Oh, did I mention, the battery is like 3700 mAh, so that shouldn't disappoint either.

 

[inknow]

If you're buying second hand, the LG V20 falls into that price range, as well as some of the older Samsung Galaxy phones, such as the S6 Edge. You'll get a lot of support, premium quality, as well as excellent cameras. Bang for buck the LG V20 is probably the best phone out there under $250.

But if we're going for first hand purchases, the Le Pro 3. While the Le Max 3 has already come out for the same price, the Le Pro 3 has an amazing community behind it, so your phone will have the latest Android and a variety of ROMs to choose from for every version up until now. It has pretty good cameras, both forward and rear facing, Snapdragon 821, 6GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 4070mAh battery. It was designated as a flagship killer when it came out, and the price dropped since it didn't manage to do that - and now it's a flagship killer killer with flagship killer specs. Once you flash a well polished ROM, it feels premium, albeit dated (slightly large chin and forehead, no notch).

 

[dariotr]

Definetly the Xiaomi Mi A2. Android One at such a minor price is extremely nice. I've already bought it and it's 6GB memory for under 250$ with 128GB storage. Best mid class phone ive ever seen until yet.

 

[andrea2004]

in my opinion the a5 2017 galaxy at the current price is worth, waterproof, good camera and decent battery. the downside is the performance, I'm not saying it is a slow phone but that compared to competitors at the same price you can have more, nothing to say about the construction quality that is excellent; the software and the samung experience 9.0 with android oreo, unfortunately there is no bixby.

 

[nitindabas]

HONOR 9N

Under $250 the best phone is the honor 9n because first of all its an HONOR device so feature packed emui and faster updates which is an important factor for most of the users then it has also has a decent enough battery that combined with emui gives good battery life for the moderate or the heavy users and then it has also decent enough cameras with good bokeh effect and acceptable low light performance and now the main thing the display of the phone which is a full hd+ 19:9 accept ratiopanel display so yeah it means it has a notch.Quality of the dispaly is preety good and also offers great viewing angles and all this is powered by a kirin 659 proccesor which we have already seen is a very capable chip so it will handle day to day tasks without breaking a sweat and all these things packed within a beautiful glass sandwich body with metal frame which makes the device looks very premium so without a doubt honor 9n is arguably the best device under $250 with very few compromises.....

 

[CO.Wildfire.OL]

Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1! Best 180$ ever spent + Best Device ever had!!
Specs highlights: SD636 | 4GB+64GB | 5000mAh | 6" FHD+ | Dual Cams | Stock Android
Bonus: Best XDA Devs with Official Lineage OS support for Custom ROMs!

 

[Tamil15]

Favorite Phone Under $250 - Mi A2​

Year 2018, The most important phase in smartphone segment where $1000 era for a device is around every corner! but Mid-range $250 smartphones were the backbone to all of it.!

Just 5 years back, the maximum Camera of a flagship models is 8Mp - 12Mp Single lens, whereas now dual to triple camera lens were on the way, we actually have to thank all the smartphone manufacturers for bringing the best devices which can perform equally in every department, moreover they can compete against flagship models under the price tag starting from $250 - $300 Maximum.

I personally a Honor Fan, have to thank them for bringing lot's of mid-rangers starting from Honor Holly series to Honor X series.!

I am huge fan of Honor Smartphones, after Honor 6x, Honor 9 Lite, Honor 8 Pro, Honor 10 & latest addition to my family is Honor 7a but my favourite this time is Mi A2 even though i didn't own it.!

It's very difficult for me to go with any other brand from Honor, but still i have to choose a favourite one,

Mi A2 - Android One

Launch Year - July 2018

Storage Options - 4gb - 32/64gb or 6gb/128gb

Price - $235 / ₹16,999 - 4gb/64gb

Favoritism​

Operation System - Android One, These two words is enough!

Price - Under $250, it's enough for me with 4gb/64gb with Unlimited Google Photos option comes in handy as well.!

Camera - 12 MP, f/1.8, 1/2.9", 1.25µm 20 MP, f/1.8, 1/2.8", 1.0µm, PDAF (Front as well)

Chipset & Hardware - Snapdragon 660 AIE with Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0, Bluetooth 5.0 & Corning Gorilla Glass 5 display.

Compromises​

Headphone Jack, Big Battery & Notched Display 19:9 ratio

I personally won't mind about "Headphone Jack" or "Bigger battery" since It's Android One it's capable of running a day! & can spend a few bucks for USB Type-C Headphone as well.!

People will always go for right price with right specifications, even though it required a few bucks around Minimum $50.!

Request to Honor:-​

Honor is the first smartphone which has bought budget to mid-range with Holly & X series devices which performed in every aspects! But Honor missed Holly series in later 2016, given space to other brands but thankfully now Honor 7a & 7s value for money with decent cameras! The most dependable series is X series where you people did great with Honor 6x, Honor 7x & now Honor 8X is already looks stunning in every corners!

I personally felt where Honor given space to other brands is that why Honor went on launching Honor 9i, later on Honor 9 Lite and now it's Honor 9N/9i 2018 with same Kirin 659/655 processors!!?? that's where the other brands had a upper hand.! Yes Honor 9i or Honor 9 lite launched with Quad Camera's but at least it should have been renamed as Honor 8x with Quad Camera's with Notch design, then Honor would have been the first smartphone manufacturer to bring those features in Mid-range series like you guys did in 2016 with Honor 6x with Dual lens camera.
Ok fine! but at least, should have considered about launching anyone of Honor 9i/Honor 9 lite with Snapdragon 625/636 with EMUI or Kirin 659 EMUI with Android One, anyone of these would have been a game changer in Smartphone segment of 2017-18!

If other brands like Mi, Asus can do means why not Honor.!? with Kirin / Android One or Snapdragon / EMUI - I hope like me, many users would love to see this happening in near future! Moreover, i would like to share more thoughts/ design concepts to Honor Team, if there is any opportunities like this in coming days!

Thanks alot XDA Team & Honor for bringing this wonderful opportunity to share our thoughts

Regards
Honor Addict

 

[ChristianFS1]

I'd go with the Nokia 6.1, which is currently selling for around $230 USD (alright, it was approximately 270 at launch, but who cares).
All-around decent specs, fairly manageable size, still has a headphone jack (!!!), pretty much guaranteed software updates for a while by virtue of being part of the Android One program. A solid device, IMO.