Originally Posted by
draver
I will second that Swappa is a great used phone resource. I have bought several devices from them without any issues. I keep an iPhone 8 as a spare/travel phone since I am an Apple fanboi. It is small & light, plus I am very familiar with the use. Swappa is currently showing the i8 starting at $120 and the i8+ at $160. Either of these might suffice.
Third'd for Swappa. You can also get a 2020 iPhone SE for $130-140ish, or you can pick up an older Pixel or Samsung device (e.g. a Pixel 4a for $100). Both my regular phone (a 12 mini) and my backup (a 2016 SE) were Swappa purchases. You'll pay a few bucks more than eBay but you're far less likely to have issues.
The sub-$150 market for new phones is basically nothing but low-end phones running versions of Android that are already outdated with little chance of an update to the current version. Motorola and Nokia are really the only reputable players in that space; otherwise it's a bunch of no-name Chinese phones that don't even get security updates, let alone new versions of Android..
Also, if you're going to travel with this phone, low-end phones often have only the bare minimum LTE bands for their intended region, so you may find yourself without coverage elsewhere in the world. iPhones have the widest support, with Pixels a close second.