nkedel

There are also quite a lot of carrier locked retail phones, mostly at that price point for prepaid. They tend to be no better than the comparably priced cheapie unlocked phones, but they are quite readily available at big box discount stores like Walmart and Target vs. requiring going online. I haven't looked into whether they're readily unlocked in years, given how easy it is to get decent ones online, but then again my price sensitivity isn't big enough that the difference between a $60 phone and a $119 Moto E4 would be worth the research to find a non-junk $60 phone.

There are also occasionally clearance name brand phones.

Silver Fox

Same here. So easy to buy cheap unlocked.

hln

I don't see the point in paying hundreds to upgrade to a new phone every year. And many cheaper phones offer the same perks as the expensive phones. But it really depends on your personal preference and what you can afford.

msp3

I recall months ago I read something about phones with fingerprint sensors are as low as $100 now and didn't think much of it. Recently had to replace a phone and noticed my carrier had this (https://www.bestbuy.com/site/zte-max...?skuId=5902408) for about $45 net. I then clicked through the review link and was just amazed at what an under-$50 phone can do nowadays: Huge screen, fingerprint reader, long battery life, USB-C, high-performance cellular radios (HPUE for my carrier), etc. Cell phones have come such a long way...

tentseller

I remember paying over $5000 for my Motorola with car Kit in 1988 without installation

docbert

In fairness, that's a ~$180 phone. The only reason you're seeing it for $45 is because you're committing to 2 years of Sprint service with it. (Although some of the Sprint deals are easy to get out of, as shown by my $140 Essential PH-1 from them...)

I bought the slightly older model of that ZTE Max for my sister a few years ago from Best Buy - unlocked and outright for just under $150, and it certainly is a great phone, especial for that price (or at least, it was until one of her kids dropped it and broke it...)

ajGoes

I bought a €79 Wigo Jerry3 in Paris to get me through the trip when my regular phone died. It was much better than nothing but vastly inferior to the Pixel 2XL I replaced it with as soon as I got home. The number one function I wanted it for was mapping -- and its compass could barely tell which hemisphere the phone was pointing at. Its camera is crap, and I'll never get the nice pictures I'd have been able to take with a decent phone.

It served its purpose, barely, but it was in no way a substitute for a high-end phone.

puchong

Could someone please recommend an unlocked Android phone that has a decent 4" (or larger) screen and which can be bought online for a reasonably quick delivery? Alternatively, are there any easy ways to unlock a new phone that is bought from one of the retailers like Walmart? My price point is ideally around $65.

Also, what is the cheapest phone one can currently get to use Google's FI service?

gobluetwo

Phones that can be activated in project fi

der_saeufer

Some of the phones sold at retail are already unlocked--Target used to sell unlocked BLU phones, for example. Anything without carrier branding should be good to go. If you can spend closer to $100 online, the previous generation Motorolas are a good bet.

Cheapest phone for Fi would be a used Nexus 5X or Nexus 6, though note that neither of those phones was renowned for its battery life so ~3 years on your charger may be your best friend. (Also note that in both cases you need to buy the North American version of the phone). Cheapest new phone is a Moto G6 for $200.

BigFlyer

How do you get Dex to work with the Display Link monitor? I couldn't get it to work.

nkedel

Interesting to see this get bumped.

A couple of years later, that's still true for me. Nicely, what appeared to be upper pressure on the midrange seems to have subsided, and there are back to being a bunch of really nice phones either under $400 or which go on sale regularly enough under $400.

GUWonder

Apple's gotten into the $399 (MSRP) market with the (unlocked) iPhone SE (2) since 2020. I guess that's one way to try to avoid seeing households migrating away from the Apple ecosystem in a world with plenty of Android phones in the $150-$250 range that pack in enough to satisfy most consumers on a stand-alone basis.

nkedel

...and Google has the very nice Pixel 4a, bringing their entry point back to the same price point.

I am on the Nokia 8.3 these days and am extremely happy with it. I doubt I'll travel internationally again soon enough to see if their dual-SIM implementation is decent, but everything I use day to day just works, and right now it's the best phone for it's time that I've owned since the Nexus 6.

lwildernorva

I've been happy with the lower priced Android phones for the last several years, buying a new model each year to avoid the common complaint that these entry-level phones don't generally receive an Android upgrade from the system they shipped with, but last year, I bought a mid-level ZTE phone on the basis that two Android system updates would be offered. Android 10 came in last fall for my phone, and apparently 11 is on the horizon. I probably paid twice what I normally would for this phone, but I figured I wouldn't need to buy a new phone until next year because the software would be regularly updated--although admittedly, not at the cutting edge.

I'm still not certain what my strategy will be going forward since the cash outlay is about even. If I have any concerns that would make me go back to yearly purchases, it's that the features offered on phones that I care about tend to make their way down to the lower-priced phones fast enough that waiting for two years for a hardware upgrade might not be worth the software upgrades I got with this phone.

No matter what I do, though, I still haven't seen anything that ever makes me want to purchase a much more expensive phone--whether Android or Apple.