Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/07/18/product_round_up_affordable_android_smartphones/

Say goodbye to landfill Android: Top 10 cheap 'n' cheerful smartphones

Holiday handsets you can afford to lose

By Alun Taylor

Posted in Personal Tech, 18th July 2014 09:05 GMT

Product round-up So, you want a smartphone but you don’t want to pay more than £150 (and ideally a whole lot less). You’re going buy a Motorola Moto G, right? Probably. The G is a very safe bet. But are there alternatives? Indeed there are.

All the devices poked here with The Reg stick run Android bar one. That device will soon to get an Android app store thanks to an OS update and Amazon, though, so it sneaks in through the back door.

It’s a sign of how far the affordable smartphone game has moved on that not one of the devices here can really be described as landfill Android – namely, cheap but essentially unusable to anyone with even a modicum of technical sympathy. That’s a ship that has well and truly sailed. Oh, and before you all take to the comments page, each device performed perfectly well telephonically. Take it as read.

Acer Liquid E3

RH Numbers

Available through Three in the UK, the Liquid E3 is a slightly unbalanced device. For storage, you have to make do with just 4GB but the main camera is a mighty 13Mp affair, while the webcam boasts 2MP and its own LED flash. Personally I’d prefer fewer pixels, one less flash but more storage for my money.

Acer Aspire Liquid E3

Running the show is a Mediatek MT6589 chipset comprising a quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chip, a PowerVR SGX544 GPU and 1GB of RAM. That makes it a match for the best of the Qualcomm brigade here, judging by the AnTuTu score and the smoothness of the interface.

Up front, you’ll find a top quality 720p 4.7-inch IPS display and a very punchy speaker under that red accent you can see below the screen. On the back, there is an LG-esque button called Acer Rapid that can be set to perform various functions.

Acer Aspire Liquid E3 homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

Like Alcatel’s Idol S, the Liquid E3 looks and feels rather more expensive than it is. The various flies in the Liquid’s ointment are the absence of 4G (but being on Three’s network this is perhaps less of an issue than it otherwise would be) and the use of Android 4.2.2 out of the box – Acer is promising a KitKat update in the future, though. On the whole there’s a lot to like about the E3, especially if LTE data speeds are not at the top of your list of requirements. My review unit was network-unlocked despite the Three splash screen and was mercifully free of carrier bloat.

Price £135
More info Acer

Alcatel Idol S

RH Numbers

Once upon a time, Alcatel was known for making budget tat. But no longer. The Idol S is an impressively thin (7.4mm) and light (110g) device which packs a superb 4.7-inch 720p IPS display. It looks like a quality bit of kit too and is made from what feel like premium materials. In short, it’s by far the best looker in the group. As with the Moto G, you get LTE connectivity, but there’s also dual-band Wi-Fi and a good 8Mp camera at the back.

Alcatel Idol S Android smartphone

It’s a reasonably powerful device for the price and uses the same Qualcomm 1.2GHz dual-core chip and Adreno 305 GPU as the Motorola Moto E, again with 1GB of RAM. It’s still a decently slick device though, thanks to Alcatel’s Android 4.2.2 overlay not overly taxing the system. The launcher adds some useful widgets into the mix too.

Alcatel Idol S homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

There’s only 4GB of storage, which is a bit of a hamstring, but you do get a micro SD expansion slot. However, there's no NFC chip or USB host support. With a device this slender, it's no surprise the 2,000mAh battery is fixed. All in all it’s an attractive package indeed but availability may be an issue. When I started this review, EE was offering the Idol S for £99 on PAYG, which struck me as a very good deal, but it seems to have dropped it in favour of its own brand Kestrel (reviewed below). That’s a shame.

Price £99
More info Alcatel

Archos Titanium 45

RH Numbers

Along with the Prestigio 5-incher, the Archos Titanium 45 boasts not one, but two regular-sized SIM slots (one for 3G one for 2G), making it a handy gadget for the regular overseas traveller. And thanks to its MediaTek 1.2GHz MT6572 dual-core CPU, it performs tolerably well, even though the 512MB of RAM places inherent limitations on the system.

Yet despite notching up a slightly better AnTuTU score than the Vodafone Smart 4 reviewed below, the Archos doesn’t feel quite as fluid. That may also have something to do with it running 4.2.2 Jelly Bean rather than KitKat and I wouldn't put money on it getting an update.

Archos Titanium 45 Android smartphone

The 4.5-inch 480 x 854 display is rather mediocre too - it’s neither bright nor possessed of robust viewing angles. I’d give it four out of 10 on the ANTLA (Al’s Nice To Look At) scale of display quality. The 5Mp camera is also nothing to shout about either but at least it has auto-focus so you can grab barcodes, and you get a webcam too.

Archos Titanium 45 homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

You also get Archos’s rather fine media apps for music and video playback, which are not to be sniffed at. The real problem with the Titanium 45 is that soon, and for roughly the same money, Archos will be offering a 5-inch 720p device called the Oxygen 50c with a quad-core CPU. Like the Samsung, this Archos is a little too long in the tooth and too expensive to be fully recommended.

Price £130
More info Archos

BlackBerry Q5

RH Numbers

OK, this is a year-old device from a maker you wouldn't put money on being in existence this time next year, although that’s what we all said last year and BlackBerry is still here. At the time of writing, O2 will sell you one for £99 on PAYG. That’s quite a bargain.

BlackBerry Q5 smartphone

I’ve always liked BlackBerry keyboards and while the Q5’s isn’t the best one BB has ever cooked up, it’s still pretty good. The 3.1-inch 720 x 720 IPS screen is a bit of a looker too, and thanks to a Qualcomm S4 dual-core 1.2GHz chip with 2GB of RAM, the BB10.1 operating system always feels like it has its running shoes on. And you get 4G connectivity.

BlackBerry Q5 smartphone

Fancy a bit of Media Sharing via DLNA while waiting for the Amazon Android apps to show up?

Keyboard aside, the real jewel in the BlackBerry crown is the Hub communications centre. Until you’ve used this you can’t even begin to grasp how much easier it makes your life. I’d sell my left testicle to have something similar for Android. One slight downside is the lack of the one-sign-in cloud integration offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft, but the way the built-in file manager integrates with Box and DropBox goes some way towards ameliorating this.

Apps are a bit scarce but come the BB 10.3 update you’ll get the Amazon Android appstore baked-in, which is a step in the right direction.

Price £99
More info BlackBerry

EE Kestrel

RH Numbers

EE’s Kestrel bears more than a passing resemblance to Huawei’s Ascend G6 4G and since the Kestrel is made by Huawei anyway, it’s a fair bet that what we have here is essentially the same device, just tweaked to get the price down.

Sadly, the Kestrel has the same rather odd connector positioning as the G6 - micro USB at the top, 3.5mm audio at bottom left. The 4.5-inch qHD screen is bright and colourful and thanks to IPS tech, viewing angles are pretty impressive too.

EE Kestrel Android smartphone

On top of Android 4.3, here you get Huawei’s versatile and rather attractive iOS-like Emotion UI. The problem with Emotion is that it does away with the division between home screens and the app drawer, which is a fix to a problem that doesn't really exist.

Running the show is a Snapdragon 400 chipset with a quad-core 1.2GHz CPU, which gives the Kestrel a level of performance to match the Moto G – together with the same 8GB of onboard storage with a microSD slot and USB host support.

EE Kestrel homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

Everything else about the Kestrel – looks, build-quality, battery life, speaker performance, picture quality from the 5MP camera – is entirely competent, if unexceptional. At £99, you can’t realistically expect more. Indeed, for the money it is hard to criticise the Kestrel, although the baked-in Amazon apps (five of them) are overkill.

Price £99
More info EE

Motorola Moto E

RH Numbers

The Moto E was always going to have a tough time following the G and it was onto a loser from the get-go in terms of media and public expectations. And so it was, because while the G was a stunning bit of kit for £120 back in late 2013, the E is merely a good value budget phone for £90 in summer 2014.

Motorola Moto E Android smartphone

I don’t want to sound too down on the E though. The 4.3-inch qHD IPS screen is impressive, as is the single loudspeaker, battery life reasonable and performance more than acceptable with even some pretty hard core gaming not managing to trip up the Qualcomm chipset. The E is also water resistant though I’ve not tested it to extremes.

Motorola Moto E homescreen, storage allocation and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

In the minus column there’s no webcam, which I still hold to be a truly daft decision by Motorola. The 5MP camera is fixed-focus – so say goodbye to checking barcodes – it lacks a flash and is frankly hopeless. I also can’t shake the feeling that the 4G Moto G has been hiked in price to make the 3G-only E a more attractive proposition. I don’t like those sort of games. Never have.

All in all not a bad little lump, but for only a few quid more, the Alcatel Idol S is a better bet, even if you don’t get KitKat. The original 3G Moto G is also a good'un and it can still be found on store shelves both real and virtual for around £100.

Price £89
More info Motorola

Prestigio Multiphone 5500 Duo

RH Numbers

Who? What? My thoughts exactly. But the Prestigio Rainbow – you get four colourful replacement backs in the box – actually isn’t a bad old Hector. For £130 you get an unlocked handset with a 5-inch screen, two micro SIM slots, a removable 2,000mAh battery, a decent pair of earphones and a near stock implementation of Android 4.2.2. It’s not a bad looking lump either and feels pretty well made.

Prestigio Multiphone 5500 Duo Android smartphone

Of course there are downsides. Once I remembered to peel the lens protector off the 5Mp camera, everything looked less green, but the end results were the still the worst here and the same goes for the VGA webcam. The 480 x 854 display leaves a bit to be desired too: it’s not the sharpest, washes out at extreme angles and is rather reflective.

The Mediatek MT6572 chipset is rather gutless too, thanks to a dual-core 1.2GHz chip and just 512MB of RAM. It also lacks 4G, NFC and USB host support. You also have to make do with 4GB of storage though there is a micro SD card slot.

Prestigio Multiphone 5500 Duo homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

I’d not recommend the Prestigio for gaming but for everything else it does a solid enough job and the last time I was offered 5 inches for less money I was sitting in a bar in one of the seedier parts of Bangkok. Incidentally, next month Prestigio will launch a Windows Phone 8.1 phone with a 5-inch 720p IPS screen, quad-core CPU and 1GB of RAM for the same price, so it may be worth waiting until we get our hands on one of those for a review.

Price £129
More info Prestigio

Samsung Galaxy Ace 3

RH Numbers

It seems that Samsung’s creative juices have been exhausted; it appears to have basted its flagship, phablet and tablet lines and left nothing for the mid range. The Galaxy Ace 3 isn’t actually a bad device, so long as you ignore the 3G version (it’s inferior in several key areas) and plump for the 4G model. However, it’s nigh-on a year old and in that year a lot has changed. At around £130, it now looks overpriced.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 Android smartphone

The most obvious failing is the 4-inch 480 x 800 TFT screen, which is decidedly small and low-res compared to others in the field. Thankfully, the internals are a little more competitive, although it lacks an NFC chip and USB hosting. The 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm chip has 1GB of RAM available to it, so the UI is reasonably fluid, despite the TouchWiz launcher over Jelly Bean combo. There’s also a handy 8GB of storage backed up by a micro SD expansion slot.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

The 5MP camera isn’t too shabby, likewise the VGA webcam and thanks to the low-rent screen the removable 1800mAh battery, it can easily make it through two full days on a charge. It’s certainly a big tick in the plus column, as is the highly pocketable shape, size and weight. If it were 50 or so quid cheaper, the Ace 3 would hold its own, but as things stand, it’s a decent device rather overwhelmed by the newer, cheaper devices such as the EE Kestrel.

Price £130
More info Samsung

Sony Xperia E1

RH Numbers

Although Sony want 100 quid for it, I’ve seen the E1 going for as little as £65 on PAYG. Yet despite its pocketable price, this Xperia boasts a half-decent chipset in the form of the Qualcomm MSM8210 Snapdragon 200 which features a dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chip and Adreno 302 GPU. Like the Moto E, the Xperia E lacks a webcam, a fact that’s either an irrelevancy or a deal breaker depending on your need to take selfies or make video calls.

Sony Xperia E1 Android smartphone

The feature that may tip you towards the E1 is the Walkman music player. Not only does this look and sound good (for a cheap device the speaker is rather good too) but there’s a launch button for it on top of the device too. This makes it a very convenient little gadget if you are looking for a phone that is destined to spend most of its time being used an an MP3 player.

Sony Xperia E1 homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

There are a few drawbacks though. The 3.15Mp camera is low rent and there’s only 512MB of RAM – which rather limits the smoothness of the UI and indeed the performance of the device as a whole.

The 480 x 800 4-inch TFT display is a bit ordinary too, if a cut above the Archos and Vodafone devices. In the plus column it’s light, at a piffling 120g, there’s a microSD card slot and a removable 1700mAh battery. You also get Sony’s excellent Movies and Album apps to complement the Walkman. Sony has also announced that the E1 will get a bump from Jelly Bean to KitKat. All in all the Xperia E1 is much better than the price would suggest.

Price £100
More info Sony

Vodafone Smart 4

RH Numbers

Carrier-branded smartphones are becoming a thing of the past in the UK and a good thing too, I say. But if Vodafone’s Smart 4 is the last of the breed at least it goes into the dark with a small hoorah. For your 75 bucks you get a 4.5-inch FWVGA screen, a webcam, KitKat, a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor with 512MB of RAM and Adreno 305 GPU, a removable 1880mAh battery and a microSD slot to back up the 4GB of storage.

Vodafone Smart 4 Android smartphone

Assembled by Chinese OEM Yulong, it’s a svelte, handsome and well made little lump and the only Vodafone branding is a black logo embossed on the rear, so thankfully your friends won't notice you’re using a pauper’s phone. The humble origins are apparent in use though. It’s 3G-only, the AnTuTu score was the lowest in the group, there is the occasional pause in the interface.

Vodafone Smart 4 homescreen and AnTuTu score

Homescreen and AnTuTu device info and rating – click for a larger image

The screen also leaves something to be desired: it’s a basic TFT affair with a lot of chromatic shift in evidence when you tilt the top of the phone towards you. The camera, like that of the Moto E, is a 5Mp fixed-focus affair, so forget grabbing barcodes, but at least there is a LED flash. Surprisingly, for a carrier-branded device, my review sample was network-unlocked and worked a treat with the O2 SIM I slipped into it, while all the usual carrier bloat was easily uninstalled using the Android application manager. ®

Price £75
More info Vodafone