There is always a tear for a rip and this applies to mobile phones. When I look for a phone for myself, I am very clear about what I want. But things change when someone comes and asks me for a recommendation. The first thing is to know what they want on a mobile, but sometimes it reminds me of that scene from The Simpsons in which Agnes Skinner asks the guy with the bags at the supermarket checkout that ‘she wants all her groceries in one bag, but what don’t weigh’. Come on, impossible: maybe you want a quality camera but your maximum budget is 200 euros and I already tell you that it will not happen. Another thing is my parents, who can give you their wish list, but you know them well enough to know what is important. A tight budget implies sacrifices, that is, focusing on what is important. So If your intention is to spend between 100 and 200 euros on a phone, this is what I would look at.
The fundamental thing in that price range is the hardware and there is a ‘holy trinity’ that you should not lose sight of: processor, RAM and storage. Yes, you still want it bigger or smaller, you’ve heard about the benefits of OLED screens, you want a great battery (spoiler alert: as a general rule, in that price range, autonomy is usually one of the strong points) or what you want with many cameras or to take good photos, but if you get desperate opening a couple of applications, all of the above goes to the background.
Processors: little margin, but there are a couple of tricks to get it right
Here I don’t want to spoil the party for anyone either, but the goal is to have good performance in our usage scenarioNot very intensive a priori, but there are also extras beyond cores or frequency such as 5G support, encryption, component compatibility, energy efficiency… and essentially two manufacturers: Qualcomm and Mediatek.
Thus, among the first we are going to find the Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 (Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 with a good offer) or the Snapdragon 685 (or even its predecessor the Snapdragon 680) and the second the Helio G99 or Dimensity 810 (or a step by below, the Dimensity 700). As a general rule, a higher number implies being better and in some cases more modern.
How to hit? I like to take a look at the technical sheet of the latest proposals from both Qualcomm like MediaTek to know what is the latest and its benefits. The reality is that both houses have optimized their most modest chipsets, but my recommendation is find the balance and decide on the most modern chip. On a personal note, I still like the behavior of the chips from the American manufacturer a little more.
The highlights of the Snapdragon 4 Gen 1
RAM and storage: give me more
The two in one? Yes, because manufacturers usually offer 4/64GB or 6/128GB versions, which means going further in both RAM and storage. In any case, there is no error here: the more the better.
It is likely that if you are going to spend a little more than 100 euros on a phone, your use is essentially WhatsApp, browsing the internet, some Google Maps, watching a video and taking the odd photo and video. But having all that open can make your mobile go to pedals and the goal is that the experience is moderately agile. This is the main mission of RAM, intended for the storage and rapid recovery of data for tasks that require it, for example those apps that are running simultaneously in the background. In that price range we will find 4, 6 and up to 8GB at specific times.
As for storage, it is intuitively understood that the more space you have, the more applications, photos and videos you can save. Normally, people who are looking for cheap smartphones for basic use do not intend to change it every so often to enjoy new features (that is more reserved for tech profiles), so they better to have enough space for the years you expect your phone to last. Also, although the clouds and the SD can get you out of the fix, the experience is different (and if you do numbers paying subscriptions, cheap can be expensive).
Here I am blunt: if you can go for the 6GB and 128GB model, much better, you will thank tomorrow because your mobile will age better.
The icing on the cake: what year are they
Taking the above and looking for the proposals of the main manufacturers, it is easy to come across models from two consecutive years to find yourself at a crossroads: Do I buy the oldest mobile but with good RAM and storage or do I opt for the newest model, even if it is the basic version?
I have it very clear: in general, better bet on the newest mobile. To begin with, because the processor is going to be more modern, which implies optimization and more recent technologies, such as ISP or image signal processor.
But there are important factors beyond the mere spec sheet. Thus, they may have the same amount of memory, but on the newer model they are probably faster and less energy demanding.
The passage of time is an important point, since newer components are more responsive to updates and in general, a newer model will have more years of updates. This in the long run is more years of useful life.
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