Hi all, My Galaxy S7 Edge is in for a manufacturers warranty repair for screen failure (AGAIN!) for the second time in 6 months of owning it. Given how long it takes them to repair and return it (approx 2 weeks) I don't really want to be without at least a basic smart phone. Stuff like google maps navigation is just essential for me, it saves me hours of wasted time with it's route finding and traffic redirection for example. I am also going on Holiday soon to Europe and don't really want to take my S7 if I can use a cheaper alternative. It needs to be network un-locked and use a nano sim if possible. To start I have found the Doogee X5 Max Pro (chinese phone?) for £75: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LC6YK5G?th=1 Anyone got any good ideas for a reasonably capable but cheap backup phone for the reasons above? Thanks,
Depends on your definition of reasonably capable... Personally I'd increase the budget a bit and go for something a bit better than the Doogee X5 Max Pro and just bin the Samsung one for good. Doogee Y6 Piano ZTE Nubia Z11 Mini S LeEco Le2 Xiaomi Redmi 4 Pro Umi Z Elephone S7 Blackview P2 Vernee Apollo All of the above are somewhere in the region of £120 - £220 and have 3GB+ Ram, 32GB+ Rom, 1080p+ screen, run Android 6 and are all more than good enough to not need any of the phones officially available in Europe. But if you want to stay at a similar price to the X5 Max Pro some alternatives would be the Goowell M15, Elephone C1, Oukitel C5 Pro, Oukitel U20 Plus, Ulefone U008, Leagoo T1, Leagoo M5 Plus, Leagoo M8, honestly they are all pretty much the same that far down the price ladder.
I'd go up to about £95-100 max (bear in mind this is just to tide me over until the S7Edge is repaired and to take on Holiday), but when my contract expires I will definitely consider buying a phone outright, outside of a contract using some of these as good options. The Reason I set that cost limit (beyond the above reasons) is because at the moments im looking at the doogee 5 max pro I already linked from or the Moto G3 (I had a play with one in a local tesco at lunch time), But the G3 is a good 20 quid more but I know what i'm getting with it. I just can't shake the feeling it is a little over priced in direct comparison to the doogee. Maybe my question should have been recommend me the best sub £100 smart phone
Just a little update, apparently the 'pink line' Issue is a fairly common fault, at least according to the US Samsung community forums. Anyway, I got a message from the Car-phone warehouse repair trackers to say the phone was not covered by manufacturers warranty, but that they had repaired it anyway. Confused/worried, I called them and they confirmed the fault was not repairable so they are replacing the handset. I questioned what their definition of a replacement was, as in was it some shitty b grade repair as a replacement and they said it was an A grade, which they say is phones that are new and not previously owned but have had the manufacturers seals broken and thus can't be resold as new. Would have preferred a brand new handset but this is OK I suppose, better than a repair that I would have had little confidence in given my experience so far! On the subject of alternate handset advise offered, I can definitely say to anyone else in who finds them-self in a a similar situation. I picked up a Moto E3 (against better advise) the battery is ok, android v6 is nice and the phone is mostly ok to use but with 1 gig of RAM and a 1ghz processor, they are a bit slow and the satnav keeps loosing lock and does not correctly detect position causing lots of re-direction alerts. Something like a Samsung J3 would have been a lot faster, but £45 more and then your in the price range of the much better Chinese Smart Phones recommended by anfield. I reminded myself that this was just a backup phone and not to overspend on it so will likely stick with with. I did seriously consider dropping it for the much cheaper and better (relatively speaking) doogee x5 max pro I had originally identified, however as part of my research (thanks GSM Arena) I realised that a lot of the ultra cheap phones all use A-GPS not the much better Glonass, GPS or BDS so as I needed proper satnav (current issue not withstanding). I decided against it. It's not been a total waste though, when my contract ends early next year, I am going to do things differently, opting to buy a phone outright and going more midrange, say £300-£350 from the likes of 1Plus1, Doogee, Xiaomi etc, move away from the so called flagship phones by Samsung & Apple. Cheers!
How about some cheap Motorola phone? A Moto E is decent enough to use Whatsapp, make some phone calls or browse the web. Any other cheap chinese phone will also work great.
I'd recommend looking for a second hand Moto G4 maybe on ebay? I recommended them to parents and they both really like them and because they are essentially stock android they run well....
If you want an inexpensive but still pretty good smartphone, I highly recommend you look at the Motorola G4/ G4 Plus. If you want a midrange phone, you may want to look at the Asus Zenfone 3.
