Ranking the TOP 6 best Android phones under $200 in 2025

If you're thinking of getting one of the best Android phones under $200, you're going to have a lot of options to choose from. Even better, these budget-oriented smartphones come with everything from vibrant AMOLED panels to big batteries to years of OS and security updates. Sure, you won't get goodies like top-tier performance and all-glass build quality, but as far as value for money is concerned, these sub-$200 devices are incredible.

Our top recommendation is the Moto G (2025), which is among the newest budget offerings from Motorola. This smartphone comes with Android 15 out of the box and features a large IPS LCD screen, complete with solid battery endurance and 30W charging speed that's more than what you get with Samsung's Galaxy S25 flagship. Then there's the Moto G Power 5G (2024), which is ideal for anyone who wants their phone to go all day and even supports wireless charging. We also quite like the CMF Phone 1, which comes with a unique hardware design, a thoughtful yet feature-laden software experience, good camera quality, and more.

Patrick Farmer

Patrick is a no-nonsense deal hunter with over 10 years of experience in the ecommerce space. Whether you’re interested in a new wireless carrier, smart home device, or Android phone, Patrick combines hands-on research with practical shopping advice to get you the answers you need.

At a glance

Best overall

Offering a laundry list of goodies at an incredibly affordable price, Motorola's new Moto G (2025) follows similar design cues as its more expensive cousins. In comparison to the Moto G 5G (2024), it gets a slightly larger display with Gorilla Glass 3, IP52 rating, and 30W wired charging. If all you need is a well-rounded smartphone that can get the job done, get this one without thinking twice.

The Moto G (2025) is powered by the Dimensity 6300 SoC and has 4GB of RAM. Sure, these are not top-of-the-line specifications, but this hardware should be more than capable of handling everyday use (e.g., web browsing, light gaming) tasks without any issues. There's 128GB of internal storage, and an expansion slot that can take up microSD cards of up to 1TB. This essentially means that you can carry a whole lot of media with you, at all times.

The smartphone's 6.7-inch IPS LCD may not offer deep blacks and vivid contrast levels, but it's sufficient for things like video streaming. The HD+ resolution is a bit low, but you do get a 120Hz refresh rate.

At the back, the smartphone packs in a dual-lens camera system, comprising a 50MP wide-angle module and a 2MP macro sensor. Even when you ignore the macro lens, the primary unit should be able to capture decent photos in well-lit conditions. There's a third cutout on the back which looks like a camera, but it's the ambient light sensor.

The Moto G (2025) comes with all the essential connectivity features and even has NFC for hassle-free contactless payments. Other notable additions include stereo speakers, Android 15, and a big 5,000mAh battery.

Best unlocked

If you simply want a reliable everyday smartphone that'll work on most (if not all) of the best wireless carriers in the United States, look no further than the Moto G 5G (2024). The predecessor to our top pick, it's currently available at an incredibly low price of $129.99, which makes this thing an exceptional value.

Featuring Motorola's signature vegan leather back panel, the Moto G 5G (2024) comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 SoC, along with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. These specs make it capable of handling basic usage tasks like web browsing, media streaming, and even some light gaming. On the software side of things, you get Android 14 out of the box. Although the device won't receive any OS updates after Android 15, three years of bi-monthly security updates make it a pretty solid offering, especially given the price point. There's a dual-lens primary camera setup at the back, although it's just the 50MP primary sensor that's actually of use.

Apart from the usual connectivity and I/O options, the Moto G 5G (2024) also has handy extras like NFC and even a 3.5mm audio port. You get a 5,000mAh battery with 18W wired charging support as well.

Best battery life

It seems Motorola has mastered the art of making phones that offer incredible value for money, as we have another smartphone from the brand here, namely the Moto G Power 5G (2024). While far from perfect, it's ideal for consumers who want a phone that can go through the day (and then some) without needing to be juiced up.

Driven by a MediaTek Dimensity 7020 SoC, the Moto G Power 5G (2024) features 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. These are admirable specs, given the smartphone's affordable price tag. Of course, you also have an expansion slot for microSD cards of up to 1TB. In his review, Android Central's Derrek Lee noted the phone's dependable everyday performance, with that vegan leather back panel making for a premium in-hand feel. You get Android 14 out of the box, which is enhanced further with Motorola's thoughtful software tweaks. While the phone won't receive much in terms of OS updates, you can expect security patches for quite some time.

Then there's the all-day battery life, which is easily the best thing about the Moto G Power 5G (2024). The 5,000mAh battery goes all day and is backed by not just 30W wired charging but even 15W wireless charging. How cool is that?

Best display

Samsung's Galaxy A-series smartphones have come to be renowned for offering fabulous bang for the buck(s), and the Galaxy A16 5G is no different. Succeeding the Galaxy A15 5G, it offers quite a few upgrades that makes it worth getting.

As its name suggests, the Galaxy A16 5G offers 5G connectivity so you'll be able to enjoy blazing-fast speeds for video streaming, web browsing, and more while on the move. The 6.7-inch display sports a 90Hz refresh rate, but what truly sets it apart is that it's a Super AMOLED screen, while also making it ideal for content consumption.

Powered by either MediaTek's Dimensity 6300 or Samsung's Exynos 1380 SoC (depending on your region), the smartphone features 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The RAM is not ideal for a completely smooth experience, but it should get the job done for casual use tasks.

The Galaxy A16 5G features a triple-lens camera system at the back, comprising a 50MP primary sensor, a 5MP ultra-wide unit, and a 2MP macro module. It obviously does not stand a chance against the best camera phones out there, but it does more than suffice for taking a few photos every once in a while. As far as the software is concerned, you get the latest Android 14 with Samsung's One UI 6 out of the box. Perhaps the biggest feature setting this apart from the rest is that it will be getting six generations of OS upgrades, which no one else offers in this segment.

Best camera

Nothing's sub-brand CMF hit it out of the park with the Phone 1, its first Android phone. The device now has a successor, but it still remains an incredible offering in the sub-$200 price segment, having just about everything you could possibly want.

The CMF Phone 1 garnered lots of praise from Android Central's Nicholas Sutrich in his review, mainly because of its modular design and a clean yet feature-laden software experience. However, there's a lot more to be liked about here. Driven by a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset, the CMF Phone 1 packs 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of onboard storage. You also get an expansion slot, which makes it one of the best Android phones with expandable storage you can get. Up front, you get a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel with even bezels on all sides and a fast 120Hz refresh rate. Overall performance is quite good, but it's the camera on the Phone 1 that punches above its weight, outclassing smartphones that cost three times as much. Even the front-facing camera is quite good!

Running Android 14 out of the box, the CMF Phone 1 will get two years of OS and three years of security patches. And although the essential connectivity and I/O options are there, there's no NFC support. It features a 5,000mAh battery having support for 33W wired charging.

Best durability

Putting a case on your phone is a good way of ensuring it stays safe throughout your daily usage, but some phones are designed to be rugged and durable right out of the box. The DOOGEE Blade 10 is one of the good options priced at about $200 that packs a ton of features for outdoor use. It's MIL-STD-810H and IP68/69 rated for protection against drops and the weather.

The design of the Blade 10 also makes its ruggedness unmistakable and yet, it's just 10.7mm thick. The phone has a 6.56-inch HD+ panel with a 90Hz refresh rate and a tempered glass screen protector pre-applied. The screen is also claimed to have Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection and a max brightness of up to 400 nits.

Moving beyond its design, there are plenty of other highlights for the Blade 10 like the massive 5,150mAh battery, a dedicated microSD card slot, and NFC for contactless payments. There's also 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, with the latter being expandable up to 2TB. The phone comes with Android 14 comes out of the box, so you shouldn't have any app compatibility issues for a while. That said, don't expect much in terms of updates.

The design of the DOOGEE Blade 10 certainly isn't for everyone, but if you're in the market for a ruggedized handset like this one, it's definitely worth taking a good, hard look.

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Honorable mentions

The phones highlighted above are some of the best that we've used, but that doesn't mean there aren't other choices available. Whether it's limited global availability or phones we haven't tested as extensively just yet, there are plenty of other budget phones you can buy.

If our picks don't meet all your requirements, you may want to consider one of the options listed below.

How to choose

How to choose the right phone under $200

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When you’re on a tight budget, buying a new phone isn’t the easiest thing to do. Most phones in the under-$200 category look very similar, but what brands can you trust and what should you look out for?

At under $200, it’s uncommon to get a phone that isn’t made of plastic. There’s just no way around this as it’s a huge cost-saving measure most manufacturers take. Otherwise, you’ll be spending more for an expensive phone body and the company will have to cut back elsewhere.

It’s also very common to find phones with a standard HD display—also known as 720p—instead of a Full-HD 1080p or higher resolution. Some phones do come with high quality displays that look substantially better than others.

But, in most cases, that lower resolution is preferable for two reasons. First off, most phones under $200 don’t have a powerful processor. Without that extra processing power, a higher-resolution display will end up making the phone feel laggy when a lot is going on. Second, a lower-resolution display helps keep the phone’s battery going for a long time on a single charge.

Although many phones in this category only feature up to 6GB or even 8GB of RAM, the lower-power processors mean you can’t multitask particularly well, so having a ton of RAM isn’t going to help things much. But, in some cases, having extra RAM could help make your phone feel a bit speedier. A lot of phones can also use some part of their internal storage as a 'virtual' RAM that can be used to make things slightly better.

Now, with all that said, you should never expect to get lots of major operating system updates on a phone in this price category. While most phones see a single big OS update, some phones will just get security updates for a few years and be done. While major OS updates are a nicety, they don’t always make sense for a phone with a lower-power processor, as new features often require more processing power to actually be nice to use.

Those security updates are what you should actually pay attention to, and that’s why Samsung got the pick of the litter in this category. Samsung’s promised six years of OS and security updates for the Galaxy A16 5G is much more that of any other manufacturer on this page. While lower-power processors don’t always hold up well for that long, it’s great to know that your phone won’t be vulnerable to cyber-attacks or malware for as long as you own the phone.

Should you choose a SIM-free or contract phone?

At under $200, many phones offer the easy option to choose between buying them outright (also known as SIM-free since they don’t come with a carrier’s SIM card) or just adding them to your phone plan as part of your monthly bill. While many phones on this list won’t cost anything at all from great wireless carriers like T-Mobile, it might be worth buying them outright for a number of reasons.

First off, at under $200, all of these phones are quite affordable. Many of the phones in this list are often available at around $150, making them even easier to afford outright, especially when compared to flagship phones, which usually cost $600 or a lot more to buy outright.

Second is the fact that putting a sub-$200 phone on a contract means you're stuck with it for 24 months until the contract is up. While your carrier might offer a way to pay it off early, it’s likely for a higher price than it would have cost to buy it outright from Amazon or Best Buy.

Third is the fact that most sub-$200 phones tend to get a bit slow over a 24-month period, and that’s assuming you purchased the phone right when it came out. Case in point, if you were to choose the older Moto G Power 5G (2024) right now, you would be using a phone that’s already a bit old at this point, so it’s probably not going to be good to use for all that longer, much less 24 months from now.

How long do Android phones under $200 last?

On average, users who spend less than $200 on an Android phone will find that their purchase can last them around two years before the phone begins to feel a bit slow or old. That’s most often why manufacturers only promise one major OS update, as some new features could end up slowing the phone down too much.

During that two-year ownership period, it’s important to choose a manufacturer that promises regular security updates. Oftentimes, manufacturers in this price range will promise to deliver quarterly security updates to ensure that no big security vulnerabilities crop up on your phone. Phones with recent security patches are far less likely to fall prey to malware or other types of cyber attacks.

Because most sub-$200 phones will only get one major Android update and two years' worth of security updates, it’s most important to choose a newer phone that still has many months of support left.

When taking these measures into consideration, the weakest link on our list is the DOOGEE Blade 10, which will likely never see another update. While that’s fine in some circumstances, you’ll need to be extra mindful to avoid scenarios that could end up putting malware on your phone.

Should you consider an older model and/or used phone?

An alternative to buying a budget phone is to get a premium phone that's either an older model or that is available used. The benefit with this is that you're getting a better phone with more premium specs for the same price (or a bit more) than a budget phone. However, the older the phone is, the shorter the timeframe for software and security support.

With that said, with brands like Google starting to offer upwards of seven years of software and security updates for its Pixel devices, you could potentially go back a few years and still have a phone you can hang on to for the foreseeable future. It just might not support all the latest features and functions.

Buy/sell websites like Swappa have tons of premium phones on sale for under $200. At the time of this writing, for example, you can get a Google Pixel 7a for as low as $129, and there are many other options too. With quite a few years of OS and security updates left for the phone, it's still a great choice if you're on a tight budget.

Check out all the best places to buy a used phone as well as local marketplaces and private sales to see if there are some hidden gems. Many retailers also sell refurbished or open box devices for a steal, with a reasonable warranty.

If you go the used, refurbished, or open box route, proceed with caution. Make sure to run a detailed inspection of the phone, testing all of its features, functions, ports, buttons, and screen, before forking out your hard-earned cash. For older models, verify how many more software and security updates you get and double check the specs against the ones in these budget devices. In some cases, you might find it's well worth going this route instead.

Frequently asked questions

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