What’s up guys? Today we’re going to be talking about some of the best smartphones you can find for $150 and under in 2022.
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5. SAMSUNG GALAXY A12
So, let’s get started with the SAMSUNG GALAXY A12. This is a really nice phone. I think this might be one of my favorite phones as far as design wise. It just looks really nice for the price point. It’s just a plastic build so nothing too special. It has a 6.5 inch, a 720p plus display it’s a pls IPS display at 270 for the PPI. Overall, it was a decent display. Again, no complaints for this price point. It got fairly bright and it looked pretty good. This phone also is upgradable to android 11 which is really good news, you have the Helio p35 and this phone is pretty much geared towards just casual use as in watching videos social media and then casually playing like a game every now and then. This is not really like a powerhouse phone. You also have micro-SD support – 32 or 64 gigs of internal storage, depending on which model you go with and that’ll have three or four gigs of ram. You do have a 3.5-millimeter jack with a pretty decently loud speaker on here. You also have NFC onboard for mobile payments and the fingerprint scanner is side mounted which is really nice, very fast, something I appreciate. This phone actually has pretty good cameras. For this price point you have a quad camera set up: 48-megapixel standard, 5-megapixel ultrawide, and a 2-megapixel macro and depth sensor shoot in 1080p on the front, and back with an 8-megapixel selfie cam. For this price point I thought the pictures were pretty decent. If you’re in good lighting, I can definitely get a pretty decent shot out of this phone. No problem of course, when you take it out of good lighting, images do get a little bit soft but overall, it’s fine for the price. You also have one hair 5000 milliamp battery with 15-watt fast charging so this phone is going to be a beast in terms of battery life. It’s definitely an all-day phone for sure so I really like the A12.
4. MOTO G8 POWER
The Moto G8 power is easily one of the best phones on this list. It’s still extremely solid for the price point right now turning that around $140. This phone just has a plastic design but you also get a water repellent coating which is pretty nice so it can survive light splashes rain and stuff like that. You also have 6.4-inch 1080p display so it’s a really nice-looking display, 399 for the PPI it’s an IPS LCD panel. It looks really good, one of the best-looking displays on this list, has a little punch hole as well so i was really happy with the display colors and overall, for this price point, it looked really good. You also have this phone on android 11 so it is upgraded with android 11. Pretty much has a stock version of android which is really nice so the phone stays relatively fast as well with the snapdragon 665 and the adreno 610 on here. So, I do really like this phone performance wise, you don’t really get too many hiccups and stuff like that. With this guy you also get micro-SD, support 64 gigs of internal storage and four gigs of ram on here and this phone actually has stereo speakers which actually sound very good so i was really impressed with that because it’s rare you find stereo speakers on these type of budget phones. You also have a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack on here but unfortunately, this phone does not have NFC so do note that if you depend on mobile payments, you will not have it now. You do have a physical fingerprint scanner on the back which works very fast, I was really happy with that. The camera setup on here is actually very good. You have a 16-megapixel standard, 8-megapixel telephoto, and then 8-megapixel ultra-wide along with a 2-megapixel macro. You get 4k video with a 16-megapixel selfie that shoots in 1080p. You get very good detail, pretty good color, pretty good depth of field. The ultra-wide is pretty good on here as well so i was really happy with the image quality. I think at this price point, if you’re one of the people that just snap and take a photo, you want a good photo? this will definitely do it. Also, on here you do have a 5000-milliamp battery, it’s pretty big battery in 18-watt fast charging so the phone definitely lasts me a day and a half easy. I saw i was really happy with battery performance on here so overall, this phone offers a lot especially with its high-res display.
3. APPLE IPHONE 7
On here next is the iPhone 7. You can easily find this under 200 bucks and all the links will be in this review. This phone has an aluminum body so it just feels very premium steel in the hand. Feels just super solid, it’s also ip67 dust and water-resistant steel which is really nice and this phone actually has a pretty nice-looking display and a more compact display these days so if you want something really small, this would be ideal. You have a 720p plus 4.7-inch display. It is also 326 for the PPI so still relatively sharp, has pretty good color it gets fairly bright as well so I didn’t have any issues with the display. The main thing with this phone is that it’s actually running the latest version of iOS so you have the latest version of iOS 14.5 which is really awesome. You do have the apple a10 chip on here and the phone actually still relatively runs smooth. I did not really run into hiccups and stuff with this phone and actually does pretty good with casual gaming as well so i was really happy with that of course. On iPhones there’s no SD card support, 32 gigs of internal storage and two gigs of ram. You also have some pretty decent sounding stereo speakers as well and you have NFC with apple pay. Touch id works great these days since you don’t have to pull your mask down, like with face id so i was happy with that. Works very fast and also, the camera setup on here this is where the phone source shows its age. You only have a single lens 12-megapixel standard shoots in 4k, seven-megapixel selfie cam. It takes fine photos especially if you are in good lighting. It actually takes really good video, the best video out of all of these phones for me but image quality is going to be okay. Like i said, you’re missing the ultra-wide depth sensor macro, it just doesn’t have those but if you’re just somebody that wants to snap a photo and get a pretty decent shot, this still takes pretty good photos and you can do Facetime, iMessage on this phone, all works great. You do have a 1060 milliamp battery; you’re not going to get excellent battery life with this phone so you usually can squeeze around maybe four hours of screen on time with this phone so definitely you’re going to have to charge it but it’s still a very solid device.
2. SAMSUNG GALAXY A11
Next is the Samsung Galaxy A11. This one is pretty interesting, it’s like the A12 but to me I do like the display a little bit more on the A11. So, you still have a plastic body on here but the display, you actually have a punch hole instead of the water drop notch which is something that I like. It’s a 6.4 inch, IPS panel 720p plus, and 268 for the PPI. I just overall like the design of that punch hole over the water drop notch. You also have android 10, the snapdragon 450 processor, adreno 506. Again, these are not phones that you’re going to be gaming super heavy on, it’s more for a casual use. You do have a headphone jack and you do have single firing speaker which sounds decent. There is no NFC on this guy for mobile payments. You also have 32 gigs of internal storage, two gigs of ram and micro-SD support on this guy and you also have a physical fingerprint scanner on the back which works fine. The camera setup on here is pretty decent at 13-megapixel standard, 5-megapixel ultra-wide with the 2-megapixel depth shooting 1080p, 8-megapixel selfie camera. Again, you’re going to get pretty decent images if you’re in good lighting. If you’re out of good lighting they’ll be a little bit soft but overall, I was really happy with this phone. If you’re a casual smartphone user, just doing the basics; this phone will definitely get it done for a cheap price. You have a 4,000-milliamp battery with 15-watt fast charging, very good battery life on this phone as well so this is definitely a phone to consider.
1. REDMI 9
Last is the Redmi9. This phone is phenomenal for the price, it’s actually $130. I think this is overall the best price to spec ratio phone on the list. It’s just very impressive, I like the design on here, the two-tone color design, I think it looks pretty good. You have a really nice 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel on here, it’s 1080p, 395 for the PPI. Overall, just a really nice-looking panel. Again, a lot of these screens usually are around 720p so it’s nice that you get that bump up in resolution. Android 10 with MIUI 11 runs fine, I did not really have any issues. You have the Helio G80 processor on here, Mali G52 GPU and again, for more casual smartphone user this phone definitely is fine. For that i didn’t have any issues playing Call of Duty and stuff like that. You do have micro-SD support – 32 gigs or 64 gigs depending on which model you get; three gigs or four gigs of ram. You also have a loud speaker on here which sounds decent, headphone jack is on board, NFC is also on board, and you also get an infrared port with this phone so if you want to use it as a remote controller, that’s something you can definitely do. You got a physical fingerprint scanner on the back as well which works very fast. The best thing about this phone are the cameras. This phone takes phenomenal photos, i think it takes around the best of photos. Maybe the G8 power is really close to this as well. You got a 13-megapixel standard, 8-megapixel ultra-wide, 5-megapixel macro in the 2-megapixel depth both front and back, shooting 1080p, and 8-megapixel selfie. You get really good shots with this phone that’s why i was really impressed with detail, dynamic range, and the ultra-wide was pretty good. The macro camera is fun to play with, you get a good depth of feel so overall, I was really happy with the cameras on here. You also get a massive battery at 5020 milliamps so this phone is definitely an all-day phone for sure with 18-watt fast charging. I had no issues with battery life.
So that’s pretty much it guys! That wraps this review up, and I’ll catch you guys in the next one.
