Motorola G from Prepaymania (£133.58) or Dial-a-Phone (£25.45 per month)
The Motorola G was one of the first budget phones to stir the nest when it came home to roost it’s roots firmly as a classic budget mid range smartphone! It is one of the best smartphones with competitive specs along side it’s competition. Sporting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with a 1200 Mhz quad core processor the Moto G is fast at processing graphics with some of the latest games on Android and to operate browsing the net or user interface, it has 1024 MB of RAM to help push it when you need the extra power multitasking or rendering the graphics on your favourite game or app!
The handset feels firm and solid and it’s not too heafty! Your palm fits snuggly around it and your index finger naturally slips into the Motorola logo which acts as a natural finger rest. The battery is non removable (But excellent) which is one of the only down sides to the Moto G along with a stumble you can get it with 8GB of storage space which isn’t acres of space but for most people should be ok, if you do need more you can get the 16GB version.
The Moto G comes with a five megapixel camera for snapping anything that catches your eye! The camera works excellent with its autofocus and excellent exposure and light levels, you can even take a pic as you film a vid! Along with a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, which means you can take selfies too! If all the specs and hype about the popular Moto G wasn’t enough let me let you know now, it’s almost waterproof! The Moto G has a water resistant repellent coating, so although it’s not certified and officaly tested before it hit the market and labled as ‘waterproof’ it has been tested on YouTube by Erica Griffin (A lovely mobile phone reviewer) and survived a shallow dunk for 30 minutes submerged! Which means you can sing and dance in the rain with it and if you drop it in a puddle (don’t take my word for it! or Erica’s) the chances are it should be fine and dandy!
EE Kestrel from EE (PAYG) or (Contract)
The EE Kestrel is EE’s own branded smartphone and the reincarnated second life of the Huawei Ascend G6 revived! It is a slimline thin handset easy on the eye and light and almost flimsy to hold but nicely cornered on the edges so it won’t blow away in the wind but instead flies and hovers flat like a Kestrel above and with the competition! In terms of specs and hardware at it’s price for only £99 outright or on contract for as low as £14.99 a month again, you can’t go wrong! The main attraction for the EE Kestrel is its 4G capability and 4GEE connection with the support in terms of the coverage and accessories available only to EE customers!
The Kestrel hovers with the Moto G with its certain advantages. It has a slot for memory expansion, unlike it’s rival the Moto G which is limited at either 8 or 16 GB no more no less nevertheless it floats above any other smartphone at its budget, it’s specs break even to an extent with the Moto G! The Kestrel offers and shares a quad core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 CPU and runs on Android 4.2 even though they are both IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen’s (with more viewing angles) the only thing letting down the Kestrel is its screen resolution of 960 x 540 pixels compared to the Moto G which hues 720 x 1280 pixels altogether at a higher density, which really means do you mind not having the best screen in the world if you have fastest 4G connection in the world to boost it too on a mid range yet budget spec smartpriced smartphone?
Nokia Lumia 625 from EE Mobile (£99.99)
Starting firstly with Nokia and the windows end of the spectrum. A windows operating system has a lot to offer for newcomers who have never used a smartphone, naturally most people do still run a PC using Windows and a windows smartphone is designed to be easy for anyone to use pick up explore and go with much like the iPhone in its user interface, simplicity and trustful design is one of its appeals. (Along with its everlasting battery!) supported with a 1.2GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM 8 GB of internal storage with space for 64 GB of extra storage on MicroSD!
The Nokia Lumia 625 is cheap but excellent smartphone and it does everything it should do! In your hands the Lumia 625 feels like a solid but light slab of artificial slate, it can stand a heafty drop or two on the concrete, in fact my mother herself has the Lumia 625 and it is the first smartphone she has ever had and she is pleased with it! As mentioned the build quality is strong yet light, the screen can be woken up just by tapping it twice which is something it has in common with the Sony Experia Z2 (A permium Smartphone) and it is a very simple yet handy feature I think all phones should have!
The Nokia Lumia 625 is a Windows phone and runs on the Windows 8.1 operating system. It uses the infamous tile navigation which is really handy fluid and easy to navigate and now customise too! To be honest arguably it is one of the easiest colourful, playful and original navigating user interfaces to scroll and flick through yet alone experience as a simple yet sophisticated package vivid with the many colours of Monet! It has a five megapixel camera without a flash but from what I have seen from Lanzarottie (my mother went there just a few weeks ago) the images she captured you can’t complain about! It doesn’t have a front camera so if your a millennial like me (what I think is silly term and stereotype!) you won’t be able to easily take and capture vain selfies! It is a smart choice and even if you have money falling out of your pockets it’s an excellent little phone for colourful people and great for anyone that has never used a smartphone before! Easily!