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4G Smartphone on a budget - Recommendations?

Dos_Box

By Dos_Box
in Mobile Devices & Tablets

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Dos_Box

Dos_Box

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I'm to get my son his first phone in June for his birthday and I'm looking to spend about a hundred pounds (slightly more is ok).

Before I go visiting the Chinese sites I do see that phones such as the Moto G4 and Wileyfox seem to offer a decent handset for not much money, are they any good?

It needs to be a recent Android OS, screen resolution not important - 720p is fine and have GPS and decent sensors.

Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

admars

admars

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keep an eye on HotUkDeals. the cheap Chinese phones are great value for money, however, mine (Doogee X3) hasn't been updated from the previous version of Android, and probably never will. build quality is hit and miss, the headphone jack doesn't hold the earphones very well, BUT it was £30 :) the other problem is, one drop, and the screen cracked, my old Samsung sufferred many drops with minimum damage :( a replacement screen was about £10, and a right PITA to replace, you can't just use one of those local unlock phone repair shops :(

 

Moto G4s are good vfm, especially as the g5 is out very soon

 

wileyfox look good on paper but again build quality issues, especially around usb socket. Amazon reviews are quite varied, an ex colleague of mine hated his, but some ppl like them.

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Geoff

Geoff

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Mum as a Moto G4. Completely happy with it. A child is likely want to play games on their phone though so performance is going to be a massive problem at ~£100 mark.
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Dos_Box

Dos_Box

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keep an eye on HotUkDeals. the cheap Chinese phones are great value for money, however, mine (Doogee X3) hasn't been updated from the previous version of Android, and probably never will. build quality is hit and miss, the headphone jack doesn't hold the earphones very well, BUT it was £30 :) the other problem is, one drop, and the screen cracked, my old Samsung sufferred many drops with minimum damage :( a replacement screen was about £10, and a right PITA to replace, you can't just use one of those local unlock phone repair shops :(

 

Moto G4s are good vfm, especially as the g5 is out very soon

 

wileyfox look good on paper but again build quality issues, especially around usb socket. Amazon reviews are quite varied, an ex colleague of mine hated his, but some ppl like them.

 

Got my daughter a X3 a couple of years back. It's given her some good service, need a 4G phone this time though. The Moto seems to be the way ahead. As long as it does Pokemon Go and some web stuff he'll be happy.

computer_expert

computer_expert

Posted
Posted

I've got a vodafone smart ultra 6. It's a great phone for the price, however I think it has been superseeded by a newer model. It's just recently been upgraded to Android 6 and has a 1080p screen and 13mp camera. The camera is better than the nexus 4 by quite a bit (although it doesn't really take much to beat the N4...).

 

The SU6 is made for vodafone by ZTE but I think the newer models are made by another company.

simonw

simonw

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I got my sons Moto G3's a couple of years ago and was very impressed with them. I was looking for a unit to replace my own HTC, I got myself a Moto G4 and I have no complaints.
Joanne

Joanne

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I'd look at second hand. The HTC One M9 is approaching 2 years old, so I imagine there will be a few of those coming up. They are on the latest android nougat and are still quick.
Dos_Box

Dos_Box

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The only main concern I have is the size. Anything above 5" is not going to be suitable really. It's a shame everyone is going for larger screens these days.
Geoff

Geoff

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We were looking at the Samsung J3 and A5s for staff (They can get lost if they think we are shelling out for S7s), they are both very nice phones. The J3 is exactly 5".
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Dos_Box

Dos_Box

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Well, I bought the Swift and it's a cracking phone for the price and will do all the stuff my son wants.

However there are some BIG hurdles to overcome, primerily revolving around the fact Cyanogenmod is dead and as most of this phones 'shiney' stuff requires you to create accounts on Cyanogen to operate means that I have to move it over to LineageOS.

No biggie, all I have to do is root it, install a new recovery environment (TWRP) and install Lineage.

One problem however, since Cyanogen went belly-up the instuctions here- https://forum.xda-developers.com/wileyfox-swift/general/root-wileyfox-swift-t3261321 - say I need to download the recovery image from Cyanogen (which is no longer there) and I can't find one on Wileyfox's site.

I've had a look around and can't find a download anywhere, does anyone know if there is a Cyanogen repository out there on the interwebs I can get one from?

Dos_Box

Dos_Box

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Mirror of CM downloads - CyanogenMod Downloads - Mirror

 

The issue is that you need to install TWRP on there. For that you need root. To root the device you need the Cyanogen recovery image. This is where the fail is. All Cyanogen images have been taken down.

I'm currently looking at ways of creating a backup image from the exisiting install.

Mayki5

Mayki5

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WileyFox are pushing OTA updates that will replace the Cyanogen image with a stock Android one. Should happen within the next two months for older WileyFox phones, but they are committed to getting them all updated.
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