As improvements in smartphone technology forge ahead the high-end market has continued to flourish. One result of this is that spec has continued to improve down at the budget end where those who either cannot or are unwilling to shell out hundreds of pounds on a mobile phone have benefited from technology hand-offs from the high end. 2012 was a great year for the budget handset and here we take a look at the five best phones to come out of the budget market.
The Orange San Diago:
Coming in at around the £200 mark this is a remarkable little phone that has many of the features you would expect from a high-end model. This is the first Intel smartphone to be brought out in Europe and features a top quality 4” screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 and a pixel density of 297 pixels per inch, 1GB of RAM, 16GB storage and an Atom 1.6GHZ processor. Running on Android, the San Diego also features an 8-megapixel camera and HD video recording.
The Nokia Lumia 800:
If you are willing to accept the older Windows 7.5 operating system then the Nokia Lumia budget model is a great smartphone. Featuring a 3.7” screen with a 800 x 480 resolution and a pixel density of 252ppi it is powered by a 1.4GHz processor with 512MB of RAM. Onboard storage is a decent 16GB and the camera is no slouch either. Nokia have presented the budget user with an 8-megapixel camera, dual-LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics.
The HTC One:
Again coming in at around £200 this is another fantastic smartphone for the money. With a 1GHz single-core processor, a 3.7” display a resolution of 800 x 480 and a pixel density of 252ppi, what it lacks in onboard storage at 4GB, it makes up for with a micro SD card slot and a deal with Dropbox that gives 25GB of free cloud storage
The LG Optimus 7:
If you look hard enough you can now pick this great little phone up for under £200. Running on Android the Optimus features a large 4.3” display with 480 x 800 resolution and a pixel density of 217ppi. Powered by a 1GHZ processor and with 512MB of RAM it is not the most powerful in our list but is more than capable of most normal tasks.. The camera built into the unit is a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash
HTC Desire C:
You can rely on HTC to really come up with the goods and at a knock-down price too. You are looking at somewhere around the £100 mark to get your hands on one of these. Running Android 4.0 the Desire C has a screen resolution of 480 x 320, with a pixel density of 165ppi complimented by a 5-megapixel camera. NJot an all powerful phone it has 512MB RAM and 600MHz processor. This phone will handle any task that the average user throws at it and for that price it was an obvious candidate for the second HTC entry on this list.
