During a difficult economic situation on the market, the democratic prices for electronics are falling significantly, which made it difficult for most users to choose a smartphone. Manufacturers go for a lot of marketing gimmicks when positioning a product in the market, which only serve to increase the price of the final product. By avoiding falling into such tricks, you can significantly save money.
Technologies are moving forward only into the hands of users. Smooth component manufacturing takes old samples off the lines and instead offers new generation products that are faster and more powerful in every way. The processor of even the cheapest smartphone with a low frequency sometimes turns out to be faster than the processor of premium flagships 5 years ago. This applies to almost all components. Based on this, let's understand a few rules that will save you money. All models are assumed to run on Android OS. at the moment it is the most popular system in the budget segment, satisfying the needs of most users.
Screen
This is probably the most important part of the modern apparatus, because the screen is where our long-suffering eyes will be directed all the time. Before choosing a smartphone, don't pay too much attention to the screen resolution numbers. For a 5-inch display, a resolution of 480 vertical dots is enough. In comparison with other, more expensive competitors, it does not look convincing at all, but our goal is to save money, and 480 resolution is enough for almost all tasks. Suffice it to recall the flagship for 2011 tablet Acer Iconia Tab 500/501, which had only….720 pixels on a 10-inch screen, which is only about 146 ppi! And most importantly, users were happy with both games and films, and many of them even professionally worked with text on it.
Thus, 180 ppi (about 800 * 480) for 5 inches is enough for almost all tasks. And do not believe the sellers that low resolution deteriorates vision - vision deteriorates from long work with any screen, and the point here is not at all in the resolution. A much more important parameter is the flicker frequency and viewing angle, and if the first parameter is difficult to find out, then the viewing angle can be viewed on the spot by looking at the screen from different angles - with a highly distorted contrast, vision is strained to a large extent. But it is also worth noting that the screens of ultra-budget models fade quite strongly, which is definitely a bad thing.
CPU
At this point, you should pay special attention, because the speed of the device depends on the processor. One of the most budgetary companies whose products are on the market is MediaTek. The processors of their production are presented in a very wide range - from relatively weak models in cheap smartphones to top-end units that set records in synthetic tests. The stability of work is at the proper level, so we feel free to choose them.
And what about the frequency? Here you need to understand a little about kernels. Single-core units are very rare on the modern market, but if one of them nevertheless caught the eye, then you should not choose a smartphone, since they will not provide sufficient performance. Further - the rule: the more cores, the better. If the budget allows for the inclusion of 4-core models in the list, that's just fine. A processor with a low frequency, but with 4 cores will be able to cope with almost any day-to-day task (and even an average game) thanks to 4 threads of command execution. It is more pleasant to use such a smartphone - it responds faster to user commands.
But if the budget is very limited, we look at 2 cores and look for a high frequency. In principle, 2 cores of 1.3 GHz for normal use should be enough. Those who like to play may not like the performance, but if your requirements do not include games, then you can safely take it.
Memory
RAM is the second aspect after the processor, which is responsible for the speed of the smartphone. The iron rule works here - there is never a lot of RAM (it does not apply to computers). Of course, 512 MB should be more than enough for the Internet and movies, but in view of the fact that device manufacturers love to load the firmware with their proprietary services, the lion's share of the memory generally goes to no one knows where. As a result, it is better to look for models from 1 GB and above. If there is nothing suitable, we take 512 MB, but we mean that applications will not switch quickly. If you need a simple device for calls, SMS and social. networks, then 512 MB of memory should be sufficient.
Camera and stuff
This moment is already strictly limited by the needs of users. The rules are such that the manufacturer saves on everything he can for the sake of reducing the price. And more often than not, this is anything that is not listed above: camera, screen cover, battery longevity, Wi-Fi receiver. The only exception is the radio module and microphone, so communication on all budget models is more or less acceptable.
Also, today there is a tendency that in the lowest price segment there are cameras of simply disgusting quality. Do not be surprised if the camera on your old Nokia takes pictures better than on the new smartphone for 4000 rubles. In them, the camera stands for photographing all kinds of numbers, large text, and anything that makes more sense than aesthetics, so you shouldn't be surprised. If you want a good camera, you have to pay for it. If you don't need it, then when choosing a smartphone, it is better to pay for the screen and processor.
