Best Smartphones under £500

If you are thinking of upgrading your smartphone this should help you decide which may be best for you. There are many main brands in the smartphone industry, and I have chosen Apple and Samsung as my top choice.

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The Samsung A71

The first is the Samsung A71 which was released 7th January 2020 for UK customers to purchase, the smartphone is part of their A series, the mid range category for their smartphones as the S series is the top range.

So the specification, the Samsung A71 comes with 128gb(which is the only option of storage capacity), it is upgradable by 512gb. The Samsung A71 uses a 6.7inch Super AMOLED Plus, Infinity-O Display with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 (FHD+) 393PPI (Pixels per inch). Some say the camera is one of the most important parts of a smartphone and this phone takes it the next level, the A71's rear camera's include a 64MP+12MP+5MP+5MP. The main camera is the 64MP (PDAF) and the 12MP is a ultra-wide , the 5MP are a macro and Depth camera. Having a Macro camera on a phone like this is amazing for taking pictures of objects which are close to the camera such as taking pictures of small objects. Also the depth information camera is very good for blurring backgrounds and focusing on objects. The back camera system is cable of taking UHD 4K (3840x2160)@30FPS and take 9000x7000 Pixel images. The front camera is a 32MP with HDR.

The OS (operating system) is very important when deciding which phone to get as there are 2 main ones out there for smartphones iOS and Android. This phone runs Android so make sure you bear that in mind when buying this as if you have been using a iPhone which uses iOS this is big change to make and some apps may not transfer over to android. The A71 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 processor system chip with 8 cores and is 64 bit. Lastly the A71 has NFC, inscreen fingerprint unlock and face unlock as well, and all for £420 this seems a bargain.

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The iPhone SE (2020)

So the second one I have picked is the iPhone SE which was already a name for a iPhone which came out in 2016 however Apple has brought out a new one. So you're probably thinking a budget iPhone is this possible, well yes, this new SE cost £420 for the baseline 64gb, but I would recommend going for the 128gb model which will set you back another £51 but since the SE doesn't have expandable storage its worth paying up for it so later on you don't have to delete apps and photos on your phone. The SE also comes in white, black and (product) red - Apple has partnered with (red) to send 100% of proceeds until the 30th of September go to COVID-19 response and help keep lifesaving HIV/AIDS programmes.

So to the specifications, the iPhone SE has a 4.7inch retina HD display with a Resolution of 1334x750. This display is quite small be today's standards as most smartphones have a 5inch or bigger screen however this can be forgiven when you see what system chip is in it. The SE has the Apple A13 Bionic chip which is in the £1000+ iPhone 11 Pro which is extremely fast, which perfect for doing all sorts things from watching movies to playing games or doing everyday tasks.

So camera wise the SE has a single wide (not ultra-wide) 12MP camera which has portrait mode and portrait lighting with 6 effects which is 3 more than the iPhone XR which is nearly double the price of the SE. The camera also features 5x zoom and can record at 3840x2160 (4k)@24,30, 60 fps and takes 4000x3000 images.

Also the iPhone SE runs the latest iOS at the time of writing, the SE also still has a lightning cable but no headphone jack but the A71 does have a headphone jack.

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I hope you found this useful on what smartphone to get.

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