This Phone is $169 - What's the Catch?

it's literally cheaper than some wireless buds out there, that's crazy

"At this price point, I'd prefer prehistoric premium over presently pleasantly priced" is a great closing sentence.

The problem with these old flagships is to get a new battery. It’s often that you cannot get it replaced officially, or if you can then they just charge too much.

I never understood why manufacturers decided to go with metal frames but glass back panels, making phones weigh around 200 grams, just for the sake of a more "premium look and feel" when most people will have the phone covered for protection, adding a few miligramos more and hiding the design of the phone. Plastic phones were never a problem in my mind.

It kinda feels good to see big tech tubers talk about budget phones! Thank you for showing some love for the sub $200 category. Much appreciated.

I remember when $550 was the price of a flagship!

I suffered with this phone for a month. DON'T DO IT! It's laggy beyond belief, it can't even keep up with typing out messages. After the second week of owning it apps would start randomly freezing for minutes at a time, and then after they became unfrozen I would get a notification that the app wasn't responding, so even the crash reports were laggy. I found most of the time I was interacting with my phone I was idle waiting for it to launch apps or catch-up. I would say I spent more time on my phone and got less done which is super frustrating.

Simply excellent perspective Marques!! Thank you for getting that most important decision in there at the end!!!! I’ll keep looking for the 2021-2022 mid-upper level phone. Which manufacturers in Android space have longer s/w upgrade support?? The key piece right with cost. Thanks again!

The OnePlus 7 Pro was ahead of its time and still my favourite ever phone. It's a real shame the market and companies didn't keep the popup camera going.

You Should try Budget Moto G52 - 160$(India)

As a person who loves cheaper phones with decent workhorse power Motorola has been putting it out. I have a Stylo 5G and standard Stylo, both have headphone jacks, lovely large screens and battery. The camera can leave you wanting if you are after photographer quality, but it's definitely functional for pulling out to capture some random family event. Gaming is pretty good, on the 5G I can play Xbox games from game pass (haven't tried on the regular Stylo) with little sacrifice.

I have a S23 Ultra but there is a lot to be said for phones made of polycarbonate. They are so much lighter that even if you drop them them they hit the ground with far less force lowering the risk of damage. One of the things I liked about the Galaxy S2 was that it was so light it felt futuristic.

Not to mention, the new phone will also have a brand new battery so that will last longer. If you buy the old phone, you will probably need to get a replacement battery for it pretty soon. That’s definitely something to take into account.

OnePlus 7 Pro was such an amazing phone! Always loved that uninterrupted screen with the pop-up camera. Don't know why it hasn't become more mainstream.

Nice to see Motorola still making decent budget options. One of my favourite phones was the G5 plus - just did basically everything I needed it to while not blowing my budget, and the gestures like shaking for torch etc were actually super useful and I have missed them since I sold it, even if my phones since have had upgrades like better cameras and a compass. Unlike this phone the g5+ was generally a good user experience though, don't remember any slowdown.

That fingerprint sensor slide to bring the notifications bar down was lit

I've learned based on a lot of people I've met in their 50s and older that buy budget phones. They primarily just want a phone that doesn't slow down and lag out and maybe a decent camera. Battery life is good, but since many of them don't use their phones too much or travel as much as they did, they last. I find more issues when they are start lagging out or being too slow and them becoming frustrated asking my Gen Z self to fix it

So glad you recognized the environmental advantage of buying used - I feel like that is often neglected by most tech-channels 🙌

I have a Moto G Power from years ago for <$200 and it still works on par with the iPhones all my friends have. It's basically indestructible, especially with a good case, so far have never needed to repair it, and brand new it had a 2-day battery life (after 2.5 years it went down by a lot, but I got the battery replaced recently for $50 and it's back to 1-1.5 days of normal use). This thing is probably going to last me another few years just fine.

I used to have a Motorola, and I still miss some of the features. One of the biggest things for me was fingerprint on the back and some of the software features.