4 Specs That Could Get Worse on Your Next Cheap Android Phone

Some of us find it unbearable to justify spending over $500 to upgrade our phones these days. “Blue bubble” iPhone users will generally resort to older models to make this purchase fit their budget. Switch to the Android side and, to say the least, the market is completely different. Several brands, including Google, Samsung and OnePlus, are vying for the attention of mid-range smartphones. These phone makers are under pressure, however, as RAM and memory chip costs have soared, resulting in lower margins for a tough target price.

You might be wondering if next year’s cheap Android phones will be much better than this year’s. There is no doubt that some of you could use an upgrade already. Will this mean paying more than before for the same phone? Well, when it comes to comparing spec sheets, we’ll look at five main components that might not get the update you’re hoping for due to this higher cost.

The 2025-26 phone model year was somewhat of a surprise, as reports claim that Apple and Samsung saw robust sales of the iPhone 17 and Galaxy S26 series, respectively. This has led to increased demand for flagship-level silicon from the same chip producers already working overtime to make wafers for AI customers. At the same time, demand for mid- and lower-tier products has slowed.

Ultimately, this means we’ll likely see a significant number of sub-$500 phones using the same SoC as in previous years, at least when it comes to manufacturers that rely primarily on Qualcomm and MediaTek chips. If a part has been replaced, it is unlikely that we will see significant gains in performance.

Meanwhile, Samsung, the largest producer of Android phones, has shifted most of its mid-range Galaxy A devices from third-party chip suppliers to its in-house Exynos designs. These phones seem to have performance commensurate with their target price point, so expect relatively little change.

The chips that your phone uses to receive and send data over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular networks, and various other protocols are very important, because they are what make smartphones wireless. Modems aren’t usually a top-tier spec line, but Android manufacturers have a choice of where modems come from.

For example, Android Police reported in 2021 that a significant number of Google Pixel 6 owners were experiencing numerous reception issues, which some observers attributed to the Samsung 5G modem the phone uses. While RAM and storage prices wreak havoc on the bottom line, the scramble for spec sheets means that cost reduction in this area isn’t necessarily out of the question.

If you’re about to pull the trigger on a new cheap or budget Android phone, see if you can take advantage of a return and exchange policy to test reception in hot spots you know. It may also be helpful to ask friends and family about the phones they use and the problems they are having.

We’ve come to a point in the life of display technologies where a 1080p screen using some sort of OLED technology is table stakes for a $400 phone. You might start to see older LCD technology making its way into some phones at the $200 level. Don’t expect this to change as long as RAM prices remain high. The good news is that the production and supply of current generation cost-effective displays is stable.

Separately, we’ve also seen the sub-$1,000 smartphone sector – or what analysts call the “Premium B” smartphone market – adopt displays between the typical resolutions of 1080p and 1440p; generally landing just north of 1200p. One such example is the Nothing Phone 4a, although the new company led by former OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei is undermining price competition to focus on growing its customer base. Otherwise, if you’re looking for a Chinese brand selling flagship products cheaply in yuan, don’t expect that to translate into dollars thanks to import taxes.

Very cheap phones will likely continue to see lukewarm multi-camera setups featuring a 2 MP or 5 MP auxiliary sensor placed in front of a macro lens, or set to monochrome to overlay additional brightness information for the main camera’s output. Around the $500 level, you might see the megapixel count hold up, but the sensor size will still be quite small: the larger the cells in that sensor, the more light can hit it, and the more accurate the color information it can generate. Selfie camera quality is also generally iffy at this price point.

Keep in mind that manufacturers will prioritize spending on certain specifications over others, both for structural reasons (i.e. the importance of a component in the overall smartphone experience), as well as for more transient reasons. A sharp rise in the price of a camera sensor will require an alternative on most smartphones at an affordable price.

In markets where you see greater options and distinctions, you might see the most interesting component dynamics pitting camera technology against the feature phones that appeal to the masses. Budget gaming phones, for example, are known for their aggressive 3D benchmark scores; less for their imaging strengths.