Best budget smartphones in 2026 - what would you recommend for under £300

[DiamondDallas86]

The mid-range smartphone market has genuinely improved. Flagship features from two or three years ago are now standard at the sub-300 pound price point. The main contenders in June 2026 for UK buyers: Google Pixel 9a at around 499 pounds (slightly above but worth discussing), Samsung Galaxy A56 5G at around £349, Nothing Phone (3a) at around £299, Motorola Edge 50 Pro at around 279 pounds, Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus at around 249 pounds.

For anyone coming off a three or four year old phone the jump in camera and performance quality at the budget end in 2026 is significant

[DotEXE]

Nothing Phone (3a) at £299 is the recommendation I keep making. The software updates are guaranteed for longer than Samsung's A-series equivalents, the clean Android experience is genuinely good, and the transparent back design means you will not see five identical phones in every office

[DarkEnergy]

Motorola has been quietly making excellent budget phones for three years and nobody talks about them. The Edge 50 Pro camera hardware punches well above its price and the near-stock Android with minimal bloatware is underappreciated

[NorthernKernel]

Whatever you buy in 2026 check three things first: confirmed Android version update commitment in years, the date of the last security patch, and whether the charging standard is compatible with chargers you already own. Those three determine the real lifespan of the device

[Finley_19]

The Pixel 9a at 499 is over your £300 threshold but it is worth stretching for if you can. Seven years of software updates, best-in-class computational photography at any price point under 600 pounds, and Google's tensor chip running on-device AI properly

[Seb83]

Samsung's Galaxy A-series has always had the best retail availability and the most familiar UI for people coming from older Samsung phones. The A56 is a capable phone but the One UI skin gets heavier with each generation and the update timeline is less generous than Pixel or Nothing

[Hannah56]

Xiaomi at 249 pounds is genuinely impressive hardware but the MIUI software experience and the question of how long software updates continue are the reasons I hesitate to recommend it as a first choice for someone who is not confident managing their own phone