Shopping tips for 'ultra-low budget' (around 50-60€) smartphones from China

Introduction

Buying a new smartphone for €50-60 is quite difficult. Many will say that absolutely all of them are electronic waste. But this is only partially true.

Because there is a huge difference between a phone that is not very fast but can still run WhatsApp, electronic banking, and social media, and one that can read documents in photos taken by its camera and is capable of shooting reasonably clear photos of a sightseeing spot for Instagram.
And a phone at the same price that is just unusable. Banking applications won't install, video calls won't work on WhatsApp, and everything in the photos is so blurry that sending, for example, a photo of a page from a textbook is out of the question.

Ultra-budget Chinese smartphones are an alternative to "€1" phones from the cheapest Cartier subscriptions (which hundreds of thousands of people use and somehow survive).
If, for example, your brother/brother-in-law/parents, etc. have the cheapest smartphone on the cheapest phone plan. And you saw how it runs, and you think it's bearable – this endeavor is for you.
So instead of paying €150 in "free" installments to the carrier, you can rather buy something (a little) better from the Chinese for €50-60.
Among the popular smartphones from carriers for €120-150: Redmi 10A, Redmi 9AT, Motorola Moto E20, and Vivo Y01 – all of them offer very similar experiences.
And if you had in your hands something even older (e.g. from a dozen or so months ago) from a €1 carrier plan – that’s even better (because a Chinese phone for €50-60 will feel even better).
However, if someone is looking for an alternative to a used iPhone X or Samsung Galaxy S10, this is definitely not the way to go. Of course, the Chinese are still willing to help, but in such a low budget every €10 counts. Chinese smartphones for €60 and Chinese smartphones for €120 are two completely different worlds (and this guide focuses on the first one).

Little-known brands versus real no-name companies - how to avoid fake specifications?

As with everything in life, if something seems "too good to be true" - it probably is.

There are plenty of phones on Amazon and other websites with names that imitate more famous phone brands.
We can find “Original” P40 Pro (but not a Huawei), Galaxy M11 (but not a Samsung), IP 12 Pro (not an iPhone), Reno 8 Pro (not an Oppo), and so on.

Unfortunately, the misleading does not only end with the misleading name, but the specification is also false. IP 12 Pro pretends to be a phone with an 8-core processor, 3GB RAM, 128 GB memory, and support for 4G and 5G networks. If it were true, it would be a great option for 80€ from Amazon.
But a quick search for the exact same phone on another Chinese website reveals that it actually has a 2-core processor, 0.5 GB RAM, and 4 GB memory and the only networks it supports are (soon to be disabled) 3G. And it costs well below €25 with coupons.

Sometimes, to add credibility, the brand category even includes a name instead of "Original" - e.g. ShiYa, Kuidamos, Ciciglow, QrZr, and many others.

And now how do we know which brands are a bunch of random, meaningless letters and which are normal manufacturers that have been competing in the low price segment for years?
For most people, everything sounds like the same "no-name". Including the names of many (relatively) honest producers who operate (more or less) in line with the regulations. Like Blackview, Cubot, Lava, Micromax, Umidigi, or Wiko.

Some help in determining whether the manufacturer exists, or it is just a set of letters invented by fraudsters can be the list of manufacturers on Kimovil or GSMArena:
https://www.kimovil.com/en/all-smartphone-brands
https://www.gsmarena.com/makers.php3
But nothing can replace Googling a given manufacturer (and reviews of a specific model).

Another benefit of going with real brands is that it is possible to obtain spare parts for smartphones e.g. batteries and screens.
They are even covered by a real warranty (in addition to the "ordinary" buyer protection provided by portals like Aliexpress). However, after the protection period expires, you usually have to send the phone back to China (which takes a very long time and is quite expensive, but it is not THAT expensive - e.g. at the Polish Post Office it costs €12).

To sum up - in order to avoid fraud, you must first have realistic expectations (in a phone for €50 you cannot expect, for example, 5G or 256 GB of memory).
And secondly, once you find the phone we are interested in, check whether the manufacturer actually exists (and is not just a bunch of random letters).

Benchmarks (performance tests) - how to distinguish a smartphone that is somewhat slow from complete electronic waste?

Benchmarks are tests that check how quickly and well the SoC (System-on-Chip), or to put it simply, the processors in phones can perform various tasks.
There are different types of benchmarks. Some of them check theoretical computing power - e.g. how quickly the processor can count successive places of the number pi. Others check how well the processor handles specific applications. And others check gaming performance.

However, it is not necessary to check all possible tests to find out what class of performance a given smartphone offers.
Popular mobile benchmarks such as GeekBench and AnTuTu test many things at once (e.g. both the theoretical processing power of the processor and performance in several sample games). And then they take an average out of it.

Also in phones costing €50-60, if one smartphone has a score of 50,000 in AnTuTu and the other has a score of 150,000, there is not the slightest chance that in any application the one with a score three times lower will offer a better performance in everyday use.

In more expensive phones, problems begin, because the speed of operation will also be determined by the type of memory. Phones costing €50-60 have the same eMMC 5.1 memory everywhere, so there are no problems with comparisons (and you can't expect miracles from any of them).
However, more expensive phones with UFS memory can work much faster, even if they would have lower results in benchmarks.

Because no matter how fast the processor is able to count subsequent places of pi. If the memory is slower, applications will run slower, photo thumbnails will load slower, games will load slower, etc. Therefore, fast memory definitely improves the user experience.

Even though fast memory doesn't improve performance itself. For example, if a smartphone is too weak to run Call of Duty Mobile smoothly, it will still be too weak with the same performance (and only UFS memory instead of eMMC). Instead of waiting, for example, 2 minutes for a map to load, you will wait 30 seconds for this map to load. This is the only change.

Therefore, it is worth remembering the differences in types of memory if the budget ever increases. But in phones costing €50-60, "fortunately" the matter is simple. There is eMMC 5.1 memory everywhere and the only thing that determines the differences in performance are benchmarks.

The trap with "light versions" of Android

W poprzednim rozdziale ustaliliśmy że telefony z podobnymi wynikami w benchmarkach i tym samym typem pamięci, będą prezentować zbliżony poziom.

Zatem, skoro na przykład:
Doogee S35 (2/16 GB) available on the shelves in electronics stores has about 60,000 points in AnTuTu,
and Huawei Y5 (2/16 GB) available on AlịExpress also has about 60,000 points in AnTuTu.
And of course, both have eMMC 5.1 memory.
So can we assume that the Huawei Y5 will offer more or less the same performance as the Dogee S35?

In this case, yes, because both phones have "normal" versions of Android (as opposed to the "simplified" version of Android GO Edition).

There will still be slight differences between "normal" versions of Android, each manufacturer has a slightly different system overlay. The icons look a little different, the animations work a little differently, the settings are in different places, etc. But overall, they offer a similar experience and, above all, possibilities. Unlike the Android GO version.

Android GO has one major advantage - it uses much less resources (RAM and processor). Thanks to that, smartphones with abysmal benchmark results 20,000 points in AnTuTu turn-on at All. And do not freeze when trying to read text messages.
There are also separate GO version apps (e.g. Gmail GO, YouTube GO, Google Maps GO, etc.) which are also very lightweight.
But in exchange for this "lightness", Android GO had to get rid of many useful functions. Among other things, the following do not work:

• Some banking applications (and the hardware requirements on the banks' website never specify anything about Android GO - so if they work today, it's great, but if they stop tomorrow – tough luck)
• "Normal" Facebook and Messenger (you have to use the Lite version where you can't, for example, react with an emoticon to the received messages, upload videos, or search in the conversation history)
• Watching live transmissions on TikTok (or any other application that requires the "Display over other applications" permission)
• Google Family Link or other Parental Control applications
• Default memory encryption (meaning if someone steals the phone and connects it to a computer with a cable, they can see everything as if on a thumb drive without entering the password)
• Location sharing (although Uber itself somehow works, but if someone is in a country where they prefer Lyft - it doesn't work)
• Android Wear (synchronization with smartwatches)
• Android Auto (even for navigation you need a separate application because Google Maps GO does not provide navigation options, it only shows a point on the map)

Yet despite these sacrifices, such smartphones do not offer a better user experience. On the contrary. Non-GO applications crash even more often than on "normal" Android (because they try to use resources that are not there).
If one day smartphones with Android GO were to become much cheaper than "normal" ones, you could consider whether such restrictions would be reasonable (for a secondary phone for example).
But at the moment they are available at more or less the same prices, so you should simply avoid them.

Is there any way to check the “user experience” in practice?

Sometimes you don't need any great calculations and step-by-step comparsions.
For example, Oukitel C19 Pro (4/64 GB) on Aliexpress costs 60€. And this exact Oukitel C19 Pro is on the shelves at Media Markt locations across Europe (and costs 120€). You can come, touch the screen, see how quickly applications open, how well it handles several open pages in the browser, how quickly the camera turns on, etc.
Oukitel C19 Pro is an extremely weak phone that I do not recommend. But it serves as an example that exactly the same phone can be available in European electronics stores. So that's a good place to start.

But if there is no identical model anywhere on the shelves, you can check if there is a model with an identical processor. For example, the Blackview A53 Pro (4/64 GB), which costs 55€ in China, is unfortunately not available in any physical store locations.
So we can check what processor it has, for example on the Kimovil website - https://www.kimovil.com/pl/gdzie-kupic-blackview-a53-pro

It turns out that it is Mediatek Helio G35.
On the same website, we can see every smartphone ever released with this exact processor:
https://www.kimovil.com/pl/lista-telefony-za-procesor-grupa/helio-g35

And we find out that the very popular Redmi 9C has exactly the same processor.

We also make sure that it runs "normal" Android (and not Android GO).
If a smartphone runs Android GO, this information will also be on the Kimovil website:

Here is Redmi 9C (on the left) with "normal" Android, and Nokia C31 (on the right) with Android GO:

Fortunately, Redmi 9C has "normal" Android 10.

So we go to Media Markt, pick up the Redmi 9C from the shelf (preferably the variant with the same amount of RAM) - and see if such "comfort of use" is suitable for us.

And in the worst case scenario, when nothing with the same processor is available in physical stores, we can look for something with similar performance results.

For example, UMIDIGI Power 7S (4/64 GB) is not available in European electronics stores. Its Unisoc Tiger T310 processor is unfortunately not present in any of the phones on the shelves. So let's check some performance tests (the easiest one is AnTuTu on Kimovil).
UMIDIGI Power 7S has an AnTuTu score of around 100,000 points:
https://www.kimovil.com/pl/gdzie-kupic-umidigi-power-7s

Therefore, we search more or less in this range of results (I would also recommend limiting the release date to the past 2 years – it will increase the chances of a particular smartphone to be still available on the store shelves).
https://www.kimovil.com/pl/porownac-telefony-komorkowe/i_b+slug.infinix:coolpad:blackview:blackberry:allview:xiaomi:tcl,f_min_dm+unveileddate.6,f_min_d+antutuBenchmark.90000,f_max_d+antutuBenchmark.110000

And there will definitely be a phone that you can find on European shelves (in this case TCL 408 and Redmi 10A are widely available).
You can also come, touch the screen, and see how quickly applications open, how well they handle several open pages in the browser, how quickly the cameras turns on, etc. The experience will be very similar to the Chinese phone you are interested in.

Camera lenses, Megapixels, Google Camera - how to give yourself a chance to take clear pictures?

Theoretically, “it's not about the equipment, it's about your technique.”Unfortunately, cameras are often the weakest link in Chinese phones priced at €50-60.
However, they can still perform better than many phones from electronic stores or mobile carriers for €120-150.

Alcatel 1 (2021) available from the Polish mobile carrier "Plus" for €120, literally has a camera like this:

(more in professional reviews and user reviews, for example on YouTube)

Of course, there is no substitute for checking sample photos on the Internet.
However, you can look for "green flags" - signals that it may be worth seeing these photos because there is a greater chance that they will not be that terrible.

For example, if the manufacturer states in the specification what exactly the camera image sensor was used (this will be visible on the Kimovil website next to the information about the camera).

For example, the Doogee X98 Pro, which costs PLN 299, has a Sony IMX486 sensor.
https://www.kimovil.com/pl/gdzie-kupic-doogee-x98-pro

Of course, this does not mean that it is the king of mobile photography. But when we see such information, there is a radically greater chance that the photos are at least somewhat decent.

So let’s see the review and the sample photo - it's not THAT bad (for a phone for €59):

However, there is another factor that is very important for the quality of photos - software.
Of course, ‘you can't get honey from a rock’. When every technological aspect is terrible, even the best software will not help.
But there are situations in which the poor quality of photos results only from the fact that the manufacturer did not pay attention to the camera application.
And you can always download Google Camera GO (GCam Lite). Unlike the non-Lite version, it does not require jumping through any major hoops. You just download the APK file and install it. And the differences can be significant (below is an example of the still quite budget-friendly Realme C21Y):

So GCam can sometimes "save" a slightly weaker camera. But in general, there is no substitute for looking at sample photos before purchasing.

Other technical terms

I tried not to use other confusing terms in this guide, but that doesn't mean I definitely succeeded.

Fortunately, if you come across a word (not only in this guide but also in life) that you don’t quite understand, you do not have to spend half a day digging through sponsored articles.

For example, someone is bargain-hunting for more expensive phones and wonders “What is the refresh rate?” And in the articles he will find the answer 'Oh, it’s just a a fast screen, don’t worry about it, anyway BUY NOW THE BEST GAMING PHONES SUPER FAST REFRESH RATE IDEALO RANKING THE BEST DEALS'

Just go to https://bing.com/chat and select the More Creative mode and tell the AI to explain a given concept as if it were explaining it to a five-year-old: (AI does it quite well, probably because in America "explain like I'm 5" is quite a popular phenomenon)