Best Cheap Phone of 2026: Get the Most Value for Your Money
Every phone on this list has been thoroughly tested by CNET’s team of experts. We use the phone, test features, play games and take photos. We evaluate every marketing promise a company makes about its phones. If we find something we don’t like – whether it’s battery life or build quality – we’ll tell you about it.
We look at every aspect of a phone during testing:
- Display
- Design and feel
- CPU performance
- Battery life
- Camera quality
- Features
In person, the yellow has a soft pastel tone.
We test all of the phone’s cameras (front and back) in a variety of conditions: from outdoors in bright sunlight to darker indoor environments and night scenes (for all available night modes). We also compare our results to similar pricing models. We run a series of real-world battery tests to see how long a phone lasts in daily use.
We take into account additional features of the phone such as 5G, fingerprint and face readers, styluses, fast charging, foldable screens and other useful extras. We weigh all our experiences and tests against price so you know if a phone represents good value for money.
Read more: How we test phones
