Best entry-level smartphones 2025 - buyer’s guide

We generally enjoyed our time with the Redmi Note 13 5G. It is a solid device overall that does not disappoint, given its reasonable price point. It looks and feels good, runs mostly smoothly, and its main and selfie cameras are very dependable.

There are no stereo speakers, no 4K video capturing, and the battery life is uninspiring.

All things considered, the Redmi Note 13 5G offers plenty of goodies for its low price and we do feel it deserves the top spot here.

Samsung made a lot of updates to the Galaxy A15 last year. Now, the new Galaxy A16 4G brings a bit bigger display and adds IP54 ingress protection, both of which feel like very small improvements. The A16 4G still runs on the Helio G99 chip, which is a fine piece of kit but modest at best. The cameras are still the same and, frankly, kind of unimpressive.

The only really valuable "upgrade" comes in the shape of a promise for a whipping six major OS updates on the A16 4G. And even this value-add is kind of doubtful in our mind since we have a hard time believing the modest hardware here will provide meaningful performance down the line after so many Android updates.

There are no stereo speakers, no 4K video capturing, and the battery life is uninspiring.

All things considered, the €140 Galaxy A14 4G offers a rather adequate package for the asking price and deserves a chance.

The €140 Redmi 13C 5G is a great pick for the entry-level category just because it has a ton of features for its low price. The 13C 5G packs a 90Hz LCD screen, adequate performance for the price with high-performance CPU cores. There is also a good camera setup, and a large 5,000mAh battery with 18W charging.

It does not have NFC, a proper secondary camera or stereo speakers. But at this price, we'd say it is a solid offer.

The €130 Moto G24 Power is for those who want to have superb battery life and fast charging. The G24 Power packs a 90Hz HD LCD screen, a good main camera, and a super large 6,000mAh battery with fast 30W charging.

The Moto G24 Power comes with clean Android 13, there are NFC, microSD expansion, audio jack and powerful stereo speakers. The lower screen resolution is the only thing that is unimpressive on the Moto G24 Power, but coupled with the good chip, it should deliver quite smooth performance.

The Realme C53 costs about €120. The phone has a large 1080p 90Hz screen, a good camera on the back, a 5,000mAh battery and runs on Android 11 with realme UI 2.0.

The Realme C53 has a good chipset with adequate processor but weak graphics.

The Realme C53 is good for calls and social networks and will probably last you for days on those. And it has a fingerprint scanner. It's an ideal first smartphone for students or seniors, but not the best daily driver for busier lifestyles.

The Redmi 13C (also available as Poco C65) is riddled with ups and downs, as one can expect. It is a solid and well-made phone with Gorilla Glass on the front and practically no flex or hollowness, but it also lacks any formal ingress protection, not even a basic one, and its design is a bit plain.

The display offers a smooth 90Hz refresh rate, which works well enough and gets decently bright for an LCD. However, pixel response times are not perfect, leading to ghosting and smearing, and high refresh rate gaming is a no-go. Battery life on the C65 is rather good, but charging is quite slow. MIUI 14 looks great and is feature-rich, but it stutters and slows down on the C65 due to the meager Helio G85 chipset. The latter is also responsible for the 1080p video capture resolution on the camera, which is otherwise surprisingly decent for a budget device.

It is a decent enough device. Its biggest weakness, in our opinion, is the poor performance afforded by the Helio G85 chipset. Other than that, it has almost no glaring flaws, and even the performance is pretty hard to complain about at this price point.