Weekly deals: the best smartphone deals from the US, Canada, the UK, and India

19 March 2023

We check back on old deals we’ve listed and sometimes we find that the price has gone up – in some cases, it’s just a temporary discount that has expired, in others the price fluctuates with demand (and available supply).

However, some phones – like flagships – have nowhere to go but down. This is especially true for older flagships. Use the links below to jump to your region:

• USA
• Canada
• The UK
• India

USA

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has an impressive camera, but the Galaxy S22 Ultra from last year still holds its own – and it’s cheaper. $300 cheaper, to be precise, for the 256GB model. With three OS updates and four years of security patches remaining, this phone will be relevant for quite a while.

Next, we wanted to have a look at some Google phones. The Pixel 7 is down to $550 and while it’s not the fastest flagship, it gets monthly updates from Google, which often include cool new AI-powered features.

For about half that price you can have the Pixel 6a instead with the previous Tensor chipset. The Pixel 7a is rumored to arrive in June and it might prove to be a better pick than either of these – but we only hear rumors for now (Tensor G2, 6.1” 90Hz display, 64MP main camera and 5W wireless charging) and nothing on the price.

You may instead go for the older Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 6. We have listed deals for refurbished units below, so the Pixel 6 can be yours for just over $200. Or you can get a new unit for $420. Here’s how they compare against the 6a.

The Galaxy A54 will start shipping on April 6, pre-orders start a week earlier. It will cost $450, but you will be able to trade in an old device to get up to $250 in credit and you will also be able to pick up a pair of Galaxy Buds Live for $50. If that doesn’t sound like a good enough deal, you can just get the older Galaxy A53 for $400. The Exynos 1280 isn’t as good as the 1380, but the rest of the features are comparable.

Or you can grab the Motorola Edge (2022) for less money. The 6.6” 144Hz FHD+ OLED display and large 5,000mAh battery with both 30W wired and 15W wireless make this a solid mid-ranger for multimedia and light gaming (the Dimensity 1050 has a decently fast Mali-G610 MC3 GPU).

Apple is selling refurbished iPhones on its site, but currently only offers models up to the 12-series (here’s the link). An iPhone 12 Pro Max (128GB) is $760, for example, but for $900 you can get a refurbished iPhone 13 Pro Max (128GB) from Amazon instead.

Below you will find links to refurbished units for all iPhone 13 models – note that there are two links, one for units in excellent conditions and one for units listed as like-new condition. It costs a bit more, but you are getting a better preserved phone.

Canada

The Samsung Galaxy S23 price is already falling – it started at C$1,100 at first, though that included a free upgrade to 256GB storage. That offer is over now, but you can get the 128GB model for C$920.

For a bit more, you can have the Google Pixel 7 Pro instead – with a 6.7” QHD+ LTPO display, compared to the standard 6.1” FHD+ panel on the Samsung. And you will get a 120mm periscope with a 48MP sensor instead of the fairly basic 70mm 10MP module of the Galaxy.

The Pro is a large phone, though, if you want something smaller, the Pixel 7 is worth a look. This one drops down to a 6.3” FHD+ 90Hz display and it loses the periscope module, so most of the advantages over the S23 are gone – even so, it’s over C$300 cheaper, so it’s hard to complain.

You can go even cheaper if you’re okay with losing the high refresh rate altogether, as well as dropping the main camera to 12MP – we’re talking about the Pixel 6a, of course, which is slightly bigger than the S23 and not as capable but costs less than half as much.

The actual Samsung alternative to the 6a is the Galaxy A53. Yes, the new A54 will be available in a few weeks, but its starting price will be C$180 higher, so it will be up against the Pixel 7, not the 6a. Compared to the 6a, the Galaxy A53 has a larger 6.5” AMOLED display (with 120Hz refresh rate), a higher resolution 64MP main camera (both with OIS), higher resolution 32MP selfie cam (vs. 8MP), plus a bigger, faster 5,000mAh/25W battery (vs. 4,410mAh/18W).

There is one new model that you may be interested in, the Galaxy A14 5G from January. At C$330, it’s not that much cheaper than the A53, but it its specs are more basic – a 6.6” 90Hz LCD (FHD+), a 50MP main cam (no OIS) without an ultra wide partner and the 5,000mAh battery tops out at 15W. And you get less RAM and half the storage. For C$80 more, the A53 looks to be the better deal.

UK

A couple of months ago Apple started refurbished iPhone 13 models in Europe, the older iPhone 12 series are available as well. An iPhone 12 Pro Max (128GB) goes for £780, for example, but you can get it for under £500 from Amazon. The 12 Pro is £690 on Apple.com, £444 on Amazon UK. The iPhone 12 and 12 mini (128GB) are £590 and £500 from Apple, respectively, £342 and £274 from Amazon.

The Nothing Phone (1) is still improving with every update. The Phone (2) is on the way and it will be a more premium device (a Qualcomm exec let it slip that it will use the SD 8+ Gen 1), but its price is unknown and it’s not clear whether Nothing also has a new mid-ranger in the works.

The Galaxy A54 will go on sale in the UK later this month at a price of £450 for an 8/128GB unit. While its Exynos 1380 is clearly better than the 1280 inside the older Galaxy A53, the A53 is £285 for a 6/128GB unit. That said, the A54 will come with a fee pair of Galaxy Buds2, so if you need a TWS headset, the price gap isn’t so big.

The Nokia X10 is from 2021 and it launched with Android 11 (it has since been update to v13). However, HMD Global promised 3 OS updates and 3 years of security patches, which means there’s one more to go. That’s not much, but the X10 is a 5G phone for £156, which makes it not such a bad deal, especially if you prefer your Android uncluttered.

India

The Redmi K50i features a fast 144Hz LCD (6.6” FHD+) and a fairly powerful Dimensity 8100 chipset. However, it costs more than the Galaxy M53, which uses the older Dimensity 900 chip and its AMOLED display refreshes at “only” 120Hz. The strength of the Samsung lies in its 108MP main camera (vs. a 64MP sensor on the Xiaomi).

The batteries are similar in size (5,080mAh and 5,000mAh, respectively), but the Redmi charges at 67W (64% in 30min, 53min to 100%), while the Galaxy only does 25W. The Redmi has a 3.5mm jack, the Galaxy has a microSD slot instead.

The OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite is less capable than both, with a 120Hz LCD (6.59” FHD+) and a Snapdragon 695, which means that the 64MP main camera can’t do 4K video (and there’s no ultra wide either, the pair above has 8MP UW cameras). The 5,000mAh battery charges at 33W, which is fast but not stunningly so. So unless you really need something under ₹20,000, we’d go with one of the phones above.

Here’s something brand new – the iQOO Z7 was announced earlier this week, sales will start on March 21. This phone has a 6.38" 90Hz AMOLED display (FHD+), is powered by the Dimensity 920 and a 5,000mAh battery with 44W charging (50% in 25min) and features 64MP camera with OIS. It launches with Android 13 and iQOO has promised two OS updates and 3 years of security patches. Amazon already has a landing page and the 6/128GB unit is ₹17,500, you can get 8GB of RAM for ₹1,000 more.

The Z7 will go up against the Realme Narzo 50 Pro, which also costs ₹17,500. Its Dimensity 920 is nothing stellar, but it may prove to be the better chipset. This phone has a 6.4” 120Hz AMOLED display (FHD+), a 48+8+2MP camera and a 5,000mAh battery with 33W charging.

Finally, a couple of cheap options. We recommended the Samsung Galaxy M04 two weeks ago, but its price has fallen by ₹1,000 since then. This nudges it closer to something like the Nokia C12, though it still leaves a relatively large gap.

There is a reason for that. The M04 runs full Android 12 (with One UI Core 4.1) instead of Android 12 Go Edition like the Nokia. It also has double the number of CPU cores (A53 the lot of them) and runs them at higher clock speeds to boot. The displays are comparable (6.5” vs. 6.3”, both HD+ LCDs), but the Galaxy has the better camera (13MP/1080p vs. 8MP) and bigger battery (5,000mAh vs. 3,000mAh). It’s clearly the better phone, but it does cost 40% more too (or to put it in absolute terms, ₹2,5000 more).