Dieter Bohn How are cheap phones this good?

I've been testing out a bunch of budget phones recently, and in particular, got to spend a bunch of time with Motorola's new G6 line, which runs from $200 to $300. And the phones really blew me away. With a good cheap phone — and to be clear, they're not all good — you really don't miss out on much.

One area where cheaper phones are consistently and substantially behind flagship phones is the camera. For me, that's a dealbreaker. I use my Pixel 2 to take photos every day; often a lot of them. Having a camera that shoots too slowly or doesn't create good images makes a phone a major disappointment to me, since it's one of my core uses.

But if you're not a big camera user, you might be surprised at how much you really need to spend. The screens, performance, and build quality has gotten surprisingly good on phones that cost just $250.