You told us: Here's how much you're willing to spend on a phone

You don’t have to spend $1,000+ to get a good smartphone, as there are loads of quality options on the market for every budget. So you’re bound to find something if you only have $100 to spare. Want the latest and greatest flagship device and money isn’t a limiting factor? Well, there are quite a few picks here too.

Still, we were curious about what our readers were willing to pay for a prepaid/off-contract smartphone. We posed this question earlier this week and over 2,600 votes were tallied. Here’s how you answered it.

How much are you willing to pay for a phone?

Results

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the budget and mid-range segments were extremely popular here, with the $200 to $599 accounting for 52% of the vote. But the single-most popular option was the $400 to $499 segment, accounting for 14.4% of all votes tallied. This was closely followed by the $300 to $399 (12.94%) and $500 to $599 segments (12.42%).

Meanwhile, respondents who are willing to pay $600 or more accounted for 41.9% of votes counted. We’re guessing that the enthusiast nature of our audience partially played a part in this result. But it still shows there are people willing to splash out plenty of cash up-front for a premium device if it means not having a contract.

Our survey results also show that the least popular segments are $1,299 to $1,399 (2.7%), $1,400 or higher (4.95%), and $900 to $999 (6%). It’s also interesting to note that 6.11% of polled readers said they’ll only pay under $200 for a phone. Low-end devices in this tier typically lack features like fast charging, useful secondary cameras, OLED screens, fast processors, and lengthy update pledges.

Comments

• PhoenixWitti: I don’t care about price, as long as I see enough value in it.
• Wongwatt: The last phone I bought was a Zenfone 8 for about 600 bucks, I’ve now converted over to a monthly plan after it went wrong because the carrier supplied phone will be replaced if it fails. With the prices of handsets these days I couldn’t justify buying any more and as pretty much all carrier supplied phones are unlocked in the UK now I wouldn’t be getting anything different anyway.
• JK: Not everyone can afford a new smartphone every now and then. But with manufacturers making them less repairable and offering only a few years of updates, and considering that I only use it for simple tasks, $100-150 is all I’d spend.
• meh…: I like flagship devices and do trade ins to get them cheaply.
• thesecondsight: Between the high cost of gasoline and inflation, I don’t have as much disposable income as I once did. As a result, I usually spend between $300 to $399 on a budget device. Coincidentally, several budget devices are equipped with expandable storage, a headphone jack and a capable SOC. As a consumer, I’m content with these features which don’t break the bank.
• Kira: Although the budget category($150-300) offers fantastic hardware with good displays and chipsets,I would still pay a little extra,say about $100-150 to get better build quality/camera,an ip rating and of course an official long term update promise. Personally,I use a smartphone for at least 3 years,and have done so for the last 3 models,so I would prefer a competent mid ranger that will age well plus offer some resale value after those years.
• ssallen: Depending on the phone I could choose any of those price brackets. I usually pay 800-1000 but if anyone released something really novel and compelling I would pay 1800+. Foldables are just “neat” and just not quite compelling enough.
• Stanley Kubrick: I could not choose a category. There are too many variables. I do not base my phone purchases on price alone. I base them on what I want/need and real life end user reviews.
• Jason Mclaughlan: Id spend up to ~1200£ if the phone is perfect enough to keep hold of for essentially ever. If its flawed already at launch in any category then id only spend up to 600 and just get it second hand half a year after release. The s23 ultra would be the first phone i will consider perfect enough to invest that much money in to but ill need to wait till launch to know for sure