Best cheap smartphone

[Gary A]

Yes, I use Windows 10 on my computer. I plug the phone into the computer and it immediately it sees the phone. No drivers or anything else required.

[dddave]

Umi Touch

Current promotion on Gearbest: Umi "Super", 5.5", Helio P10, 4gb/32gb, Android 6, about $200

[guzzi850m2]

Umi Touch

Current promotion on Gearbest: Umi "Super", 5.5", Helio P10, 4gb/32gb, Android 6, about $200

That seems to be one hell of a good deal, I want one.

Sadly I will first be back from overseas work at around the 20th where the promotion has ended.

Here is a review: http://www.devicespecifications.com/en/editor-review/fefff

You are getting a lot of phone for your 200$.

How much import tax will be added if buying from Gearbest?

[nev]

Umi Touch

Current promotion on Gearbest: Umi "Super", 5.5", Helio P10, 4gb/32gb, Android 6, about $200

That seems to be one hell of a good deal, I want one.

Sadly I will first be back from overseas work at around the 20th where the promotion has ended.

Here is a review: http://www.devicespecifications.com/en/editor-review/fefff

You are getting a lot of phone for your 200$.

How much import tax will be added if buying from Gearbest?

You will pay none if you order standard free delivery, you get a tracking number and it will come by Netherlands post to Thailand and then switch too Thailand post, you only get charged if you pay more and use a courier and they will rip you off.

[dddave]

I saw the Umi "Super" for $189 on one of the Chinese sites yesterday...sorry, forget which.

I always select "Free Shipping" with Gearbest and have usually been charged duty on phones and devices over $100. Local delivery in Bangkok often by DHL no matter what I select.

[nev]

I saw the Umi "Super" for $189 on one of the Chinese sites yesterday...sorry, forget which.

I always select "Free Shipping" with Gearbest and have usually been charged duty on phones and devices over $100. Local delivery in Bangkok often by DHL no matter what I select.

I must be lucky, I have had about 5 phones delivered here and never been charged, they follow the same path, arrive at Lak si mail center then dispatched to khonkaen, then to Ban pai, from there my local postman pics up and drops off to me, no sign of a courier. Edited June 12, 2016 by nev

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The difference is the method of shipping that's used.

If the sender starts out with FedEx or DHL for a higher value item like a smartphone, it's going to be delivered in Thailand by FedEx or DHL, and you're almost guaranteed to get hit by customs duty and tax.

If the sender starts out with a national postal service in the sending country, like USPS in the U.S. or China Post, etc., it's going to be delivered in Thailand by their equivalent entity, ThaiPost, and you either won't be charged duty and tax, or, at worst, a much smaller amount than you'd likely get charged by FedEx or DHL.

[George2]

Absolute best low-budget smart phone is OnePlus X, blows cheap samsungs out of the water and has a fantastic design. https://oneplus.net/global/x

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Absolute best low-budget smart phone is OnePlus X, blows cheap samsungs out of the water and has a fantastic design. https://oneplus.net/global/x

$199 is a good price, and from everything I've heard, it's supposed to be a good phone. Though 7000 baht may not be everyone's idea of "low-budget".

But AFAIK, they don't have any direct distributor for Thailand, meaning you'd have to source the phone from another country. Lots of retailers in Singapore and even more in Malaysia, including Lazada, but I don't see any via Lazada Thailand.

Edited June 14, 2016 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[George2]

Absolute best low-budget smart phone is OnePlus X, blows cheap samsungs out of the water and has a fantastic design. https://oneplus.net/global/x

$199 is a good price, and from everything I've heard, it's supposed to be a good phone. Though 7000 baht may not be everyone's idea of "low-budget".

But AFAIK, they don't have any direct distributor for Thailand, meaning you'd have to source the phone from another country. Lots of retailers in Singapore and even more in Malaysia, including Lazada, but I don't see any via Lazada Thailand.

There was some news of OnePlus bringing it to Thailand, but until then you will have to go 3rd party. I got my OnePlus One in Australia from a random online tech store based in Australia. They must have had an employee farming invites to purchase them or they made a deal with OnePlus to buy in bulk. Lazada has OnePlus One so hopefully it won't be long until they stock OnePlus X.

[cornishcarlos]

Just bought an Asus ZenFone 2 Laser, 4500 baht in MBK. It is good enough for me..

My old ZenFone 5 just died after 2 years, not sure why but the main board is knackered... Was very happy with Asus..

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I paid about the same price for the Zenfone 2 Laser 5.5 in LTE model some months back.

And, it just got the OTA firmware upgrade to Android Marshmallow 6.0 earlier this week -- which was good of ASUS to keep its promise to upgrade all this line of their phones.

I don't like the power button feel on the top of the phone and the volume rocker placement on the back of the phone too much. But overall, the phone's been a solid performer, I enjoy using it, and would buy it again. A great performer for a very modest price.

And, unlike a lot of lower budget Android phones, the Zenfone 2 Laser has a quite decent camera with pretty fast laser-guided focusing.

[hyperdimension]

I believe that the Doogee F1 Mini Turbo is about the best bang for buck you could buy. About a year ago I bought one on the net after a lot of research, but unfortunately I dropped it off my balcony. It fell 17 floors. When I recovered the pieces (main body, battery and back) I found that the glass was cracked a little with a star on one corner where it had presumably hit the deck. I put it all together and it worked perfectly. However I didn't like to use a phone with a damaged (albeit slightly) screen so I bought another. Last week I lost the new phone and it's carrying pouch so I reverted to the one with the cracked screen which still works perfectly. I have just re-ordered another, but found that many suppliers were out of stock. Finally found one at Lazada at a cost of 3,790 baht. It should arrive in a few days. Do a Google search on it. You'll find great spec at a very good price. Chinese manufactured, but works perfectly.

Thanks for the sharing the experience. Dropping a phone from 17 floors up is quite a test of durability.

Was the Doogee in a bumper case before it dropped? I wouldn't think any phone would survive 17 floors, so it's a surprise that it still worked. I even worry about whether my own phone would still work if I dropped it from just standing height.

[johnnynmonic]

Yes, I use Windows 10 on my computer. I plug the phone into the computer and it immediately it sees the phone. No drivers or anything else required.

I found it to sync very nicely. All calendar events automatically sync to the pc over wifi or data, same with contacts. If you use onedrive, all photos taken on the phone automatically sync to photos folder in win10 onedrive. Everything works seamlessly.

[casualbiker]

Just got an Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro 32g. So far very good. Better than my old Lenovo K910L. Faster.. more responsive.. 7,995 baht from Lazada with a free bumper case and glass screen thingy.

Edited June 19, 2016 by casualbiker

[Lannig]

You guys still think that a 8K bahts smartphone is a "cheap" one?

[casualbiker]

You guys still think that a 8K bahts smartphone is a "cheap" one?

For the specifications offered.... yes! It's all about perspective. Samsung do a similar model to my Shoomi, called the A7 only major difference that has NFC and mine has infrared beamer.. Samsung is 15,900b

[hyperdimension]

You guys still think that a 8K bahts smartphone is a "cheap" one?

8k is mid-range now if we consider a lot of the well-designed low-priced Chinese smartphone brands like Doogee / Homtom, Cubot, Vernee, Oukitel.

The Homtom HT17 which will be released soon has Android 6, 4G connectivity and fingerprint sensor with price under 70 USD. That's what I'd call cheap! I was about to order it.

I think I'll get a Vernee Thor though (for under 120 USD). It has an MTK 6753 Octo core and performed very well in tests, so hopefully it would last many years into the future for me.

[dddave]

Just got an Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro 32g. So far very good. Better than my old Lenovo K910L. Faster.. more responsive.. 7,995 baht from Lazada with a free bumper case and glass screen thingy.

I hope you report again in a few weeks. I'll be curious to know how you like the MIUI interface Xiaomi uses to make it resemble Apple's IOS.

The difficulty I have found is overriding a native app...Music Player for instance, I prefer the Google music player app but MIUI makes it impossible (as far as I can tell) to permanently make it the default over it's own music player app. It always seems to revert to the native app at next start-up. Same true for the photo gallery app.

I've had my Xiaomi Note 2 for 6 months now..no problems, great battery life.

[casualbiker]

I'm using Google now as the launcher. As for music I open the Google app and it works. The fingerprint sensor is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes it doesn't work but the pin code does.. overall at the moment it's better than my old Lenovo K910L

[nev]

You guys still think that a 8K bahts smartphone is a "cheap" one?

8k is mid-range now if we consider a lot of the well-designed low-priced Chinese smartphone brands like Doogee / Homtom, Cubot, Vernee, Oukitel.

The Homtom HT17 which will be released soon has Android 6, 4G connectivity and fingerprint sensor with price under 70 USD. That's what I'd call cheap! I was about to order it.

I think I'll get a Vernee Thor though (for under 120 USD). It has an MTK 6753 Octo core and performed very well in tests, so hopefully it would last many years into the future for me.

I got the HT17 on first release flash sale for $49 an absolute bargain, it is on it'd way now, I have the Outikel K6000 pro I picked that up for less than $140us, all I can say it is a excellent phone for the price.

The HT17 I am not sure what to do with it, I just bought because of the price offered.

Just an edit the Vernee Thor gets excellent reviews and if you buy you will not be disappointed.

Edited June 23, 2016 by nev

[nev]

You guys still think that a 8K bahts smartphone is a "cheap" one?

8k is mid-range now if we consider a lot of the well-designed low-priced Chinese smartphone brands like Doogee / Homtom, Cubot, Vernee, Oukitel.

The Homtom HT17 which will be released soon has Android 6, 4G connectivity and fingerprint sensor with price under 70 USD. That's what I'd call cheap! I was about to order it.

I think I'll get a Vernee Thor though (for under 120 USD). It has an MTK 6753 Octo core and performed very well in tests, so hopefully it would last many years into the future for me.

Just to add check out the Vernee Apollo, just released and if you shop around you can get for under $200us, by paying an extra $80 you will be getting a excellent buy.

[dddave]

You guys still think that a 8K bahts smartphone is a "cheap" one?

8k is mid-range now if we consider a lot of the well-designed low-priced Chinese smartphone brands like Doogee / Homtom, Cubot, Vernee, Oukitel.

The Homtom HT17 which will be released soon has Android 6, 4G connectivity and fingerprint sensor with price under 70 USD. That's what I'd call cheap! I was about to order it.

I think I'll get a Vernee Thor though (for under 120 USD). It has an MTK 6753 Octo core and performed very well in tests, so hopefully it would last many years into the future for me.

I got the HT17 on first release flash sale for $49 an absolute bargain, it is on it'd way now, I have the Outikel K6000 pro I picked that up for less than $140us, all I can say it is a excellent phone for the price.

The HT17 I am not sure what to do with it, I just bought because of the price offered.

Just an edit the Vernee Thor gets excellent reviews and if you buy you will not be disappointed.

Might be time for a 12 step program for phone junkies...there's just something about when that package arrives...I keep looking fro excuses to buy the Homtoms, Doogee's ect but I've run out of GF's relatives.....They only want Samsung anyway.

[nev]

You guys still think that a 8K bahts smartphone is a "cheap" one?

8k is mid-range now if we consider a lot of the well-designed low-priced Chinese smartphone brands like Doogee / Homtom, Cubot, Vernee, Oukitel.

The Homtom HT17 which will be released soon has Android 6, 4G connectivity and fingerprint sensor with price under 70 USD. That's what I'd call cheap! I was about to order it.

I think I'll get a Vernee Thor though (for under 120 USD). It has an MTK 6753 Octo core and performed very well in tests, so hopefully it would last many years into the future for me.

I got the HT17 on first release flash sale for $49 an absolute bargain, it is on it'd way now, I have the Outikel K6000 pro I picked that up for less than $140us, all I can say it is a excellent phone for the price.

The HT17 I am not sure what to do with it, I just bought because of the price offered.

Just an edit the Vernee Thor gets excellent reviews and if you buy you will not be disappointed.

Might be time for a 12 step program for phone junkies...there's just something about when that package arrives...I keep looking fro excuses to buy the Homtoms, Doogee's ect but I've run out of GF's relatives.....They only want Samsung anyway.

The HT17 will be here on Tuesday,it has arrived at Khonkaen now being dispatched to the village I live, yes the first opening is always exciting.

True about only wanting overpriced Samsung or iphones my wife bought a j7 for some ridiculous price while I was away for work, I tried to explain phones I could have bought for the same money but just got that blank stare.

[stament]

Phones are status symbols for Thais, the hiso factor comes into play......as always.....

[Gary A]

My favorite cheapy at the moment is an IQ X Slim 2. It does everything pretty well for a 5,000 baht phone. I was using the Lumina 4,000 baht Windows phone for my regular driver until I discovered that it could not be tethered with my computer. That irritates me. It has hot spot but no direct tether for the Internet. I have ordered a USB WiFi receiver for my desk top. Depending on how that works, I may start using it again.

[guzzi850m2]

Phones are status symbols for Thais, the hiso factor comes into play......as always.....

As in most other countries and with cars too.

[George2]

Phones are status symbols for Thais, the hiso factor comes into play......as always.....

Only for Thais. Nobody in their right mind gives a crap about status symbol for their phones.

I will never buy a Samsung or Apple phone.

[casualbiker]

Phones are status symbols for Thais, the hiso factor comes into play......as always.....

Only for Thais. Nobody in their right mind gives a crap about status symbol for their phones.

I will never buy a Samsung or Apple phone.

No not just for Thais.. many do it. I don't like using iPhone but they are well built and the software integration is superb. Overpriced they are!

[guzzi850m2]

Well I just ordered a grey UMI Super from GearBest, got it for just under 200$.

It will likely take a while to arrive as I choose the standard shipping method, so in worst case scenario about 25 days.

Obviously no places in Thailand to fix it if I get problems with it but I am wiling to take that chance.