Top 5 Budget Android Smartphones

With so much buzz surrounding the super smartphones that were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show and the emphasis placed on bigger and better, it is sometimes easy to forget that you don't have to spend big to get big, and when it comes to empowering budget handsets, there is no better operating system than Android.

Open Source apps and personalisation means that any phone can be used to its full potential with the right software, so we wanted to tell you about five budget Android handsets which will hit stores in 2011.

Huawei U8800 IDEOS X5 - Announced in December 2010, the Huawei U8800 IDEOS X5 is expected to hit the UK market in May of this year, and looks like it’s going to be a great little handset. Featuring Android 2.2 (Froyo), a 3.8-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera with auto focus, LED flash, plus 720P video recording and an 800 MHz Scorpion processor, there’s just about everything that you would expect from a high end phone, but with the bonus of a budget price tag. It’s expected to retail for around £249, so we’re predicting that it’ll be available on contracts from the £25 a month mark.

Motorola CLIQ 2 - The Motorola CLIQ 2 will be coming your way at the end of this month, and it’s set to be another solid release from the American handset manufacturer. Running on Android 2.2 (Froyo) and featuring the Moto Blur UI, it’s a dream for all you social butterflies out there, with the option to display all of your social networking accounts on your homepage. It also boasts a 3.7-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen, 5-megapixel snapper with auto focus and dual-LED flash, Wi-Fi, 1GB of onboard storage and a full hardware QWERTY keyboard.

Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 - Expected in the first quarter of 2011, the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 is the Korean giants’ contribution to the affordable end of the market, and they’ve packed in plenty of features. A 3.1-inch TFT display, Android 2.2 (Froyo) Samsung’s own TouchWiz UI with Swype text input, DNSe sound enhancement and a 3.15-megapixel camera. It also features a 600MHz processor, which should be more than enough to keep this little device ticking over with no lag. We’ve no confirmation of the price, but we think you’ll be able to nab one of these for around £25 a month.

Acer's Liquid Mini & BeTouch E210 - Never a company left behind, Acer have also recognised the need for high quality devices at a lower price point, and have released not one, but two budget handsets running Android 2.2 (Froyo). The Liquid Mini is the cheaper sibling of the highly successful Liquid, and will be available in a variety of colours, including pink and green. It’s smaller than the original Liquid and has a 3.2-inch capacitive screen, and will feature DNLA certification, making it perfect for streaming media.
With a 3.15-megapixel camera and Facebook and Flickr integration, the BeTouch E210 is a messenger style phone, with a full QWERTY keyboard and a 2.6-inch TFT touchscreen.

The BeTouch is one of very few Android messengers on the market, and we think it will be very popular with younger users, combining all of the advantages of the Android market and open source ethos, with a communication friendly form-factor.

Android’s stock is on the up-and-up and with so many manufacturers cottoning on to the gap in the budget market, its domination is set to continue in 2011. The Android OS is so successful for many reasons, one of which being the fact that, no matter what hardware you’re packing, this software will make it work to its full potential, so if your hard-earned cash only stretches as far as a budget handset, you can be sure that you won’t be settling for less.