A couple of months ago, my brother in law came to me with a question: he needed an affordable $200-300 Android smartphone that he could purchase from the UAE or Lebanon and that would do the basics right. My ready-made answer in the category in the past few years has been Samsung’s A/C/J series. You get nice hardware, decent software with less bloat nowadays, excellent after-sale support no matter which mom-and-pop repair store you stop at, easy accessory purchase, and it’s super fast to sell it on when the time comes to part with your phone.
Xiaomi Mi A1 second take: For $215, it offers the best value of any Android smartphone right now was written by the awesome team at Android Police.