Affordable smartphones boast impressive specs

At some point in the last decade, the smartphone eclipsed the PC as the ubiquitous, must-have digital device. Where once people read books and newspapers on buses and trains, we now sit glued to our tiny (and not so tiny, these days) smartphone displays, and with good reason too. Our phones are the most convenient and portable computing gadget, making even today's svelte laptops and tablets seem somewhat cumbersome by comparison.

They're our instant connection to Facebook and Instagram. They're our cameras, our gaming fixes, our shortcuts to YouTube and Google. They're also used to make phone calls on occasion. But such is the nature of the tech media – which loves to coo over the latest slick, top-of-the-line flagships – you could be forgiven for thinking the only phones out there are ones costing in excess of $1000. Not true. You can spend a fraction of that these days and still end up with a device that's probably more computationally capable than your second-last laptop. These days, budget and mid-range smartphones are more powerful than many people need them to be, so why pay more?