[General Topics] katamari201:
I know all the tech sites and forums and whatnot always rave about the newest flagship device and seem to ignore even well specced budget phones, especially region or carrier specific ones. I am on T-mobile but am constantly checking out the new phones available on AT&T since T-mobile phones suck in general. There are some amazing budget phones that are almost as well specced and even better built, costing half the price, with 1/100 the publicity. Earlier in the year I bought a Pantech burst for one of my relatives. It only cost $200 on eBay. It was super smooth and fast, and the AMOLED screen made it pop. I was always playing with it and comparing it to my $450 HTC One X. The One X was actually slower, and the screen didn't feel as resilient. The camera was much better, but besides that, I couldn't really find any reason to justify the 2x++ cost.

Today I went to go play with more phones. AT&T has two new budget phones. The LG Escape and the Pantech Flex. They are both running a dual-core S4 and lightly skinned and super fast. Both have qHD displays at 4.3" with top tier IPS and AMOLED displays. At that screen size, 720p wouldn't have made much a difference for me or most people, and it's a perfect hand-holding size. I find it just as usable as the 4.8" S III, and even easier and faster than the cumbersome 5.3" Note I am currently rocking. The cameras are only marginally worse than top flagship phones, and they come with NFC and even big batteries. The LG Escape is a standout with 2150mah battery and a really great feeling curved and thin build that's grippy and rather seamess and unbroken. The petite size with very narrow bezels also makes it stand out. LTE is a given. Both devices are literally brand new just came out and you can easily find them on eBay for $250. I'm really digging the LG Escape and get more and more annoyed thinking about the $520 I dropped a couple months ago to get the international Galaxy Note in my pocket that is slow and clunky and big. And no it's not about price depreciation and tech obsolescence. The Note still costs $520 even today, and most flagship phones of yesteryear are still expensive on eBay.

Last year the difference between high-end and budget was more dramatic since the cameras were way better on the high-end side and you got dual-core instead of single core. The screens were also terrible with WVGA and poor viewing angles and colors. This year is very different. Budget phones have the same blazing S4 krait processor that the high-end has, with all the same NFC, GPS, bluetooth, and everything else under the sun. The cameras have not improved much at the high-end whereas the lower-end has caught up and is nipping at their heels. Build quality is even better on the low-end in many cases (cough S III cough), and they always have removable batteries and microSD slots to expand their pitiful 4GB of memory. In a month, the LG Escape and Pantech Flex will probably drop to $200. The S III and One X are both still super expensive. This year at least, the tortoise has caught up to the hare, and budget-conscious consumers should be aware how great the lower end offerings are this year, and not be afraid to save a ton of money. It's not every year the fastest processor available becomes commoditized for budget phones and carriers are forcing LTE and big batteries into everything from low to high.