[Honor 8X Guides, News, & Discussion] CJ2311:
It's pretty hard to pick a phone for this, considering the MSRP being set to 250$. I'd normally find it more interesting to build a medium ranger from the last year for that price rather than a budget phone of the current year, but here goes :

For me, there are certain criteria that have become mandatory for any phone, budget or not. They are the following : Build quality, performance, and battery life. But that's not to say other points aren't important.

As such, the best choice for me with the new models is the Nokia 6+. Here's a detailed breakdown on all the points I've taken into account.

- Updates : Only 2 manufacturers that I know of can be trusted to provide frequent updates even for budget phones, and those are Huawei and Xiaomi. All other manufacturers are not even bothering to update some of their flagships, which makes them a nono. However with Android One, there are some more models that are now worth looking at, including the Nokia 6+.

- Performance/CPU : Anything that's running a mediatek chip, or a snapdragon that's a 4xx series is underpowered as far as I'm concerned. This only leaves phones with Kirin or good SD chips as an option.

- A good camera : Now for less than 250 bucks, it's pretty impossible to expect a camera phone with OIS and the like, so instead I focused on the image quality and the features. The Nokia 6+ manages to produce decent pictures with the presence of its second sensor which I feel makes up for the possible shake. The selfie camera isn't too shabby either, with its 16MP sensor, but it's true that Honor provides a better quality in this regard.

- Build quality : Nokia 3310, nuff said.

- Battery life : While the 6+ has only a 3060mA battery, considering how good Nokia are with optimization, and the fact that it's just a 1080p phone, this is clearly enough for my usage.

- Looks : I have to admit, I don't really care much for the looks of a phone. After all, it's most likely just going to end up in a case so that's the back half already pointless. However, the front of the Nokia 6+ is an eye catcher. It's got very little in the way of bezels, and while most models who try to include a notch make it way too big/noticeable, it somehow feels okay on this model. My only gripe with the design is that they should have put the FP sensor on the front, not really fond of back mounted fp sensors.

- Miscellaneous stuff :

The presence of a FP sensor is mandatory.

A 3.5 jack isn't really necessary, but I sure as hell won't say no to it if the manufacturers have had the decency of including one.

USB Type C should be required de facto by now, especially when it comes with quick charge like on the 6+.

SD card support for budget phones is a staple. Since most of them are limited in storage. (Hell to be honest, unless we're talking about a phone that already has 256GB of internal storage, SD support will always be mandatory).

The only other contender here was the Honor 8X, but it ultimately loses out because of the absence of USB-C, as well as them having a bit weaker GPU. All it had going for it over the Nokia is the camera setup, but as I said, MicroUSB in 2018 is a bit of deal breaker.

I didn't even consider Xiaomi however because of their really bad build quality that I've had the displeasure of experiencing more than once, but I don't really expect them to bring more to the table than Honor usually does anyway.