Written November 2025
This guide will follow a non-traditional format compared to my other pages, due to the fact that I cannot recommend any specific models of phones for under $50 right now that will actually function well and serve you as good phones. If you want to get a decent experience on your phone without paying more than $50, you’ll have to put in a bit of work. What I can do is provide you with options to give you the best possible experience with your new purchase, despite your extremely limited budget.
Option 1: Just use your old phone
This is an option that you, or many others reading this article won’t have, as your old phone could be broken with repair being too expensive, you’re buying this phone for a family member who has never had a phone before or you’ve never had a smartphone before, or you’re getting a new phone because your old phone is being handed down to someone else. Well, if none of these scenarios apply to you and you’re only here because you want an upgrade over your old, laggy phone, maybe just keep that phone. If your phone is equal to or better than the Samsung Galaxy S7/AX0 series, the Google Pixel 2 series, or if it’s any Motorola phone made in this decade, then a sub-$50 phone may not provide you with a better experience than you already have with your current phone.
Option 2: Carrier Deals
Many budget mobile network operators will provide free or low-cost phones if you sign up for their cellular plans as a new customer. However, many people don’t want to pay $40 a month for a cellular plan, which is where government assistance companies such as AirTalk Wireless come in. You can get a free phone and a free plan with them if you qualify as low-income in your state, and often they will have some pretty good phones available for cheap. You can get a Galaxy S9 for free, a Galaxy S10e for $19.99, a OnePlus Nord N200 5G for $29.99, even a Galaxy S20 for $49.99, you get the idea. The only catch is that you have to quality as low-income to claim the benefits, and you have to be a new customer for many of these deals. I advise you all to do some research into the matter to find out which deals and which carrier suits you the most.
Option 3: Used Marketplace
Ok, so you already have a carrier you like, and you can’t use your old phone. The simple next step is to straight up buy a new phone. But where can you get such cheap phones, and which phones should you be looking for? The answer is the used marketplace. You’re not getting a good phone brand new for only $50. Most new phones at this price range will be cheap, laggy e-waste, which is why you have to go looking for used flagship phones.
eBay is a good place to start. You can get good deals on used phones from both eBay’s auctions and Buy It Now tabs, I would recommend leaving it on All so you can get listings from both. Now, when shopping for used phones on eBay, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
- NEVER buy from one of those listings that give you a random smartphone from a lot. Despite the cheap price of usually around $20 on these listings, the seller will ALWAYS win in this situation. You will be sent a crappier phone than if you had just bought a crappy BLU brand new.
- DO NOT buy a phone brand new at this price point, despite how good the phone may look, I guarantee you you’ll be getting a crappy experience. These brand new cheap phone listings are all over eBay, with people selling brand new phones under $40 from brands like Maxwest, Foxx, Vortex, ANS, Schok, and more. Never heard of any of those brands? Exactly. All you need to know is that they sell cheap, crappy e-waste at a suspiciously low price. You can filter these out by going to the Brand section in the eBay filter menu, and only check off reliable brands like Motorola and Samsung. If you live outside of the US, then Vivo, Oppo, Realme, and Redmi phones, as well as other foreign brands with little to no presence in the US can be good value and therefore checked too. However, I will not be talking about those, as I know very little about those offerings. What I will be talking about next is how to tell what will be a good phone and what won’t.
- Before buying any phone I recommend after this list, make sure it’s actually a decent upgrade over your old phone by checking the specs on a website like GSMArena, or checking the features on the company’s website.
Now to help you out with what phones you should actually buy. When you first search up “used phone” on eBay, you’ll see a whole lot of listings and probably be totally confused on what to get, and that’s completely valid. Now that you hopefully read my list up above there about what not to get, we can talk about what you should get. Basically, what you’re looking for is a phone that will give you as usable ass possible of an experience, with as many essential features as possible. What aren’t features you should be looking for are amount of megapixels in the camera, amount of mAh in the battery, how much RAM is in the phone (but it should have more than 3GB), or how many cores are in the processor. All of these things are what cheap phone companies will use to mask the fact that the specs on their phones are horrendous. What you’re looking for is a processor that is actually capable, which you can determine by looking up the benchmark scores of the phone before buying it. A simple Google search, “[phone name] AnTuTu score” should suffice, and if the score is above 250,000 then that is good for under $50. Looking up the Geekbench score can be good too. A good processor is central to a good experience with your phone, as a laggy phone that can’t run your apps will get very annoying very fast.
Now for the question of what used phones will give you the best value for this price. Old flagship phones (late 2010s) and old-ish midrange phones (early 2020s) are clearly the best way to go here, with these phones providing a decent experience with all of the essential features you need, while still being dirt cheap. Some examples of phones you will see on eBay that you should definitely pick up if you can for under $50 are the Samsung Galaxy S8/S8 Plus, Galaxy A series phones like the A42, A14, and A50. Don’t pick up an A-series phone if the second number is 0 or 1 and the first number isn’t higher than 5. A OnePlus Nord N200/N300 5G is also a good pickup at this price, and a Moto G Play 2024 is great as well. These are just some examples of phones you can find on the used marketplace that will actually function as decent phones for under/around $50. You can go out onto eBay to look for phones, and if the specs of the one that catches your eye are similar, or slightly better or slightly worse than any of the phones I listed here, it could be worth it for the price. If you’re ever in doubt I can be emailed at charlie.mobilerecommendations@gmail.com. It’s also worth mentioning that you can get phones that have cosmetic defects like screen burn-in or cracked glass for cheaper, and they will still technically function the same. I have seen cracked glass Google Pixel 4/5 phones, Galaxy S9/S10e phones, and other good older flagships at discounted prices due to cosmetic defects. Trust me, using a phone with a crack that you can cover up with a case/screen protector is easily preferable to using a phone that will lag every time you so much as open an app.
Option 4: Really? (Brand new phone)
So you’ve decided you can’t use your old phone or find a good carrier deal, and are too good to use a used phone. I suppose then I’ll just do my job and provide a list of the best new unlocked phones you can buy for under $50. There are many good options out there for cheap brand new phones like the Moto G Play 2024 for around $20, and the Samsung Galaxy A15 for $40 at Walmart, but these phones are always locked to overpriced carries like Straight Talk Wireless, Tracfone, and others. Unless you’re getting this for a young child or bed-confined senior who doesn’t need a cellular plan, it won’t work well for you, as nobody wants to pay way too much for an overpriced carrier. However, almost none of the options I will give you will make for a good experience, and should only be used for the essentials: calling/texting, taking barebones photos and very light social media use.
- TCL 30 Z
- Why: 3GB RAM, MediaTek Helio A22 chipset, removable battery, can function as a basic phone
- Motorola Moto G Power 2022
- Why: Great battery, good enough performance for light users, 90Hz refresh rate, 4GB RAM, just like the TCL can function as a basic phone.
Again, I highly don’t recommend going down this route, unless you’re willing to increase your budget a bit. The option, however, is there if you need it.