Budget-friendly devices with cool cameras and good performance are always welcome to the smartphone market, where big flagships for more than $1k fight fiercely for attention. Affordable smartphones, however, are necessary, especially in current challenging economic times. These days, you can get a pretty capable smartphone for around $300-$400 and still be quite happy with it.

But as affordable phones get better and better, we are bound to ask ourselves which phone might satisfy our needs the best for a given budget. , a very cool smartphone with a gorgeous camera is on the top of the ...