How you could save over £1,000 on your next mobile phone
Every year, new top-line phones are released, often with relatively minor changes to previous versions. Despite the high upfront costs, they can still be appealing due to relatively low monthly repayments on contracts, but how well is this disguising the true cost?
To find out, we challenged our experts to run the sums on handsets and Sims they'd genuinely consider buying themselves, and compare these to contract deals that are most commonly found advertised.
Read on to find out how you could save well over £1,000 on a phone purchase with one of our expert picks, and use our phone contract calculator to check the true price of a handset or contract before you buy.
Discover the best and worst mobile networks, or use our switching service to compare mobile contract and SIM-only deals.
The true cost of ultra-premium phones
The very best phones showcase the latest technology the brand has to offer, with large, vibrant displays and advanced cameras. They're tempting, especially if you weigh up spreading the cost over a contract, but the full price can still be eye-watering.
Using the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra as an example, the total cost of this phone with unlimited data from one of the big four networks (O2, Vodafone, EE or Three) at the time of publication would be between £1,986 and £2,164, with the most expensive phone payment part of the deal coming to £1,356.
Alternatively, purchasing the S24 Ultra outright from Samsung costs £1,249, or £52.05 a month for 24 months. This would immediately save £107, not to be sniffed at if you are tempted by the latest flagship – and you could save even more at one of the retailers below. Find out more about the S24, and keep scrolling to see how big the savings get with an alternative handset.
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Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s new AI features let you translate speech whilst on the phone, reword text to change its tone, and Google pictures within apps. AI camera enhancements have been taken up a notch; you can zoom in up to 100 times, erase and move objects, and capture more light in the darkest of shots. Other upgrades include a sleek titanium design and new Snapdragon chipset. It has a large, curved screen (6.8 inches) and a built-in S-Pen (stylus) for navigating and writing. But with the AI features also available on far cheaper phones, that leaves the S-Pen and advanced camera tech as the main draw - and at a hefty price.
Our mobile phone tests have revealed a consistent trend over the last few years - the gap in performance between the most expensive phones and the next level down is narrowing, with far fewer tangible benefits for paying top dollar. With Android phones in particular, you're likely to see big discounts on a handset if you shop for a model that's coming up to a year old.
Step down to a 'premium' phone and save over £1,000
Consider the Google Pixel 8, below. Even buying it direct from Google for £699 (and as you'll see below, it's available elsewhere for less), you could save over £1,000 compared to buying an S24 on contract, including an unlimited data Sim deal from Smarty.
Google Pixel 8
With the Google Pixel 8 you get a high-resolution 6.2-inch display, 4,575mAh battery, and seven years of security support from launch. The back of the phone has a shiny finish and a dual-camera system that spans across its full width. It benefits from Google’s Tensor G3 chipset with 8GB Ram, as well as 5G and Wi-Fi 7 for super-quick transfer speeds. As Google owns Android, you’re likely to get software updates earlier than if you buy an Android phone elsewhere.
Go for a mid-range model and save over £1,300
A mid-range phone is built to a lower specification than flagship or premium phones, but is still very capable. You're most likely to sacrifice camera quality here, which is not to say you can't still snap great pictures.
Samsung usually sells the Galaxy A55 for £439, but it's often on sale for a lot less. Even at the full price this would mean a saving of over £1,300 compared to an S24 Ultra on contract with a separate unlimited data Sim deal – far more if you pick up the phone for less and don't need a lot of data.
Samsung Galaxy A55
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is Samung’s top phone in its reasonably-priced A-series. On the front is a 6.6-inch OLED display with 2,340 x 1,080 resolution, which can display HDR10 content. At the top is a subtle 32Mp selfie camera, and on the back is a more sophisticated three-camera system. It’s fueled by a Exynos 1480 chipset and a big 5,000mAh battery. We suspect the all-important security support will last until March 2029, which is long for a mid-range phone.
Having an eSim instead of a physical Sim card could save you time and money, find out more in our guide to mobile phone eSims: what is an eSim and how does it work?
Go for a budget model and save over £1,600
As technology has progressed so rapidly, even budget phones are very capable devices. If you don’t use your phone much, or only need it for simple tasks, there is the potential to make huge savings instead of paying for capabilities that you won’t need or use.
Our chosen budget phone is the Motorola Moto G34 – purchased outright from Motorola, it costs £129.99. That's around £1,650 less than a flagship S24 on a contract, depending on which separate Sim deal you opt for.
Motorola Moto G34
The Motorola Moto G34 has some features that we’d normally find on slightly pricier phones, including a 6.5-inch screen with a high 120Hz refresh rate, 128GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery. But it doesn’t have 5G and both its front and rear camera systems have specifications that look pretty average; there’s no telephoto camera lens for high-resolution shots when zooming in, for example. Motorola states on its website that security updates will come to this phone until January 2027.
How to choose the best Sim deal
Year after year our surveys show that customers of the big four (EE, O2, Vodafone, Three) are rated relatively poorly for customer service, value for money and many other aspects of the service.
That's why we typically recommend going with a smaller, virtual network, which piggybacks the infrastructure of one the big four. Not only might you get a better service, but as you can see below, you could get an excellent deal on your data.
Best low data Sim deal
Ideal for light users, there are a range of low-data deals available at rock-bottom prices from rival networks to the traditional 'big four'. Here's our current pick:
Best medium data Sim deal
If you need a bit more data each month, but still stick to wi-fi fairly often, you can still get a good price on Sim that will deliver.
Best high data Sim deal
For those who like streaming and browsing a lot away from wi-fi zones, a high-data Sim deal offers peace of mind that you won't go over your allowance.
While we've just picked a handful of the hundreds of phone and Sim combinations available, the conclusions are representative of the prices you can expect to pay at each level. It's become harder to justify the cost of expensive flagships, and contracts can disguise that cost, especially if handset repayments are spread over 36 or 48 months. Always check carefully before you buy to discover the true price of any new mobile phone.
What's the cheapest way to buy an iPhone?
The iPhone market is a bit trickier to shop in, since Apple iPhones are all fairly expensive and don't tend to get discounted as heavily as Android. However, the advice around contracts also applies here.
For example, the latest, top specification model, iPhone 15 Pro Max, can be bought for £1,199 (or £49.95/month for 24 months) directly from Apple. The cheapest available iPhone 15 Pro Max contract from the big four is £1,116 from Three (£40 upfront and £46.50 a month for 24 months). This would be a saving of £75 over buying direct. However, if you buy it from Three you will also have to pay their Sim prices for the 24 months, which are significantly higher than other providers.
Within a few months, and certainly over 24 months, your £75 savings would be wiped out compared to the value you could save buying direct and getting a cheap Sim deal from a smaller network.
Once again, run the numbers any time you're considering buying a new phone or taking out a contract. Our phone contract calculator can help.
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