Compact budget phone

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brendonwp

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I'm looking for a compact (4 - 4.7 inch screen) phone on a tight budget (up to R2 000ish), with at least 1GB of RAM, fairly stock Android and a good battery life. The Moto G is a bit large for me, but otherwise seems great. The Redmi 2 Pro is better pricewise and in specs, but heavily skinned and battery not so good.

LG Leon is another option, but I can't find it on pay-as-you go.

Any advice?
 
wrt heavily skinned, if you apply the stock Google Now Launcher to the Redmi 2 Pro for example everything will appear stock other than the settings menu.
 
Cool! And the hardware is adequate for the interface response to still be smooth? The reviews that I've read aren't too clear on this.

Vegeta said:
wrt heavily skinned, if you apply the stock Google Now Launcher to the Redmi 2 Pro for example everything will appear stock other than the settings menu.
Click to expand...
 
brendonwp said:
Cool! And the hardware is adequate for the interface response to still be smooth? The reviews that I've read aren't too clear on this.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I have a Redmi Note 2 and the octacore processor obviously glides around the interface. So I can't vouch for the 2 Pro until I try it.

Edit: But I have a Moto G and that was passable with Stock launcher, if the 2 Pro has even beter internals it should be just fine.
 
Last edited:
brendonwp said:
Cool! And the hardware is adequate for the interface response to still be smooth? The reviews that I've read aren't too clear on this.
Click to expand...

The phone gets updates regularly. Check when the review was done.
 
The 2 Pro has a slightly slower chip, Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53 instead of Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 in the Moto G (3rd Gen). Will check reviews.


Vegeta said:
Unfortunately I have a Redmi Note 2 and the octacore processor obviously glides around the interface. So I can't vouch for the 2 Pro until I try it.

Edit: But I have a Moto G and that was passable with Stock launcher, if the 2 Pro has even beter internals it should be just fine.
Click to expand...
 
brendonwp said:
Cool! And the hardware is adequate for the interface response to still be smooth? The reviews that I've read aren't too clear on this.
Click to expand...

My Redmi 2 Pro is nice & responsive. Even better since it got Lollipop 5.1.1.
MIUI is a really nice skin with some cool features.
 
Cool, thanks. Was just looking at the performance tests for the MotoG (2GB) vs the Redmi 2 (1GB) on gsmarena. The one result that worried me was the poor result for the browsing test. How do you find browsing?

Also, it would be great to find a stable custom ROM, but you're happy with MIUI?

Number Six said:
My Redmi 2 Pro is nice & responsive. Even better since it got Lollipop 5.1.1.
MIUI is a really nice skin with some cool features.
Click to expand...
 
MIUI isn't a hog. Lighter than TouchWiz & Sense
Coming from stock Moto G and before that HTC Sense it's a nice middle ground.
 
Vegeta said:
MIUI isn't a hog. Lighter than TouchWiz & Sense
Coming from stock Moto G and before that HTC Sense it's a nice middle ground.
Click to expand...

No ways. Touchwiz is much lighter than miui.
MIUI ram management is terrible. I had redmi and mi4, after installing cyangenmod on it the system ram usage halved and cpu ran less than before.
 
In developer options turn off MIUI memory optimization.
 
brendonwp said:
Cool, thanks. Was just looking at the performance tests for the MotoG (2GB) vs the Redmi 2 (1GB) on gsmarena. The one result that worried me was the poor result for the browsing test. How do you find browsing?

Also, it would be great to find a stable custom ROM, but you're happy with MIUI?
Click to expand...

The Redmi 2 pro has 2Gb.

Makes a big difference.
 
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