5 reasons budget phones actually rule now

I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but as a tech journalist, there’s an invisible pressure on me to buy the best possible smartphone I can afford. It’s not about status so much as credibility — it’s hard to speak with authority if you haven’t used the latest tech personally. That’s usually meant having to bypass budget phones in favor of high-end models like my iPhone 16 Pro, although for years, that wasn’t a hard sell — no one wants a phone with a noisy camera sensor or lethargic app performance.