We asked, you told us: Price and specs are most important when buying a phone

There are countless phones to choose from when buying a new device. Unfortunately, you have to give up certain features and performance depending on how much you want to spend.

So we decided to ask you, what features do you care about most when spending hundreds of dollars on a smartphone? Here’s what you had to say.

What’s the most important consideration when buying a phone?

Results

According to the almost three thousand people who voted in this week’s poll, price is the most important factor when buying a phone. Specs and performance be damned if you can’t afford to buy an expensive handset that offers everything that you might want.

Coming in second is performance. Those in the comment section went on to explain that they voted for that option because they despise lag, a short battery life, and bad-looking displays.

The fact that the camera wasn’t the first or second result was surprising to me. One of the most heated debates that I see in comment sections time after time is which phone is capable of capturing the best photos.

Noteworthy comments

Here are some of the best comments from last week’s poll explaining why they voted the way that they did:

• Price & then brand – Mi has taken care of other features in the respective budget segment. Have been using mi phones in the past 5 years, dint require to look at any other brand
• 1. Price 2. Better than my current phone (IP68, 2k display, good camera, sd card, wireless charging) 3. Camera (picture quality + night mode) 4. Good history of updating old phones (at least keep it for 2 Android version update) 5. Not HTC, LG and iPhone
• For me it is battery life, with slow software updates, that, you know, kill battery life. Then camera. The Droid X showed me what life can be like with a sucky camera. Don’t want that again. Flat screen. But i have purchased 2 curved screens searching for battery life. 3.5 mm jack. I kinda don’t like being led down a path that only benefits the OEM. Lack of 3.5 jack doesn’t help me. Performance equal to or better than the SD820. Notches are ugly and stupid, benefiting people who compare screen ratios. Just silly
• Performance + Stock Android….
• Camera is the most important for me, which generally holds along performance, and price lines. Over the past decade, higher camera quality has matched with higher performance and price. The pixel 3a is shifting that dynamic, so maybe after my current S10, I’ll be able to switch back down to something with a kick-ass camera.
• Performance (which is kind of a catch-all anyway) and then price. Every other consideration is a “nice” thing to have IMHO, but not necessary.
• For me it’s all about the screen, which I was surprised that wasn’t an option in the poll. So I picked “Design” which encompasses all the hardware features combined including the screen.

That’s it for this week, everyone. As always, thanks for voting, thanks for the comments, and don’t forget to let us know what you thought of the results below!