Best budget smartphones: Moto G, iPhone 5C, BlackBerry Leap and Lumia 640 XL

Great-value handsets for thrifty business users

Smartphones have never been so essential in these times of cloud computing, bring-your-own-device and getting online, both as leisurely playthings and as vital productivity tools across almost every industry imaginable.

Still, not every business has the budget to kit staff out with the latest top-end device, so we've assembled a list of the best cheap smartphones on the market today.

Whether they're solid all-rounders or pack a price-busting premium feature, these value handsets show you don't need to pay a great sum for a great phone.

EE Harrier Mini - £85

It's the cheapest device on this list, but the EE Harrier Mini sports the kind of features we'd expect on something far pricier: 4G connectivity, HD 4.7in display, 8MP rear camera and Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The latter point is a big win for EE's compact effort, as many Android phones are still stuck on the older 4.4 Kitkat version. Lollipop, however, gives the Harrier Mini a wealth of performance optimisations and security upgrades, as well as new features like guest accounts and a battery saver mode.

The Harrier Mini will also support EE's WiFi Calling service once it becomes available for the Harrier range, which is "soon", according to EE. WiFi Calling effectively carries calls and texts over wireless internet without the need for a mobile signal - great for anyone living or working in areas with patchy coverage.

The service is currently available for iPhones and the Samsung Galaxy range, so the Harrier Mini will be one of the first budget devices to take advantage of it.

Best budget smartphones: Moto G, iPhone 5C, BlackBerry Leap and Lumia 640 XL

Great-value handsets for thrifty business users

Honor Holly - £109

Huawei is known for producing affordable but high-quality smartphones, which is why its fingerprints are all over the Honor offshoot line even if the Huawei name isn't.

We're particularly fond of the Honor Holly, with its 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 16GB of storage - easily one of the more generous capacities at this price range - and it can be expanded further with up to 32GB of microSD storage. On top of that it's got an 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and 5in capacitive touchscreen display at 1280x720 resolution.

Finally, it includes dual SIM support, a great feature for enterprise users as it allows a personal SIM and a business SIM to work in the same handset.

Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition - €299

The spec list for the MX4 Ubuntu Edition, Meizu's first major smartphone release in Europe, reads like one from a £600 handset: octa-core processor (four cores at 2.2GHz, four at 1.7GHz), 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and a whopping 20.7MP rear camera with 1080p video. And yet it costs the equivalent of just £215, give or take a few pence.

It's also the most powerful Ubuntu phone yet - out of three, but still. Ubuntu Touch is a young OS and still has a few kinks to work out, mainly a somewhat sparse selection of supported apps compared with Android and iOS. With time and Ubuntu's open nature, however, this is likely to change.

Ubuntu Touch also introduces the clever ‘Scopes' interface, which replaces the usual home screen with themed pages incorporating content from multiple apps at once - so your saved videos, YouTube favourites and Vimeo clips are all accessible from one place.

Best budget smartphones: Moto G, iPhone 5C, BlackBerry Leap and Lumia 640 XL

Great-value handsets for thrifty business users

iPhone 5C - £319

Yes, it's an iPhone, and iPhones generally don't come cheap. Regardless, iOS has become a major force in the business sphere, and the ability to sync data and messages between an iPhone and any OS X machine makes an Apple handset the logical choice for firms using Macs and MacBooks.

If you need an iPhone, then, the (relatively) budget iPhone 5C is definitely one to consider. At £319 it's over £200 cheaper than the most basic iPhone 6, but thanks to its A6 chip - 1.3GHz dual-core with 1GB integrated RAM - it's no slouch where power is concerned.

It also comes preloaded with the up-to-date iOS 8, sports a sharp 4in, 640x1136 Retina display and has an 8MP rear camera capable of capturing 1080p video.

Speaking of cameras, the 1.2MP front-facing camera was designed to work with FaceTime, Apple's WiFi-based video calling app, so it's perfect for video conferences outside the office.

OnePlus One - £179-£219

The OnePlus One is billed as "the flagship killer" and, looking at its specs, we'd be surprised if Apple and Samsung didn't at least break a sweat.

Here are the highlights: a 5.5in, 1080x1920 display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.5GHz quad-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 13MP camera with 4K video recording, 5MP front camera and between 16GB and 64GB of storage.

That's an exceptional list of features for as little as £179, particularly the storage capacities, 4K camera and beefy CPU. Remember, though, that the follow up - the OnePlus Two - is due to be revealed on 27 July 2015.

We don't know whether it'll match the OnePlus One in sheer value, but OnePlus CEO Pete Lau confirmed that it will at least cost less than $450, or about £288.

Best budget smartphones: Moto G, iPhone 5C, BlackBerry Leap and Lumia 640 XL

Great-value handsets for thrifty business users

Asus ZenFone 5 - £150-£180

There are quite a few affordable ZenFones to choose from, but the Asus ZenFone 5 is our pick for two reasons. Firstly, it's fitted with an Intel Atom Z2580 2GHz dual-core processor with hyperthreading, meaning it can schedule processes more intelligently than the average CPU and thus reduce idling time - ideal for multitasking.

Secondly, its ZenUI Android skin includes a new feature called Share Link, which enables speedy file-sharing with other ZenFones via WiFi Direct. It's also compatible with iOS and other Android devices once they install a dedicated app.

For the price, the rest of the hardware is pretty slick as well, including a 5in, 720x1280 display with Gorilla Glass 3, 2GB of RAM and up to 16GB of internal memory.

Elephone P5000 - £154

We're struggling to think of any other smartphone that could compete with the P5000's titanic 5,350mAh battery. Elephone claims it can endure up to two days of frequent use, and has even included the option to use it as a power bank for when your other devices are in need of a charge transfusion.

This makes the Elephone P5000 a fine choice for frequent travellers, but there are plenty of impressive features for everyday use, including a 16MP rear camera, 440ppi display and 16GB of storage. With a 1.7GHz octa-core processor and 2GB of RAM, it's also one of the more powerful smartphones on this list.

The home button doubles as a fingerprint sensor, used for locking the display and saved messages behind biometric authentication, an extra layer of protection on top of Android 4.4's built-in security measures.

Best budget smartphones: Moto G, iPhone 5C, BlackBerry Leap and Lumia 640 XL

Great-value handsets for thrifty business users

BlackBerry Leap - £199

BlackBerry may no longer be the undisputed champion of the enterprise smartphone market, but products like the 1.5GHz dual-core BlackBerry Leap show that it's still worth keeping an eye on.

The Leap's most appealing feature is not its hardware or surprisingly low cost, but its laser-like focus on security. BlackBerry 10, the OS powering the Leap, features encryption support, anti-malware protection and - just in case - a suite of backup, wipe and restore tools. For those who don't want to compromise on security or privacy in exchange for frugality, the BlackBerry Leap is the phone to buy.

It also supports BlackBerry Blend, a nifty-sounding productivity service that wirelessly and automatically syncs content - including email, texts, documents, calendars, BlackBerry Messenger conversations and media files - between the phone and a PC or tablet

Microsoft Lumia 640 XL - £219

Offering a huge 5.7in HD display and a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, the Lumia 640 XL is a great-value option for picking up a Windows Phone. The big screen should help minimise squinting when creating Word documents and PowerPoint presentations in Office 365, and a modest 8GB of internal memory is boosted with free access to 30GB of OneDrive cloud storage.

As you'd expect, there are benefits to using a Windows Phone in any Windows-based IT environment: data and file syncing between phones and PCs, shared calendars, OneDrive integration and so on.

With Windows 10, due for release on 29 July, Microsoft is attempting to unify desktop and mobile features even further. This will include things like Universal Apps which share feature parity across desktop, tablet and mobile platforms.

For the Lumia 640 XL to fully benefit from this, it'll need to be updated to Windows Phone 10, which is being released separately at an unannounced date.

Still, its current Windows Phone 8.1 OS will be upgradeable to Windows Phone 10 for free when it releases, at which point it will be able to take advantage of a new version of Office 365 that's much more on-par with the desktop version in terms of features.

Best budget smartphones: Moto G, iPhone 5C, BlackBerry Leap and Lumia 640 XL

Great-value handsets for thrifty business users

Motorola Moto G (second gen) - £149

The original Moto G was designed to offer an affordable, no-thrills smartphone to emerging markets like Brazil, Chile and South Africa. However, its dirt-cheap price combined with surprisingly decent specs helped it find popularity worldwide, and it soon became Motorola's best-selling phone ever.

This redesigned model manages to improve the hardware while maintaining an alluringly low price point. The display has been bumped up to a generous 5in, while the rear and front cameras have gained some pixels, now offering 8MP and 2MP respectively.

On the software side, the second-gen Moto G runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, making it one of the few budget Android phones to move on from Kitkat.

The 3G version also comes with dual SIM support, along with a ‘Smart Calling' feature that analyses calling habits to automatically determine which SIM to use. There's also a newer 4G version with a slightly larger battery, but only one SIM.

Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 - £125

When it comes to pure specs, the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 is nigh impossible to beat at this price. For a meagre £125, you get a 64-bit, octa-core (four 1.7GHz, four 1GHz) Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, a 5.5in, 1080x1920 IPS display, 2GB of RAM, a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP front camera and a sizeable 3,000mAh battery.

It's also the only phone on this list that, at the time of writing, runs the latest version of Android: 5.1 Lollipop. This adds various performance enhancements, security updates and bug fixes over 5.0, as well as optimisations to the Android UI.

It's an encouraging sign, if the specs weren't enough, that the Smart Ultra 6 hasn't cut too many corners in its pursuit of affordability.