Gadgetory

if you're in the market for a new phone and you're not buying a smart phone good luck not many basic phones left and the only people buying them these days are the elderly and anyone trying to comfortably smuggle a phone into prison lucky for you the price of a good smart phone has never been cheaper i'm donald bell and today we're counting down the top five smart phones under $50 for june of 2012 picked by CNET senior editor Jessica dual court starting off at number 5 the Nokia Lumia 710 this is a relatively new Windows Phone on contract from t-mobile we're actually seeing it as a free option from a few retailers which is surprising since you get a 5 megapixel camera 720p video recording AMOLED screen and turn by turn GPS Microsoft and Nokia really wants you to try Windows 7 phone you had me at free at number four the Samsung Focus 2 the same basic premise here is the last one only this one's on AT&T and it's just a little bit cooler you get a larger Super AMOLED screen works over 4G LTE get a great camera GPS and even hotspot support again you're rolling the dice with the Windows Phone OS but we wouldn't rate it so highly if we thought it was a dud an Android phone finally slides in at number three it's the Pantech Burst which we're seeing from AT&T right now for just one penny on contract basically an Android version of that Samsung Focus 2 you have that four inch Super AMOLED screen 4G LTE 5 megapixel camera and it runs a 1.5 gigahertz dual-core processor and most of all it runs Android so you can trust it there's lots of app support out there at number 2 the LG Nitro HD here's another one from AT&T it's a four star review from CNN it works a 4G LTE is camera takes 1080p video and if you're buying for screen size this is the one to go for the giant 4.5 inch IPS screen that packs a 1280 by 720 resolution when LG says HD they mean it now before we get to number one let's take a look back at CNET's picks for the best cheap phones of 2011 one common feature here is that all these phones physical keyboards we've come a long way I think and now the number one smartphone under $50 is the Nokia Lumia 900 this is hands-down the flagship Windows Phone from Microsoft and Nokia Carl Zeiss optics 4.3 inch screen and a great design that stands apart from the herd now this is $99 direct from 18t but more than a few of the big online retailers have discounted this thing right down to $50 it's a 4 star review from us and a great choice if you're looking for something that's both simple and very capable so those are the best cheap smartphones on the market right now as chosen by our CNET experts please be sure to check out top 5c Netcom for more videos like these and send any top 5 requests to me on twitter i'm donald bell thanks for watching