Do cheap Aldi smartphones represent good value for money?

More and more budget smartphones are starting to come to the marketplace as highlighted by the high profile announcement of the £26 Karbonn A50S, which whilst aimed at developing markets will probably lead to other similarly priced devices getting released.

Today budget supermarket Aldi have announced that one of their forthcoming technology special deals will be the Medion Life E4001 smartphone.

At less the £80 & featuring a 4″ screen and dual core processor, the E4001 will attract some attention and impulse buys from passing shoppers, but does it represent good value for money?

Do cheap Aldi smartphones represent good value for money?

Great Value from the Aldi Website?

To try and ascertain the level of value of the Medion handset I’m going compare it to two of its peers the ultra cheap Karbonn A50S and the respected Moto E handset.

The following table shows a comparison of the Karbonn A50S, the Medion Life E4001 & the Moto E sim free Budget smartphones.

Do cheap Aldi smartphones represent good value for money?

The comparison shows a couple of worrying issues with the specs on the E4001.

It’s processor (on paper at least) appears to be the most underpowered of the three devices shown, and whilst it has more RAM then the Kerbonn (which really isn’t saying much) there is a real possibility that the device is going to start grinding to a halt under the demands of social media apps.

The lack of value really becomes apparent when compared to the Moto E, which for an extra £10 provides:

  • A better processor
  • A newer version of Android
  • A bigger screen with a higher resolution
  • Twice as much RAM

To add if you are happy with the Tesco version of the Moto E, you can get it for the same price as the Medion.

It therefore becomes very difficult to recommend the Medion Life E4001 and it certainly isn’t the high value gadget that it appears to be.
The Moto E however does seem to be great value device.