If you want to buy an inexpensive Android phone that doesn’t break the bank (and you know what specs to prioritize), instead of buying a new phone like the Moto G or a phone from Nothing (and their CMF label), you might want to consider an older Samsung Galaxy instead (which can be had for under $150 used on eBay or Swappa and sometimes even Amazon).
This is because older Samsung Galaxy phones have a couple of key features (and plenty of hidden features) that make them camera powerhouses when compared to other budget phones you might be considering. I found my 2022 Samsung Galaxy S22, upgraded the software and added a key app available on most Galaxy phones (even older ones dating back to 2020) and now my old Galaxy can beat any modern budget phone in the camera department thanks to its ability to take photos in RAW, do astrophotography, and enjoy multiple focal lengths with Samsung’s fantastic imaging pipeline.
Samsung’s Expert RAW is a powerhouse
Full RAW support, astrophography and more
Shooting in RAW, which is not possible on most budget Android phones, gives you the utmost in control when it comes time to edit your photos in post-production. When you shoot a normal JPG, your phone is making permanent decisions about white balance and color that you cannot edit. Sure, the resulting files are smaller, and sometimes it’s convenient to just point and shoot, but unless you’re only taking photos to share on social media, there’s a world of finer control you can have if you shoot in RAW to make your photos look better.
In RAW, not only are you capturing tens of thousands of levels of brightness (whereas JPEGs can only capture 256 levels), but you get infinite control over white balance, the data of which is stored with the RAW file as metadata which you can change in post (with an app like Lightroom, Snapseed, or Photoshop) without any loss in quality since the edits are separate from the file itself, and so they’re nondestructive.
Also, when taking photos in RAW, you are capturing trillions of color instead of million of colors as found in a JPEG. This gives you unparalleled control over color grading and fine-tuning the look and feel of photos. Because of all this rich color data, photos in RAW are often “smoother” as they lack the banding present in some JPEGs.
How to get Expert RAW on your Galaxy
It’s a free download on the Samsung store
You can download the Expert RAW app directly from Samsung, but you must have one of the following compatible phones: S20 or S21 Ultra, plus the entire S22, S23, S24 and S25 series.
Capture the night sky in great detail
Astrophotography mode is here too
There’s a hidden astrophotography mode in Expert RAW that lets you take long-exposure photos of the night sky (you’ll want to use a tripod for best results!) with the choice of a 3-, 6-, or 8-minute shot. To enable astrophotography: Open Expert RAW > Tap the Settings icon > Open Expert RAW Labs > Enable Astrophotography > Go back to the Expert RAW app > Tap the constellation icon > Choose Short, Medium, or Long exposure, which will take a 3-minute, 6-minute, or 8-minute shot. Pick the longest duration exposure you can for optimal results and, again, use a tripod and try to find an open view of the night sky.
Samsung’s phones have a powerful ISP
With fantastic lenses and versatile focal lengths
For many years, Samsung phones have had a fantastic Image Signal Processor (ISP) thanks to their use of either Qualcomm or Exynos chipsets that do a fantastic job with everything from post-processing sharpening to color enhancement and even background blur in portrait mode (though there is a better way to do portrait mode on Samsung phones) that does a surgical job at isolating the foreground from the background and creating bokeh. In addition, all previous Galaxy S devices have triple lenses (which isn’t true of a lot of common budget phones you might be considering) which gives you three distinct focal lengths. In the case of my S22, that grants me 70mm and 3x optical zoom on the telephoto; 13mm focal length on the main wide lens, and 23mm for the ultrawide. This versatility, plus the power of Expert RAW, gives me a truly dynamic and capable photography package that exceeds the capability of any 2026 budget phone I can think of, even though this phone is now four years old.
An old Samsung Galaxy beats budget phones of today
It’s great that you can save a lot of money by picking up a used Samsung Galaxy going all the way back to 2020 then load it with a free app like Expert RAW, and have the utmost in camera quality and post-processing versatility thanks to a combination of outstanding lenses, an over-accomplished ISP, and the ability to shoot in RAW.
