Everyone keeps implying there are super cheap super good chinese phones. Is there a site that reviews these or a link where an uninitiated can check the best options out?
They've all gotten good reviews for their hardware.
I don't think it's crazy to expect that Amazon could build a really solid "Basics" phone at around $200 - $250, since their competitors all do so with reasonable margins to spare.
I bought my phone from aliexpress last year. Since then, Haipai Noble has had 3 major versions, and a dozen minor hardware updates.
Decide on price, and find reviews online of popular Chinese phones. Make sure the have the hardware features you want at the price you want. And then follow safe buying rules. Don't buy from low sales vendors, nor bad scored vendors.
there are super cheap phones with okish hardware, but software is universally SHIT, from broken functions, lazy implementations, to malicious rootkits and spyware in factory roms
To expand on this, if the phone isn't particularly well-known, then you'll end up on your own if you want to replace the ROM/firmware with, say, CyanogenMod, since there won't nearly be as much development/porting momentum as there would be for a household-name device.
