Mum's first smartphone - recommend me something

[hedgehog90]

Sorry, I know these 'purchase recommendation' threads are rubbish, but I need help.
My mum wants a smartphone and she's given me the task of finding her one. It'll probably never get used, as with her current (only) mobile phone, a £10 micro brick that she bought from Tescos circa 2005.
I thought it would be easy to find something decent in the £50-£100 range but it's proving more difficult than I realised. I haven't bought a phone in several years and all the old reliable brands look a lot less appealing.
It needs to be a sim-free android, relatively new model, hold a decent amount of charge and have a mid-sized screen, not too massive, but appropriate for someone with bad eyesight and refuses to wear glasses in most situations.
If someone could confidently recommend me something for under £100 by a manufacturer I've heard of then please do.
I mean, I'm all for trying something new, but when you look at some of these names on Amazon - DOOGEE, ALCATEL, UMIDIGI, OUKITEL, ULEFONE - it doesn't fill me with confidence. They literally all sound like monster names from an old RPG.

[Zetetic]

Nokia 6.1 (2018) are available for about £130 now. (It's what I've gone for, needing a new phone at short notice. There still seems to be no real replacement for the Nexus 5.)

Which isn't under £100, of course, but getting there. Motorola's might be worth a look as well?

I'm afraid I can't speak to the ethics of the supply chains or manufacturing of these phones.

[Twed]

Have you looked into the HTC Bint

[Uncle TechTip]

Doogee were, amongst others, recently implicated in a pre loaded malware scandal. I think I'd avoid these very cheap brands.

I've been pleased with my Xiaomi Mi A1, fast processor and lots of storage but it's around 170GBP new. However I just picked up an ebay replacement after smashing the screen, pretty much as new and it was only 80 with a sniper bid.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Motorola's (actually Leonovo these days) are well built and cheap. G7 play is £130 on Amazon.

Well supported, and they bother to update the OS.

[BlodwynPig]

Rampant Rabbit is all the tech she'll ever need

[touchingcloth]

Since moving abroad my partner and I splurged on a dual SIM Alcatel to keep our UK SIMs in. Seventy quid, and it's, you know, it's fine.

[hedgehog90]

Motorola's (actually Leonovo these days) are well built and cheap. G7 play is £130 on Amazon.

Well supported, and they bother to update the OS.

My last 2 phones are Moto Gs, the last one the GSM suddenly stopped working, couldn't make or receive calls, so I bought a newer model, after a few months of use they released a firmware update and now it has terribly unstable WiFi. This was 18 months ago, they still haven't released a fix. I installed stock firmware, but then I was pestered persistently with notifications to update. Over a year or so I figured it was programmed it to ramp up over time. I hit Download by accident a few months ago and then the notifications to install the update ramped up to once every minute, I'm not exaggerating. I installed the update and the WiFi is back to shit.
No sign of a significant OS update on the horizon either. They keep saying it's coming but it never has, same thing happened with my previous 2 phones.
So Motorola/Lenovo can fuck off, frankly.

[Jerzy Bondov]

What about Nokia 1 Plus? About seventy quid with a big screen for the price.

[hedgehog90]

I went with a Nokia 5.1 (£100) in the end.
Thank you all for your suggestions, particularly Zet for nudging me towards a Nokia. I considered going for a 6.1 but there seemed to be almost no difference specs-wise and it was more expensive, so 5.1 it was.

[Zetetic]

Hope it turns out alright. I've had my 6.1 all of five days or thereabouts, and it seems fine.