At less than $200, these phones are calling for you

Phones costing less than $200 have a mix of modern features with some of the best legacy features you can't find on more expensive phones. For instance, you can get a phone with a 6.5-inch screen and multiple cameras, plus a headphone jack and expandable storage with a microSD card slot.

However, these phones will likely run slower than a more expensive phone, may only receive one software update and most of them won't support speedier 5G connections. You will be able to install most apps from the Google Play Store, and these phones will receive a few years of security updates that should keep away most malicious threats.

Read on to learn more about three of CNET's top picks for phones that'll cost you less than a couple hundred smackers.

WHAT Samsung Galaxy A03S

THE COST $159.99

AVAILABLE FROM samsung.com/us

Samsung's Galaxy A03S includes plenty of great features including a 6.5-inch screen, capped at 720-pixel resolution, that's great for reading news, watching videos and playing games. Despite some performance lag, the phone is good at multitasking, but its tiny 32 gigabytes of storage space could fill up fast. It may be worthwhile to consider expanding the storage with a microSD card.

WHAT Moto G Power

THE COST $179.99

AVAILABLE FROM motorola.com/us

The Moto G Power for 2022 has plenty of onboard storage to show for its modest price. This phone starts at 64 gigabytes of space, which is double the storage of many phones in this price range. If that's not enough, you can either spring for the 128 gigabyte model at $250 or throw in a microSD card for up to 512 gigabytes of additional space. The phone also includes 4 gigabytes of RAM, which should help it through most multitasking.

The phone ships with Android 11, and Motorola is pledging one software update to Android 12 along with two years of security updates for this phone.

WHAT TCL 30 XE 5G

THE COST $198

AVAILABLE FROM tcl.com/us.en

The phone has a 6.5-inch screen at 720-pixel resolution with a 90-Hertz refresh rate, a triple-camera system with a 13-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel selfie camera and a rear fingerprint sensor. The phone includes 64 gigabytes of onboard storage and ships with Android 11.

On a specs-level you can get better cameras and higher-quality screens with the other picks in this list, but those phones do not have 5G connectivity.