Sometimes, it's nice to pay extra for an ultra-premium phone. After all, phones like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra pack in crazy good camera systems and lots of horsepower. But not everyone needs all those extras, and nobody wants to wait til Black Friday for a good deal! So why not pay less than half the cost of a Galaxy S23 Ultra and pick up a ThinkPhone by Motorola, instead?

The ThinkPhone by Motorola packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor — that's last Fall's flagship processor — along with a vision-friendly 144Hz pOLED display up front. Motorola even promises four years of software updates, too, so you're not going to be left high and dry after a year or so.

This deal comes straight from Lenovo, and you can even save an extra $10 if you follow the links to sign up for the company's newsletter on checkout. Motorola and Amazon also have the ThinkPhone on sale but Lenovo has the best price we've ever seen on the phone.

If you've got $450 to spend this year, I think there are only two phones you should consider: The Google Pixel 7a, and the ThinkPhone by Motorola.

The ThinkPhone typically retails for $699 for a reason. It's faster than the Pixel 7a and offers a suite of software by Lenovo that helps tie it more closely with your PC. That includes a shared clipboard, easy one-click hotspot access, and even a desktop-like UI that lets you use mobile apps right on your PC. Plus, that red key on the side is super handy thanks to its highly customizable nature.

The best Pixel 7a deals will, undoubtedly, bring Google's latest budget-minded phone down to the ThinkPhone's sale price on Black Friday but there are still plenty of reasons to choose Motorola's phone over Google's at this price point.

Something to note is the gaming performance difference between the two phones. The ThinkPhone ships with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 which is up to twice as fast as the Tensor G2 in the Pixel 7a, depending on the task. In other words, if you're a mobile gamer, it makes sense to choose the ThinkPhone over the Pixel 7a.

Then there's the display. The 144Hz pOLED display on the ThinkPhone is not only much smoother-looking than the 90Hz AMOLED display on the Pixel 7a, but it's also a lot friendlier on the eyes, as well.

That's because many of Motorola's phones are TÜV Rheinland certified for things like low blue light emission and a flicker-free experience. For people who are sensitive to light flicker or PWM dimming, this likely means the difference between being able to use your phone daily or feeling sick when you look at it.

Lastly, Motorola's built quality is second to none and the ThinkPhone not only supports a slip-resistant carbon fiber back, but it's also MIL-STD-810H compliant, and drop to concrete rated up to 1.3m.