Best Rooted Phone Under £120 for Spoofing: 2026 Budget Buyer’s Guide
Best Rooted Phone Under £120 for Spoofing: 2026 Budget Buyer’s Guide
Finding the best rooted phone under £120 for spoofing means hunting the refurbished market rather than new-phone shelves, because almost nothing new at that price has the chipset and RAM headroom to run Magisk and a GPS spoofing app smoothly. Here’s exactly what to look for and which models actually deliver at this budget.
Quick answer
The best rooted phone under £120 for spoofing right now is a refurbished Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 or Note 12 (non-5G or 4G variant, Snapdragon 685/695, 4GB+ RAM), bought in “Good” or “Excellent” condition from a graded refurbisher. At this price you’re choosing between older Redmi Note models, Moto G-series handsets and the odd Samsung A13/A14, and the deciding factors are RAM (4GB minimum), free storage (64GB+), and whether the specific firmware build still allows bootloader unlocking without a long Xiaomi/MIUI wait queue.
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You’ll see phones advertised for £70-£90, but most of those are 2GB RAM budget units that choke the moment PGSharp or a spoofing overlay runs alongside Pokémon GO itself. Under £120 refurbished is the sweet spot where you can still find 4GB RAM, a usable mid-range Snapdragon or Helio chipset, and a big enough battery to survive a few hours of auto-walking.
Go lower and you’re fighting the phone as much as the game. This is also why our Under £150 guide treats £120-£150 as the comfortable tier and £120 and below as the trade-off tier, where you give up a bit of spare performance headroom to save £20-£30.
Minimum Specs for a Rooted Phone Under £120 for Spoofing
Before you look at any specific model, check four things: RAM of 4GB or more (3GB will run but stutters during raids), 64GB storage minimum so Magisk modules and cached map tiles don’t fill the drive, a Snapdragon 4-series/6-series or MediaTek Helio G chipset (anything older than a 2021 chipset struggles with current Pokémon GO’s rendering load), and Android 12 or 13 out of the box since some spoofing apps have dropped reliable support for Android 10/11.
A GPS chip with real AGPS/GLONASS support also matters more than people think, cheap phones sometimes ship with weak GNSS antennas that make location jumps look jittery even with a good spoofing app.
Top Pick: Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 / Note 12 (Refurbished)
The Redmi Note 11 and non-5G Redmi Note 12 are the most common sub-£120 rooted phone recommendation for spoofing, and for good reason. Both run a Snapdragon 680 or 685, come with 4GB or 6GB RAM depending on the listing, and have a large enough installed base that custom recovery and root guides are easy to find.
Refurbished UK listings for the Redmi Note 12 currently sit anywhere from roughly £88 to £120 depending on grade and storage, with graded marketplaces like Back Market and eBay’s refurbished sellers offering 64GB and 128GB variants in that range. Buy “Good” or “Excellent” grade if you can, battery health matters more on a spoofing phone than a daily driver because you’ll be running the screen and GPS radio harder.
Second Pick: Moto G-Series (Older Generations)
Older Moto G phones (G30, G31, G41, G13) regularly drop under £120 refurbished and are worth a look if you can’t find a Redmi Note in good condition. Motorola ships a comparatively light software skin close to stock Android, which means less bloat fighting for RAM and a more predictable rooting process since there’s less manufacturer-specific lockdown to work around. The trade-off is a slightly weaker GPS chip on some models, so test location accuracy immediately after setup rather than assuming it’ll behave like a flagship.
Vital Security Step: Hide Your IP
Spoofing your GPS without hiding your IP is a red flag to Niantic’s anti-cheat system – if your GPS says one location and your IP says another, you risk detection. We use Surfshark VPN because its GPS-override feature matches your IP to your spoofed location automatically.
Hide My Location (82% Off)Budget Samsung: Worth It or Not?
A refurbished Galaxy A13 or A14 can land under £120, but Samsung is a harder recommendation at this price tier. Knox trips on root attempts for most Samsung units (an irreversible flag even if you later unroot), and the company’s bootloader unlock process varies by region and carrier lock status. If you already compared Samsung vs Pixel for spoofing and leaned Samsung for build quality, budget A-series units are fine as a backup phone, but they’re not our first pick purely for rooting ease at this price.
The HyperOS/MIUI Warning for Newer Xiaomi Models
One thing to flag clearly: Xiaomi’s shift to HyperOS has made bootloader unlocking slower and more restrictive on its newest phones, adding mandatory waiting periods and account verification steps that didn’t exist a couple of years ago. This mostly affects current-generation Redmi and POCO models, not the older Note 11/Note 12 units we’re recommending here, but if you’re tempted by a newer Xiaomi phone because it’s cheap secondhand, check the specific firmware build’s unlock status before buying. Older units still running MIUI (rather than HyperOS) are generally far less hassle.
Where to Actually Buy One in the UK
Three places consistently have graded refurbished stock in this price band: Back Market (clear grading system, 12-month warranty), eBay’s certified refurbished sellers (check feedback score and return policy before buying), and CeX for in-person inspection if you’re near a branch. Avoid unverified Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree listings for a spoofing phone specifically, you have no recourse if the bootloader turns out locked or the IMEI is blacklisted, and you won’t find out until you’re mid-setup. Compare this against buying new, which we cover in detail in our refurbished vs new phones guide.
Rooting Process: What to Expect at This Price
Budget Xiaomi and Moto phones both support the standard Magisk patching route: unlock the bootloader through the manufacturer’s official tool (Mi Unlock for Xiaomi, requiring that account wait period), flash a patched boot image, then install Magisk. Expect the Xiaomi wait period to run anywhere from a few days to around two weeks depending on account history, so factor that into your timeline if you’re buying ahead of a specific event. Moto phones generally unlock faster with no waiting period, which is part of why some spoofers prefer them despite the slightly weaker camera and GPS hardware.
Running PGSharp or FGL Pro on a Sub-£120 Phone
Both major spoofing apps run fine on 4GB RAM and a Snapdragon 685-class chip, but you’ll want to close background apps before launching Pokémon GO and avoid running a second heavy app (like a screen recorder) at the same time. If you’re deciding between the two apps for a budget phone specifically, lighter resource use matters more here than on a flagship, our PGSharp vs FGL Pro comparison breaks down which one handles auto-walk and joystick movement with less overhead.
Battery and Thermal Reality Check
Budget phones in this range typically ship with a 5,000mAh battery, which sounds generous but gets eaten quickly by GPS, screen-on time, and a spoofing app running in the foreground. Expect 3-5 hours of active spoofing per charge rather than the all-day battery life you’d get from normal phone use. Thermal throttling is also more noticeable on cheaper chipsets, if the phone gets warm during a long raid-farming session, let it cool rather than pushing through, since sustained heat degrades battery health faster on cheap cells than on flagship-grade ones.
Keeping a Budget Rooted Phone Running Long-Term
Cheap hardware needs more deliberate maintenance than a flagship, not less. Storage fills up fast with only 64GB available, so clear cached map data regularly, and keep an eye on battery health since budget cells degrade faster under the GPS/screen load that spoofing puts on them. Our rooted phone maintenance guide covers the specific cleanup routine that keeps a budget rooted phone usable for a year or more instead of six months.
Ban Risk Doesn’t Change With a Cheaper Phone
A £120 phone carries the exact same account risk as a £500 one. Rooting your device and using GPS spoofing software both violate Pokémon GO’s Terms of Service and Niantic’s Gameplay Fairness Policy, and accounts caught doing this risk warnings, suspensions, or permanent bans. Buying a budget device doesn’t reduce detection risk in any way, Niantic’s enforcement looks at account behaviour and movement patterns, not hardware cost. If you want a deeper look at exactly what triggers enforcement, read our ban wave triggers breakdown before you commit to a new setup.
Best rooted phone under £120 for spoofing: key takeaways
Under £120, the realistic choice is a refurbished Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 or Note 12 (non-5G/4G variant) with 4GB+ RAM, or an older Moto G model if you want a faster, hassle-free unlock process. Avoid sub-£90 2GB RAM phones and be cautious with newer Xiaomi units on HyperOS, which have slower bootloader unlock queues.
Buy graded refurbished stock from Back Market, eBay certified refurb sellers, or CeX rather than unverified marketplace listings.
Buying recommendation
If you’re working with a strict £120 ceiling, a graded “Good” or “Excellent” refurbished Redmi Note 11 or Note 12 is the most reliable starting point we’d suggest, it has the RAM, chipset and community support to run a rooted spoofing setup without constant workarounds. Check the specific listing’s grade, battery health percentage, and whether it ships on MIUI rather than HyperOS before buying.
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Frequently asked questions
What’s the single best rooted phone under £120 for spoofing right now?
A refurbished Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 or non-5G Redmi Note 12 with 4GB RAM or more, bought in Good or Excellent grade. It has the chipset headroom and large enough developer community to make rooting straightforward, and UK refurb prices regularly land between £88 and £120.
Can I root a phone with only 3GB RAM for spoofing?
You can, but expect stutter during raids and multi-app use. 3GB works as a fallback but 4GB is the realistic minimum if you want the spoofing app and Pokémon GO running smoothly together.
Are newer Xiaomi phones a problem for rooting under £120?
Current-generation Redmi and POCO models running HyperOS have added longer, more restrictive bootloader unlock waits. Older units still on MIUI, like the Redmi Note 11/12, don’t have this issue, so check which software the specific secondhand unit shipped on.
Where should I buy a budget rooted phone in the UK?
Back Market and eBay’s certified refurbished sellers both offer clear grading and warranty cover in this price range. CeX is a good option if you want to inspect the phone in person before buying. Avoid unverified Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree listings since you have no recourse if the bootloader turns out locked.
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