I'm wondering too! What about Oppo AX7?? Any better camera in this price range? Xiaomi Redmi 8? Huawei Y9? Samsung Galaxy A 20? Meizu M6?

I wonder if a Moto G8 play from Amazon might do the job. Just check they include band 28, which not all Moto G's do. Moto G8 Plus is NZ$333 from Amazon now, great price, $100 cheaper than I paid for my wife's. Although I wonder if buying from NZ is better, the G8 plus from the UK has data cut in and out occasionally, for a short time each time.

Avoid phones with in-screen fingerprint readers. My Xiaomi 9T sucks for that.

Another option to consider might be the Nokia 3.2, although I think the X.3 versions are due out very soon...

qwerty123: Tight budget. You can get Mi A3 64GB from Ali for 300. Excellent camera for the price tag, but slow FOD.

@querty123 - FOD?

FOD - Fingerprint on Display

1eStar: Refurbished Samsung Galaxy s7 $284
New Samsung Galaxy S7 $374

Samsung flagships have top notch cameras. My mother has kept her S5 alive and the camera is still impressive.

IronH: If you are still looking, Oppo R15 Pro is on sale at Smithscity for $300, ($600 at noelleeming). Its a camera centric phone.

TheWIFE™ has an Oppo R15 Pro. At $300 that'd be a bargain. The camera is pretty good on it, not as good as my Huawei P30 Pro but good none the less.  Definitely worth a look I think. You could do a lot worse for $300 thats for sure.

I went through this a while back, wanting a better phone cam .
On my purchase, the 'good' camera turned out to be absolute rubbish in low light .

So search for some reveiws , and look at the low light performance, thats not allways mentioned in reviews.
Thats where the high end Samsung & Apple seem to really perform , in comparison to what I bought

GSM Arena has a really useful phone camera comparison tool, which lets you select low light.

Timing is unfortunate one of the guys at my last job got a Huawei Nova 5T for I think $350'ish with the pre Christmas sales it seems they are back up in the $600 + range now. 

I found this page https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-phone-cameras,review-2272.html

It rates the Motorola G7 Power camera for a budget phone and looking at Google The Warehouse has them on sale at the moment for $295.00 which is in your prce range and is a new phone with warrenty. https://www.thewarehouse.co.nz/p/motorola-moto-g7-power-black/R2604683.html

Hope this helps.

1101:

I went through this a while back, wanting a better phone cam .
On my purchase, the 'good' camera turned out to be absolute rubbish in low light .

So search for some reveiws , and look at the low light performance, thats not allways mentioned in reviews.
Thats where the high end Samsung & Apple seem to really perform , in comparison to what I bought