Locus (not FOSS) supports vector maps and it's price is way cheaper than an external 1TB drive would cost, just for good map coverage of a few countries.
Are there any sites where you can use it with current data? As far as I know Mapbox only sells it as a service to other companies, they don't have a site where users can browse it. The only site I know that use Mapbox is Strava, and they (or Mapbox) are slow to update the data. I made edits months ago that aren't available yet. Still, the data is much better than Google's for runners and cyclists.
On my Galaxy Note 2 (2012), you're right. I've ordered a new phone yesterday because it's getting quite bad after five years of daily use.
My girlfriend bought a phone for €300, and the one I ordered (now, a year later) for €250 actually has the same chipset. It runs great on that.
I consider ~250eur to be the bottom of the smartphone market unless you're going for a potato to call and text with (not even browse the web). Given that it runs smooth on that... I'm not sure what you're running OsmAnd on with expectations of fast rendering.
> I consider ~250eur to be the bottom of the smartphone market
That's ridiculous statement in itself. The bottom of the market are those <$100 china wonder phones, and you have a selection of low-end, but actually branded, devices in the <150eur category. Surprisingly enough, those <150eur devices look like they might be perfectly usable, with specs comparable to my current daily driver (which is couple of years old). As a random example, Huawei Honor 6A [1] currently retails for 99eur around here
