14 DAY TRIAL // Regional carrier Cricket is teasing with two new handsets showcased at the 2011 CTIA Wireless, which are expected to become available in the second quarter: Huawei Ascend 2 and Samsung Indulge.
Both Android smartphones were shown at a press event and have been tagged by the company as “coming very soon.”
Samsung Indulge is a mid-budget Android-based smartphone, which is also available from MetroPCS as Galaxy Indulge. The phone features full LTE network support and is one of the few CDMA smartphones to offer download data speeds of up to 12 Mbps.
The handset features a side-slide form factor with a full QWERTY keyboard, and targets users who want a better messaging experience. Its 3.5-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen features 16 million colors support and 320 x 480 pixels resolution.
The Indulge is powered by a 1 GHz Hummingbird processor and runs on Android 2.2 , complemented by Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 UI.
On the software end there aren't many surprises, but the phone is expected to be delivered with several Cricket apps preloaded. In this regard, MetroPCS's Galaxy Indulge packs the whole Iron Man 2 movie, so it will be interesting to see if Cricket offers something on par.
Other interesting features of the smartphone include a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, GPS with A-GPS support, microSD card for memory expansion (up to 32GB, 2GB card included) and Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP support.
Huawei Ascend 2 is the sequel of the original Ascend, which is still available for purchase from Cricket for $139.99 after a $20 web discount and with an unlimited $55 Android plan.
Unlike the original, Ascend 2 features an 800 MHz processor, a better 5-megapixel camera and runs on Android 2.2 Froyo. The carrier also promised that it would launch the Ascend 2 at the same sub-$150 price tag as the old model.