ZTE Warp (Boost Mobile)

With the Galaxy Prevail?($149.99, 4 stars), Samsung brought a really solid Android smartphone?over to Boost Mobile. The Samsung Transform Ultra?($229.99, 4 stars) improved upon the Prevail and added a nice, physical QWERTY keyboard. Now ZTE is throwing its hat in the ring with the $199.99 ZTE Warp. It brings a large, 4.3-inch display to Boost's low-cost lineup, but it doesn't have quite the level of build quality we loved about those Samsung phones.

Design and Call Quality
The ZTE Warp measures 5.1 by 2.7 by .5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.9 ounces. The back is made of textured, soft-touch black plastic that looks like a fingerprint. There are silver plastic buttons on the right and left sides of the phone, and the small bit of detail on the front is all shiny black plastic. The 4.3-inch glass capacitive touch LCD has 480-by-800-pixel resolution, and it looks good when you turn the brightness level up a few notches. Unfortunately, it looks like the LCD is set further back than we see in most devices, which makes the screen much more reflective and smudge-prone than normal. This never prevented me from using the phone properly?I had no trouble browsing the Web?but I did find myself needing to clean the screen a lot more often than usual.

The Warp is a dual band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. It connected to my WPA2-encrypted Wi-Fi network without a problem. Reception is average, and call quality is good overall. Voices sound rich and clear in phone's earpiece. Calls made with the phone are also clear and easy to understand, with good background noise cancellation. The speakerphone sounds fine, but it's just a touch too low to use outdoors. Calls sounded somewhat thready through a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($99, 4.5 stars), but voice dialing worked well. Battery life was good at 6 hours 36 minutes of talk time.

Pricing, Performance, and Apps
On October 6, Boost began charging an additional $5 monthly for its unlimited data and messaging services on Android-powered devices. That means that plans now start at $55, which are reduced by $5 every 6 months you pay your bill on time, until you reach $40. Existing $50 Monthly Unlimited customers with Android can keep their current price plan as long as they don?t let their account expire. Considering that Boost uses Sprint's nationwide network, these are pretty incredible prices compared with the rates on the major carriers, which can easily cost $100 and up.

The Warp runs the latest version of Android, 2.3.5 Gingerbread, and ZTE has done almost nothing to modify it. There's not much bloatware or preinstalled apps, aside from Mobile ID. Mobile ID allows you to install "ID packs" on your phone that include applications, ringtones, wallpapers, and widgets. It isn?t for diehard Android purists, but some users may like it.?

The Warp is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM8655 processor, the same as the Samsung Transform Ultra. Both phones benchmarked similarly. The scores don't come near those of the latest dual-core Android devices, but Boost doesn't carry any of those. This phone should be just fine for most needs aside from high-end gaming.

All of the standard Android apps are here. There?s Google Maps Navigation for free voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions. The phone syncs email, calendars, and contacts for Gmail and Microsoft Exchange accounts, and works with many other popular email accounts. The Warp's standard screen resolution offers maximum app compatibility in the Android Market, so you also shouldn't have much trouble running any of the 250,000+ available third-party apps.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
There?s a 2GB microSD card preloaded in the slot beneath the battery cover; my 32GB and 64GB SanDisk cards worked fine as well. There's an additional 2.6GB of internal memory available. The standard 3.5-mm headphone jack means you can use the Warp with just about any pair of wired headphones. Music sounds great, both over wired earbuds as well as through?Altec Lansing BackBeat?Bluetooth headphones ($99, 3.5 stars). The music player is stock Android, and I was able to play AAC, MP3, OGG, and WAV files, but not FLAC or WMA. Standalone video support is also pretty good. The Warp was able to play DivX, H.264, and MPEG-4 files at resolutions up to 720p, though it doesn?t support XviD.

The camera is a low point. It's a 5-megapixel shooter with an LED flash. Shutter speeds are painfully slow?it takes an average of 2.1 seconds to snap a photo?and the photos aren't worth the wait. The camera captures decent detail, but colors are so washed out that photos almost look hazy. And the video camera isn't any better. Recorded videos max out at VGA (640-by-480 pixels) resolution, and they play back at a choppy 13 frames per second.

If you're a Boost user looking to upgrade to a smartphone, the ZTE Warp is a good choice. If you can get past the overly-reflective screen and poor cameras, it becomes even better. But if you can't, the Samsung Transform Ultra gets you a nice physical keyboard along with a screen that's easier to see. Phones like the?Motorola Photon 4G?($199.99, 4.5 stars) on Sprint offer faster dual-core processors, along with nicer displays, but Sprint's monthly rates are much higher than Boost's. The?Motorola Triumph?($299.99, 4 stars) on Virgin Mobile is another good option, though the same unlimited pricing plan on Virgin costs $60 as compared with Boost's $55, and it doesn't come with Boost's shrinkage bonus.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 6 hours 36 minutes

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