Huawei Ascend Coming to Cricket, One of The Cheapest Android Smartphones We've Seen

The Huawei Ascend is one of the cheapest smartphones we have seen at just $150, no that is not with a contract or a two-year agreement, the Huawei  Ascend actually costs $150 without a contract. The Ascend will be Cricket's second Android device. Surprisingly the Ascend actually has some pretty good features, despite the extremely low price. The Ascend features a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a 320x480 resolution, 3G connectivity (EV-DO rev.A), a 600 MHz processor, 256 MB of ram, a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, Android 2.1, GPS, WiFi 802.11g, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth, an accelerometer, a compass, a 1500 mAh battery, and last but not least a microSD card slot. The Huawei Ascend has a surprising amount of features for a cheaper low-end Android device. While it does have many features a lot of them are very low quality. For example, the 600 MHz processor will most likely be unbearably slow and the camera is reported to only shoot CIF video. There are also reports that the device has very low build quality and feels cheap and fragile. The screen resolution is also pretty bad. If you compare the Huawei Ascend to Cricket's current Android smartphone, the Kyocera Zio, you will find that you are probably getting a much better value with the Zio. First of all, the Kyocera Zio has a screen resolution of  480x800, which is amazing compared to 320x480. The Kyocera Zio also records VGA video versus the Ascend's CIF. These are just of few of the advantages of the Zio, but there are many more. Of course, there are some advantages of the Ascend over the Zio. For example, the Ascend runs on Android 2.1 versus the Zio's 1.6. The Zio is also slightly more expensive, and goes for just $230. If, for some reason, you do want to get the Huawei Ascend, it should be available mid-October for just $150.