ZTE Fury Review: cheap Android smartphone for Sprint

Just like those cheap late-night television advertisements, Sprint is launching a new inexpensive smartphone. It is going to be running the ubiquitous Android mobile operating system and should be available as of yesterday. The manufacturer is a fairly unknown company named ZTE. The price? You guessed it. It is going for $19.99.

The ZTE Fury may be cheap, but it is a "full fledged" smartphone. It comes with a decent camera and a amiable processor. If you thought you would be getting something with the features of two years ago, that is not quite right. The screen is not a "retina" display, but it is the same size as the iPhone 4S. The $19.99 price tag comes with some requirements. The buyer must get a two year contract and receive a $50 dollar rebate to get the tiny price.

Taking a look at some of the details, we find the processor running the ZTE Fury smartphone is not too shabby. It is not dual core but it spins at a respectable one gigahertz of speed. The internal memory accompanying that Snapdragon chip is rated for four gigabytes of space. If that happens to not be enough, the Fury has a slot for a flash memory card up to 32 gigabytes in size.

The camera section is loaded with a five megapixel photo shooter. There is only one since ZTE did not include a front camera on their Fury smartphone. The camera is equipped with LED flash to help with those dark photo shoots. The wireless connectivity may surprise you for the price of this device. The smartphone can act like a Wi-Fi hotspot. Up to five different devices can receive internet access from the Fury's network connection. Forget about the DLNA and the "Wi-Fi" direct for now. This handset is not going to have those features as they are usually relegated to those smartphones with a bit more price to them.

Running the menus and programs for the ZTE Fury is Android. This is in the older "Gingerbread" ( 2.3 ) version. This version can support NFC ( Near Field Communication ) connections but there is no indication that the Fury is equipped for this. Happily, QR code apps will easily take the place of NFC chips with a quick download. The Android platform is riddled with chronic malware problems, so be careful whatever it is you download from the Google Play areas for this smartphone. The good news is that the rootkit named "Carrier IQ" has been discontinued from Sprint as of December of last year. You will no longer be infected by that particular piece of digital outrage. Do not look for this smartphone to be on the list for an upgrade to Android Ice Cream Sandwich ( 4.0 ). Sprint gives the smartphone a unique bit of software that locks it when it senses the device is moving over ten miles an hour. This is designed for drivers, but obviously is going to make bus and subway riders mad until they learn how to disable it.

A battery with a large 1500 mAh of power is installed in the ZTE Fury. If the user is not playing too many mobile games they should get some decent talk time out of it. ZTE is based out of China but has their USA headquarters in Dallas, Texas.