MetroPCS has announced the availability of a new smartphone, the LG Spirit, which will connect to its 4G LTE network and can be purchased without a contract for the incredibly reasonable price of $200. However, at that price, you’re going to have to accept it’s not the most technologically up-to-date handset on the market.
Before you go looking elsewhere, thinking the Spirit is a single-core, tiny screened slab of dreariness; stick with us, as it’s perfectly acceptable, provided you don’t expect a Galaxy S3. The Gorilla Glass-covered screen measures 4.5-inches for a start, and the processor has dual-cores and a clock speed of 1.2GHz. Sadly, the screen resolution is a less impressive 960 x 540 pixels, and the main camera has 5-megapixels.
So, you can see where savings have been made, but the LG Spirit still has 1080p video recording, a microSD card slot to compliment the 4GB of internal storage, a 1.3-megapixel video call camera, a 2150mAh battery and Bluetooth 4.0. The final piece of the puzzle is the Android operating system, which rather than being 4.1 Jelly Bean is 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
These, however, are the sacrifices one must make if we’re to pay less than $200 for a contract-less smartphone. A great price we’re sure you’ll agree, but you’re going to have to work to get it, as the phone really costs $270 and the $70 will come back to you after a mail-in rebate.
The LG Spirit is up against the similarly priced ZTE Anthem in MetroPCS’ current line-up, but it easily bests the ZTE phone’s 4.3-inch screen and Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. However, it’ll only cost the same while the rebate offer is running, which MetroPCS says will only be applicable for a limited amount of time.
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