If you’ve hesitated to buy a no-contract smartphone due to the high upfront cost, you might want to take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Prevail LTE phone available now through Boost Mobile.
With the Prevail LTE, you can score a fully featured Android 4.4 KitKat smartphone for about $100 upfront and as little as $35 per month, with no contract, no commitment and no credit check.
The Samsung Galaxy Prevail LTE measures 5.16″ by 2.68″ by .35″ and weighs 4.59 ounces, making it dainty enough to fit nicely in a purse or pocket. It sports a 4.5″ touchscreen that works well and has just the right amount of sensitivity.
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The phone performs smoothly on its 1.2 GHz quad-core processor with 1 GB of RAM. Its 8 GB of onboard storage should prove sufficient for most people, especially if you add an optional microSD card (up to 128 GB).
Games like Angry Birds look and sound fantastic on the Prevail LTE phone. YouTube videos also offer excellent sound and video with rich depth of color.
Apps download quickly over WiFi and install flawlessly. The Prevail LTE features HD voice capability for increased voice call quality. Its virtual keyboard with multi-function keys makes typing easy. You can also give Android’s voice recognition capabilities a whirl and avoid typing altogether.
The phone even has a 5 MP camera (2 MP front-facing) and camcorder for taking nice photos and videos. For syncing your photos and videos with your computer automatically, I recommend the free Dropbox service.
The Samsung Galaxy Prevail LTE’s battery lasts an impressively long time, through marathon sessions of video watching and game playing. The average email and text user probably wouldn’t need to charge the phone every day.
I chose the Samsung Galaxy Prevail LTE on Boost Mobile for my tween daughter, but it would work well for anyone needing a great phone without having to spend a bundle.
A big advantage to no-contract (a.k.a. prepaid) phones is their low ongoing monthly cost. Boost Mobile uses Sprint’s nationwide 4G LTE network and charges $35 for 1 GB of full-speed 3G/4G data, $45 for 5 GB or $55 for 10 GB, with unlimited talk and text.
Boost Mobile doesn’t tack on fees for going over your monthly data amount, but they’ll reduce data speeds to 2G for the remainder of the billing cycle. Boost Mobile’s mobile WiFi hotspot option starts at $5 per month.
In looking for a phone for my daughter, I found Boost Mobile would be a much cheaper alternative than adding her to our current standard mobile plan. Adding her to our standard mobile plan would have cost at least $40 a month, plus the cost of a phone, and more time on our contract.
I was really glad for the lack of overage charges when she very quickly shot up to 85 percent of her 2 GB data maximum for the month.
Our home’s WiFi started acting wonky one day, so my daughter turned off WiFi on the phone and forgot to turn it back on. She spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos of people playing Minecraft before I received the email about her data usage and turned on WiFi again on the phone.
If you add a kid to your mobile plan, sharing a bucket of data with the family, you risk having him or her eat up all of your monthly data allowance. Plus, teens and kids tend to lose or break their phones, and replacements can cost $100 or more, even with cell phone insurance coverage.
Boost Mobile offers a 14-day return policy and free shipping when ordered through their website, plus you can port an existing number if you want. I received a demo device to use for this honest review.
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