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Samsung Indulge moseys to Cricket, $330 price ensures it won't leave your sight
Not to be outdone by MetroPCS, Cricket now offers a Samsung Indulge for its customers who demand a taste of Android's better half. While the $330 price is sure to test the commitment of some, the device stands out among its underpowered Huawei, Sanyo and LG peers -- it's also the only game in Crickettown if you want to combine El Goog's OS with a physical keyboard. Like its MetroPCS counterpart, customers will find a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a 3.5-inch HVGA LCD display and a 3 megapixel camera -- although unlike the former, Cricket doesn't yet offer LTE service. Taking into consideration this is a zero-commitment affair where $55 a month brings unlimited voice, text and data, it's not a bad proposition -- though, your heart is likely to race if the phone gets dropped. So, if you think you can hold onto this Froyo-filled Sammy, follow the break for the PR.
Cricket teases CDMA-only Samsung Indulge, Huawei Ascend 2 at CTIA (hands-on)
Regional carrier Cricket surprised at CTIA today by showing off a couple new units that aren't out yet -- but they're in the pipeline for the second quarter, which the company points out is coming "very soon." First up is the Huawei Ascend 2, which -- you guessed it -- would be the follow-on to the original Ascend that the company launched last year. The display's still HVGA; WVGA obviously would've been nice, but Cricket is promising to launch it at the same sub-$150 price point as the first model and it's got a 5 megapixel camera around back (up from 3.2 before). Next up, the Indulge is pretty much the same midrange QWERTY Android slider that already launched on MetroPCS, albeit with one big difference: this one has no LTE compatibility (Cricket has no live LTE network, after all). As with the Ascend 2, we would've preferred a WVGA display -- this one's just HVGA -- and the four physical buttons up front seem a bit out of style, but Cricket's still in a position where any new Android hardware is a very good thing. Look for it to launch for under $350 -- off contract, of course. %Gallery-119546%
Galaxy Indulge microSDHC card regularly reports back to MetroPCS (but hey, you get Iron Man 2 for free!)
If you're the kind of person who buys phones based on Hollywood tie-in deals (and for your sake, we hope you're not) you'll be pleased to know that the Samsung Galaxy Indulge comes pre-loaded with Iron Man 2. That's right, a sequel to a movie you only ever saw half of, once, while it was on the TV over the bar at Armand's on Liberty Ave. (assuming that you're a certain Engadget editor, and for your sake we hope you're not) is coming pre-loaded on the world's first Android-packing, LTE smartphone. And if that wasn't enough, the SanDisk microSDHC card that the movie is stored on regularly reports back to MetroPCS with usage statistics: This intelligent SanDisk mobile memory card provides specific, real-time network data to MetroPCS to measure customer interest in digital content. Details of aggregated, anonymous consumer usage will allow MetroPCS to determine the impact of its movie offering, which in turn allows them to provide customers with more customized content and services in the future. We're sure everything is on the up-and-up here, but for some reason we don't think most consumers will be comfortable with storage that reports regularly to a carrier -- for any reason. Still, things could be much worse: you could be stuck with the pre-loaded Iron Man app on an LG Ally.
Snoop Dogggg goes 4G to celebrate launch of Samsung Galaxy Indulge, was probably paid more than 4Gs to do it
You laugh, but D-O-Quadruple-G does have a certain ring to it. In fact, it sounds a little like the ringing of Samsung's Galaxy Indulge, which is tucked inside the pocket of MetroPCS' CEO right about now. You see, the aforesaid carrier has presumably paid Snoop Dogg (or Snoop Dogggg, as he'll be known until he scurries outside of a 4G coverage area) to change his name in order to celebrate the commercial launch of the world's first LTE Android smartphone. The Froyo-based phone is just barely beating out LG's Revolution and HTC's Thunderbolt, and you can bet that MetroPCS is doing everything it can to let the world know about it. Taking things one step further too far, Snoop's also appearing in a new series dubbed "The G-Connection," and you can peek the first episode just after the brizzle. For rizzle, homedizzle. %Gallery-117476%
MetroPCS LTE Samsung Galaxy Indulge available this week, we go hands-on
As you may have gleaned from the small leak last night, Samsung's MetroPCS LTE phone isn't called the Forte as we may have previously thought, but the rest of the information we've been hearing about the phone for the last few weeks (thank you, FCC and Flickr!) was pretty dead on. Officially called the Galaxy Indulge, the 3.5-inch, Android 2.2 smartphone isn't quite as well spec'd as the rest of the Galaxy S line up -- most notably it doesn't have that stunning 4-inch AMOLED screen (TFT LCD here, folks) -- but it packs a 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor, 3 megapixel camera, 1500mAH battery, and some fast LTE speeds. As for the latter, the slider will naturally be backwards compatible with MetroPCS' CDMA network and the carrier will be offering two monthly plans, both of which include unlimited talk and texting -- the $50 plan buys you 1GB of data and the $60 version all the gigabytes you can eat. Combine one of those with the $399 sans-contract-price of the phone itself and it's not a bad deal. That said, compared to the other LTE or just general 4G phones we've seen of late, the Indulge feels rather cheap. Don't be fooled by its rather Epic 4G looks -- the .6-inch thick phone just feels overly plastic in hand (it makes those plastic squeaking noises) and the keyboard just can't compare to Epic's slightly raised keys. However, what it lacks in rigidity it makes up for in speed -- we consistently got 3.1Mbps down and 3.3Mbps in our Manhattan apartment and saw it loading sites and apps faster than our Droid 2 Global. On the software end, there aren't many surprises -- it runs Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 and comes with a few of MetroPCS' preloaded apps, including an Iron Man 2 app that actually includes the whole movie. We're not sure you'd want to watch the entire thing on the low-contrast HVGA screen, but it's always an option if you decide to, you know, indulge. (Sorry, we had to!) The handset will be hitting shelves (or websites) later this week making it the first available LTE smartphone in the US -- but in the meantime, hit the break for the full press release and a short hands-on video. %Gallery-115995%
