Huawei Ascend II (Cricket Wireless)

The Huawei Ascend II ($179.99) is an update to the Huawei Ascend (3 stars) for Cricket Wireless. The Ascend was a decent budget Android smartphone, but this refresh appears to offer only modest improvements.

The Ascend II is an entry-level Android device. It features a 3.5-inch, 320-by-480-pixel glass capacitive touch screen, a standard resolution for lower end smartphones. It runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). The 600MHz ARM 11 Qualcomm processor is definitely on the slow side, but you should still be able to run most of the 250,000+ apps currently available in the Android Market.

The Ascend II features a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, which is an improvement over the original's 2.5mm jack. That makes it much easier to find a pair of compatible headphones. Additionally, the Ascend's 3.2-megapixel camera has been stepped up to 5 megapixels, but there's still no flash. It also features 160MB of internal memory, along with a 2GB microSD card, expandable to 32GB.

The Ascend II runs on Cricket's 3G network, which works on the 850-, 1,900-, and 1,700-MHz bands, depending upon your location. Coverage is somewhat limited, so make sure to check the maps at?http://www.mycricket.com/coverage/maps/wireless before buying in.

The Huawei Ascend II may be a good budget phone for some, but this modest update means there's no reason to update your current Android device.?

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