ZTE Warp Sequent (Boost Mobile)

It may cost $199.99, but the ZTE Warp Sequent looks and feels like a million bucks. Okay, maybe not quite a million, but it's definitely the nicest looking smartphone?we've seen yet from ZTE. And it works pretty well, too. The Warp Sequent has a big, sharp screen, solid performance, and it runs Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). There's no 4G, and a reflective display and underwhelming camera hold it back, but you're still getting plenty here for your money. If you don't need 4G, it's a solid choice.

Design and Call Quality
Unlike most phones from ZTE, the Warp Sequent looks and feels surprisingly sleek. It measures 5 by 2.56 by 0.39 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.58 ounces. The spare design and angle of the curved edges almost brings to mind the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The back of the phone is made of textured, rubberized plastic. There's a Power button and 3.5mm headphone jack at the top, and a volume rocker and charging port on the left.

The 4.3-inch touch screen features 960-by-540-pixel resolution, which works out to a sharp 256 pixels per inch. Text and images look great, as does pretty much everything else. The only issue, which is something I've noticed on some other ZTE phones as well, is that the screen panel itself is more reflective than usual, which can make it harder to concentrate on the display. There are three capacitive touch buttons beneath the screen that worked fine, and typing wasn't an issue on the roomy display.

The Warp Sequent is a single-band (1900) CDMA phone that runs on Sprint's 3G network. It also connects to Wi-Fi using 802.11b/g/n. Reception and call quality are average. On both ends voices sound clear but slightly digitized, and noise cancellation is average for outgoing calls. The speakerphone sounds fine but it's too low to use outdoors. Calls were also okay over a?Jawbone Era?headset and voice dialing worked over Bluetooth without issue. Battery life is good, at 7 hours and 43 minutes of talk time.

Data Plans and Network
The best reason to get a phone on Boost is to tap into the carrier's inexpensive pricing plans. Android plans start at $55 for unlimited data, talk time, and texts per month. That amount is reduced by $5 every six months you pay your bill on time, until you reach $40. If you don't need as much talk time, you can get a similar plan from Virgin Mobile, but with 300 voice minutes, for just $35 per month. But for either carrier, there is a downside for heavy data users: After 2.5GB of full-speed data usage per month, your speeds will be throttled significantly until the end of your billing cycle.

As we discovered in our?Fastest Mobile Networks?report, Sprint has the slowest 3G speeds of all the carriers we tested. That means that all 3G-only Sprint, Boost, and Virgin phones are running at some pretty challenged speeds, including the Warp Sequent. 4G WiMAX support appears on the?HTC EVO Design 4G?and the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G, but those phones are a lot pricier. Still, if you live in the coverage area, make sure to take that into account when making your decision.

Performance, Android, and Apps
The Warp Sequent is powered by a single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm S2 Snapdragon MSM8655 processor. It isn't blazing fast, but it's powerful enough to get the job done, and a mostly stock build of Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) helps to keep things smooth. The Galaxy S II has a much faster dual-core processor, but other than that, this is one of the faster phones on Boost right now.

There are practically no modifications to Google's Android OS at all. Boost has added MobileID, which allows you to install various "ID packs" on your phone that include applications, ringtones, wallpapers, and widgets. There's also a helpful battery-management app, as well as a superfluous music player, which isn't nearly as nice as Google's version that also comes baked-in. You can't delete any of these, but you can disable them from showing up in your Apps menu.

The rest is standard Android fare. There are five home screens you can swipe between and customize as you please. They come preloaded with just a few apps and widgets. You should also be able to run most of the 600,000+ apps in the Google Play store. Yet despite the relatively untouched version of Android, I wouldn't expect an update to version 4.1 (Jelly Bean).

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
There's 2.48GB of free internal storage, along with an empty microSD card slot underneath the battery cover; my 32 and 64GB SanDisk cards worked fine. I was able to play all of our audio test files, and music sounded good through Altec Lansing Backbeat?Bluetooth headphones, but there's some background static while using a wired pair. I was also able to play back all of our video formats at resolutions up to 720p, though audio didn't work on files encoded with DivX.

The 5-megapixel camera can use some work. Shutter speeds are on the slow side, at 1.2 seconds to capture a photo. Images underwhelm. The camera skews soft instead of noisy, and images have a pinkish cast. I also encountered a bug in which some photos were unreadable on my computer, and others only showed up halfway. Video performance is a little better. You can capture 720p videos at 25 frames per second, but the colors are off and they'd benefit greatly from some image stabilization. There's also the requisite 1.3-megapixel camera for video chat.

Camera issues aside, the ZTE Warp Sequent is a pretty good value. For the price, you won't find any other phone on Boost right now with a larger, sharper display, or a faster processor. The LG Marquee? is equally sleek, with a better camera and greater call quality, but it's stuck on an older version of Android, 2.3 (Gingerbread). The Samsung Galaxy Rush is a little less expensive, but it has a smaller screen with much lower resolution, a slower processor, and an overall cheap look and feel. If you're willing to spend some more, the HTC EVO Design 4G has 4G WiMAX support and a much better camera. And if you're willing to nearly double your budget, the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G also has 4G support and a better camera, along with a much faster dual-core processor.

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