Sprint is currently in the midst of their 4G LTE rollout having just recently turned on the switch in markets such as New York City, San Francisco and Washington D.C. What they need now is more devices on their network capable of connecting to the new frequency. As of right now that list includes The Galaxy Nexus, The Galaxy S III, The Galaxy Victory, The LG Viper, The Optimus G, and the upcoming HTC One to name a few.
According to a new leak there will soon be another smartphone added to Sprint’s growing LTE family, The Force LTE. It looks like this is the product of manufacturer ZTE who has had a device rumored of the same name. This handset looks like it will be the little brother of the network’s other ZTE device 4.5 inch ZTE Flash. This mid to low end offering will be launched on March 1st and carries with it some specs that are not much to write home about such as:
- 4 inch Gorilla Glass display
- 1.5GHz dual core processor
- 5 megapixel rear camera
- 1 megapixel front camera
- 1GB of RAM
- 4GB of ROM
- 1,730mAh battery
- Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
- 3g & 4G LTE radios
This device will apparently run you $49.99 on a two year contract after some of Sprint’s instant rebates ($299 original price – $150 2 year savings – $50 instant savings – $50 mail in rebate). Also I think it’s safe to assume that this handset will have some kind of expandable memory to bump up that 4GB number even though it’s not listed yet.
It begs the question though, who exactly will this device be marketed towards? Sure maybe the Galaxy S III or the Optimus G with their two year on contract price of $199.99 may be more than some people could justify spending, but Sprint still has the Galaxy Nexus listed for free as long as you are willing to sign up for a similar two year commitment. Not only that but it’s running an inferior OS in Ice Cream Sandwich while the rest of the Android world is moving on to Jelly Bean and before long Key Lime Pie. Sucker born every minute I suppose.
Source: Engadget