For those looking to save a lot on the purchase of their next smartphone, the question, “What is the cheapest Android phone ?” is a pressing thought. The Android operating system is offered for free, so it just depends on the manufacturer to make the cheap hardware. Read on to find out about the cheapest Android phone here in this quick article.

In the search to save another dollar during the economic depression, a cheap smartphone can be hard to locate. The larger and more expensive ones are really just for those who need it for work or have money to burn. The main difference in an inexpensive and expensive Google Android phone is the speed and the screen. The menus and programs will be the same as long as you get a newer version of Android.

If you have ever heard of the Motorola Droid category of smartphones you should be familiar with the various forms that they take. They have modeled their Droids to be similar to a cult object. Some models are specialized to reflect the role of the popular Android R2D2. Some are upper end smartphones. The creator of the cell phone, Martin Cooper, even uses a Motorola Droid. He has used iPhones in the past. But never mind him, you are looking for the cheapest Android phone. Taking a closer look, you find that some of these Droids do not cost very much. One, in fact, only costs $99 dollars with a contract. It is called the Motorola Droid Eris.

This is a smartphone with two names. It has been called the Motorola “Hero” in the past. Now that it is being sold by Verizon, it has a deeply discounted price and a new name. Some are calling it, “The best Android phone for the money.”. It sports a 528 megahertz processor and a five megapixel camera. It runs an older version of Google Android; 1.5. That is an ancient version of Android, but remember, this is only costing $99 dollars. The smartphone is called a “rubbery blob”, but comes with a trackball just like the “big boys”. The operating system is covered over with the HTC Sense user interface, to make it easier on the eyes and easier to navigate the phone.

The problem with the Motoroloa Droid Eris is that it is no longer being sold. If you need to find this smartphone, a lone Verizon store may have one in the backroom somewhere. But it may be easier to look for a different model. There is one even cheaper than the Motorola Eris. Sprint has one of the cheapest Android phones. They call it the Android LG Optimus “S”. It is going for $49 dollars, but that is with a one hundred dollar rebate and a two year contract.

It seems that cell carriers are actually selling these cheap Android phones for marketing rather than for technology. This makes the smartphone a “beast of advertising” rather than something to help you get through the day. But in these trying times, the cheapest Android phone may be the only choice.

The looks of the Motorola Cliq are decidedly iPhone-ish. The size is also comparable to many smartphones. It is 4.49 inches tall by 2.28 inches wide by .63 inches thick. For those in the metric system, it is 114 millimeters tall by 58 millimeters wide by 16 millimeters thick. It is only just slightly fatter than many smartphones, but not by much. It is not at all heavy or light, it comes in at 5.84 ounces ( 166 grams ). The Cliq also comes with a manual keyboard that is great to use and feels good when in use. It has four rows and a large Dpad to boot.

The screen on the Cliq is the average-sized 3.1 inches. It is the older style TFT version of displays. It has the common 320 by 480 pixels of resolution and provides good clarity. It is the capacitive touch style of screen so no stylus is needed. It does not come with multitouch, but it does have an accelerometer that allows you to automatically turn the screen three ways to suit your needs. Just turn the smartphone on its side to change from portrait to landscape modes.

The WebKit browser is very high quality in the Motorola Cliq. This model comes with Wi-Fi, and those two together make for a good web surfing experience. A thing to watch out for is the speed. Other smartphones have come out that have more speed than the Cliq. This model has a “MSM7201a” processor that runs at 528 megahertz. Newer phones available today have a processor that runs nearly twice that fast. Its like choosing between a porsche or a volkswagen; how much power do you want ? But the 256 megabytes of RAM memory and the 512 megabytes of ROM memory do a lot to help keep the Cliq from running behind under high workloads. For external memory space, Motorola included the popular MicroSD slot. It can hold a maximum of 32 gigabytes of your files. The Cliq comes with a two gigabyte card included.

The other connections for the Motorola Cliq are quad band GSM and tri band WCDMA bands. The data connections include all services but infrared. Wi-Fi has the maximum “B” and “G” modes, but no “N” mode. Seven different bluetooth profiles are supported. The “hard-wired” connector is a regular MicroUSB cable.

The camera can take photos with a resolution of five megapixels. Autofocus, white balance, geotagging and color effects are some of the abilities of the camera. It can take videos at an impressive twenty five frames per second. The audio hardware includes stereo speakers, a receiver speaker, a microphone and a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. A music player is included.

Motorola has included their “Motoblur” user interface to provide a better experience when navigating through the Cliq. This includes something called “Happenings”. This is a program particular to Motorola that shows what is “happening” with the people in your contacts list. When anyone, including people who are not on your contact list interact with your sphere of contacts, it shows up on the Cliq screen. This, in a nutshell is the “Happenings” program, also called a “widget”. It definitely needs refining at the moment, but no doubt will get an update soon. The Motoblur is installed over the existing Android operating system. At the moment this is an extremely hot topic. Around 300 or so new applications are developed for the Android operating system daily. As of this writing 30,000 android applications are available to be installed on the Motorola Cliq. We like the one that can scan barcodes and give you price information from the internet. It saves money ! All the popular social applications are included on the Android platform.

The Motorola Cliq is available in one color; titanium. At the present, you can get it for around ten dollars with a service plan.

It is a queer yet beautiful cell phone, it has angular slopes and hard edges, it is a mix or metal and plastic, it looks solid and expensive as well. Though the Motorola Droid is heavy but the materials are soft and it has gold highlights. T

he cell phone is made of two vital pieces, the top half is the large glass display and the lower half is the slightly longer keyboard. The screen is 3.7 inches and fills the space from edge to edge, there are four buttons at the bottom of the display these are search, menu, back and home.

The order of these buttons is random.

The top portion of the Motorola DROID slides in a smooth fashion upwards to reveal the keyboard however, it does not snap automatically into place. A little force is required then the top clicks once settled.

The keyboard is wide and has minimum space between the keys. The Motorola DROID is not all that thick yet it accommodates a larger screen and an actual physical keyboard is pretty commendable.

The Droid is fitted with a 5 mega pixel camera that is teamed with a LED flash; the camera is very slow at snapping pictures and to focus as well. The lens does not take clear pictures of close objects even in daylight.

Generally the results of the pictures the Motorola Droid takes is anyone’s guess, all in all the process can be very nerve racking and that’s something a person does not want.

The Motorola DROID has one of the best sound systems around, it is crystal clear and that’s what pleases everybody.

To start with the basics, the Motoroi comes with an eight megapixel camera. This amount of megapixels beats such phones like the flagship from Nokia and others, including the last Android phone from Motorola. The camera does come with a video feature, rated at 720p. It has a 3.7 inch WVGA display screen which is not bad. Other competitors have trivial differences in the sizes of their screen, incuding Apple products. This smartphone can be hooked up to a television screen with its HDMI output. HDMI can be used for High Definition TV and super quality audio. The screen on the Motoroi is capacitive touch and is superior to the other touch screen styles.

The Motoroi has no slide out keyboard. It is very similar to other smartphones that only use their screen for input from the user. This smartphone has something that some others do not; the ability to receive digital television broadcasts. You can also receive FM broadcasts with the included FM radio. The GPS functions are included, as they are with all handsets. This will allow you to use many handy applications that you can use to track your goals and activities during the day. There is a regular-sized 3.5 headphone jack for your listening convenience. The internal memory of the Motoroi is eight gigabytes and you can increase this with a thirty two gigabyte SD card.

The form of the Motoroi is for all respects the same as other models that have no manual keyboard. This is true with one strange exception. It has a “bump” of sorts on the lower right hand side of the unit. Perhaps Motorola just wanted to look different from the others in the rapidly burgeoning world of the smartphone ? For whatever reason, if you see this characteristic out on the street, you can know you are looking at a Motoroi.

The inner workings of the Android Operating System are where the Motoroi reaches its users. The android interface is a 2.0 version of the software from google. The system is constantly being upgraded, but as of this writing its strong points are the Eclair screen interface. If you have a model from Europe, this allows you to touch the screen in multiple places to navigate. If you do not have a European model it is likely you will not have this feature fouind with Eclair. Nevertheless, you do get the famous google maps, and the navigation abilities from this powerful program. Android is also strong in its menus.This makes navigating with the Motoroi is a breeze.

While Motorola as a whole has been on the downswing lately, it has proved to have put out a fairly powerful product with the Motoroi. But with its latest entry, the Motoroi is a close equal to every other competitor. Motorola has been around since 1928. They became popular with cellphones in 2004. This smartphone proves they are still a viable company in the world of cell phones. Nearly everyone who knows what a cellphone is remembers the Razr with some fondness. This new phone puts Motorola back on the road to stardom. If you are not in Korea, look for this smartphone in March.

The first thing to notice about the Cliq phone by Motorola is that it has a great keyboard. It slides out fromt the side. It is a full QWERTY board with D-pad. For calling, the dialing numbers of this smartphone are included in the normal locations starting with the letter “Q”. The board has good tensile feedback and will not disappoint you.

Is it fast ? Yes, it is fast ! You can do the now-famous “swipe” and a host of applications blaze to the screen to do your bidding. The processor runs at 528 megahertz. The Cliq also has a good amount of internal memory ( 256 megabytes of RAM ), plus flash memory and 256 megabytes of user storage available in this model. If this is not enough, you can add your own microSD card with a maximum capacity of thirty two megabytes.

You can use the Cliq screen and feel the quality that Motorola usually builds into all of their handsets. It feels solid. The screen does not “give” when you are using it. The physical resolution of the screen is 320 by 480 pixels. This works out to be a HVGA class resolution. The folks at Motorola were astute with the homescreen. On some models of this smartphone you can get five different versions. If you lose track of which one you are on, you have an icon in the corner that reminds you. Pretty cool.

All the regular assets ( read: toys ) of the high-end phones are included with the Motorola Cliq. You get the acceleromter ( the screen will rotate three different directions for you ), the magnetometer, the proximity sensor and the ambient light sensor. The magnetometer is simply a compass. You get a 3.5 millimeter audio plug for the music or for privacy. You get all the messaging services including email. You have video capability, a five megapixel camera, Wi Fi also called “WLAN”. The people at Motorola included their Motoblur version of the Google Android operating system to integrate all your popular Social Networking sites including gmail and twitter.

Overall, this Cliq is one big deal. You have a great phone and great tool for connecting to the world around you if you are the owner of a Motorla Cliq.

After a year Motorola has come up with a new phone. The Motorola Krave ZN4 FOR Verizon Wireless brings similar basic design, with a lot more features that offers innovation with easy-to-use touch interface. This phone is eye-catching with a unique design.

DESIGN:

The Krave ZN4 sports the most unique cell phone design to date; it is compact shape and slim look measures at 4.13 inches by 0.75 inches by 2 inches and weighs 4.59 ounces, with a vibrant and bright touch screen, and the translucent plastic cover makes theKrave look futuristic and sleek.

Yet it looks cool, Krave’s cover is usable actually it’s another touch surface that can be used to access certain features without flipping the phone open. A mesh helps to press the correct thing this is embedded into the cover; it blends in easily and is the same colour grey as the screen. This mess sends sound to its speaker this resides on one side of its cover.

Unfortunately not every feature can be accessed through the cover’s touch surface. But you can use the V Cast Mobile TV, music player, photo folder, and VZ Navigator feature. Without the cover been opened you will be able to make voice calls. All you have to do is push the control on the right spine of the phone then speak the number or name of the contact you want to call. When you are connected the touch controls lets you mute the call, send the sound to theBluetooth headset, and also end your connection. All this done with the cover still closed.

DISPLAY:

The display is 2.8inches which supports 65,000 colours that is 240×400 pixels. It’s bright and brilliant with outstanding colours with great photos and sharp graphics also readable text. You may change its brightness, clock format, andbacklight time and font size for dialling. You will find the shortcut bar here are icons for messaging folder, main menu, the dial pad and contact list. The menu is accessed here by tapping the centre display.

The Krave ZN4’S touch interface was responsive and accurate without lag time. Krave doesn’t have a stylus but we didn’t encounter any problems navigating through each menu. It has an easy to use numeric onscreen dial-pad. Your alphabetical text on the touch keys are small compared to the numbers.

KEYBOARD:

The Krave has a full QWERTY keyboard this makes typing messages very easy. The keyboard has three dedicated keys for punctuation, additional symbols and numbers can be accessed via the secondary keyboard. The phone comes fitted with an accelerometer making it convenient to switch between QWERTY keyboard and the standard one.

Above its display are the “HOME” button this brings you to standby screen and the power control. Left spine has voice dial control, display-locking switch, camera shutter and memory card slot. Right spine volume rocker, 3.5mm headset jack, and microUSB port. At the back of the phone you have the camera lens, don’t have self portrait mirror or flash. At the bottom is a single speaker.

CONNECTIVITY:

More than the basics you have voice dialling, stereo Bluetooth, PC syncing, UBS huge storage, access to Verizon’s Visual Voicemail feature. Email options quite descent, you have access to Windows Live, Yahoo, AIM, AOL and Verizon . net POP3. You are also able to access your Gmail but via Web portal.

CAMERA:

The Krave has a 2-megapixel camera regrettably it doesn’t come with a flash or any editing features. The only extra feature is the digital zoom; it also comes with a camcorder just like camera it lacks in most features. Videos that are for multimedia have a mere 20 seconds limit, but you are able to record for an hour on standard mode.

The Krave does produce decent photos which are bright colours, without a flash you have to take photos where there is adequate light. Without a portrait-mirror it’s very difficult to take vanity shots, but it has an effective slide show feature.  You finished photos can be transferred to the printer/computer viaUSB or Bluetooth even send them as multimedia message.

NAVIGATOR:

The Krave ZN4 supports Verizon’s Navigator service; you receive audible direction, maps,the local traffic and the times of the local movie shows.VZ Navigator makes use of the accelerometer for both landscape and portrait modes.

BROWSER:

The Krave’s Web Browser integrates perfectly with its touch interface which makes uses the accelerometer. It was accurate, and responsive without any hiccups. TheKrave has an amazing tool in the browser it is very useful and easily manageable, while browsing you will have a circular icon it has arrows and appears in the display. Used as a cursor it can be used to choose links. The browser allows full HTML pages and mobile Web sites. You can also downloadringtones from Web browser.

MULTIMEDIA:

The Krave offers many multimedia options such as the must-see V Cast Mobile TV as the headliner. The clips run in landscape format giving a TV-like experience, since an EV-DO phone the ZN4 supports Verizon’s Cast streaming service.

MUSIC:

Users can download clips from Verizon’s V Cast Music from Rhapsody service; the features on the music player are limited to repeat mode, shuffle andplaylists.

FEATURES:

The Krave takes 1,000-contact in the phone book each entry stores two email addresses and five numbers. Other basics include multimedia and text messaging, alarm clock, vibrate mode, a notepad, a calculator, tip calculator and world clock.

PERFORMANCE:

The call quality in the Krave is excellent conversation was clear and static free. Voices come through naturally but at loud volume it was a bit distorted. The caller on the other side said the call was great; there was no problem understanding or hearing us even in a noisy place. Calls from speakerphone andBluetooth headset was of excellent quality.

V Cast streaming videos worked great, the videos were clear and had no connection problems there where no delays when the videos were started. Music also can through with quality sound, for a great experience use the headphones. Song downloads took 2 minutes to receive a 3.7MB track, the EV-DO connection worked well.

BATTERY LIFE:

The Motorola Krave ZN4 rated the battery life 4.2 hours of talk time and 20.8 days of standby time. FCC tests rated the Krave has a SAR of 1.16watts per kilogram, our tests showed it has 6 hours and 6 minutes of talk time.

GOOD:

The Krave ZN4 is an attractive piece of art with a unique design, has a responsive an innovated touch screen. It offers an array of high-end features the calls, streaming video and photos are of good quality.

BAD:

The Motorola Krave ZN4’s QWERTY keyboard and browser take acclimation; the camera editing options are few. The Krave also lacks WI-F.

CONCLUTION:

The Krave ZN4 has a very modern design with sleek look to it, its very unique, user friendly and performs well.