Cricket Captr – very small basic handset

For:

Easy to use handset; good call quality; very small flip type phone.

Against:

Needs improvement for speakerphone; poor captured image quality; lackluster display.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Cricket Captr is based on CDMA technology that supports tri-band of CDMA 850/1700/1900. It has 64MB internal memory.

1 inch external display has 96×96 pixels resolution, and 1.8 inches internal display has 128×160 pixels resolution. The additional features are USB, TTY compatibility, speakerphone, and Intelligent typing (T9).

The battery life of Cricket Captr is 300 minutes talk time.

Razzle Dazzle:

Cricket Captr is 1.81 inches wide, 3.54 inches tall, and 0.74 inch deep and weighs 2.82 ounces. It has flip-type design and black color all around. Its curved corners provide comfortable feel while taking in hand.

Inside Dope:

Complicated smartphones with excellent multimedia features and touch screen are common in the cell phone market across the U.S. On the other hand, there are a good number of consumers always waiting for basic entry-level handsets. One such phone is – Cricket Captr that is one of the smallest flip handsets. The Captr costs $129.99 and offers color external & internal displays, basic features, VGA camera and decent call quality. However, it has lackluster display, poor photo quality and needs improvement for its speakerphone. The additional highlights are TTY compatibility, USB, T9 Intelligent Typing, and Bluetooth. What’s more – the battery life is 5 hours of continuous talk time. Like other Cricket phones, you will find shortcuts at the bottom row of display in standby mode of phone. These shortcut icons point to widgets and applications like news headlines, horoscope, local weather, and so forth. If you need a handset for simple communication only, then Cricket Captr is a good choice.

Design

The camera lens sits on the front just above the external display. The charger jack and camera button are located on the right, whereas volume rocker and 2.5mm headset jack sits on the left side.

Display

1 inch external display has 96×96 pixels resolution that supports 65,000 colors. It is located beneath the VGA camera and shows photo call ID, signal strength, battery life, and date/time. The external display also works as self-portrait viewfinder for camera. You can change the wallpaper, clock format, incoming call screen, and backlight.

You can flip open the phone to see 1.8 inches internal display that has 128×160 pixels resolution that supports 262,000 colors. It looks lackluster and a bit more pixilated due to low resolution. You can customize the brightness, contrast, greeting banner, incoming call screen, clock format, menu style, and backlight time.

Navigation Array and Keyboard

The navigation array is situated beneath the display and consists of calendar shortcut, speakerphone key, round toggle with middle OK button, and two soft keys. The up direction leads to messaging menu, whereas down loads Web browser. The End/Power and Talk buttons are located beneath the array in middle. All these keys and numeric keypad are flush inside the surface, but differentiated with textural delineations between them.

Phonebook and PIM features

Cricket Captr can store 500 contacts in its phonebook. Each contact can save five numbers, one email address, one URL, and memo. You can organize the contacts into groups and pair them with message-alert tone, ring-tone, and photo for caller ID. You can also set your recordings as customized ring-tones.

The basic feature set includes unit converter, four message-alert tunes, six polyphonic ring-tones, stopwatch, tip calculator, calculator, memo pad, world clock, alarm clock, schedule, vibrate mode, multimedia and text messaging, and speakerphone. The additional highlights are wireless Web browser, Bluetooth, voice recorder, and voice commands.

Camera

VGA camera of Cricket Captr can capture pictures in four resolutions including Wallpaper, 160×120, 320×240, and 640×480. The picture settings include mirror image mode, nine fun frames, six image effects, three quality settings, and self-timer. The overall picture quality was poor as already expected from a VGA camera. The images looked blurry and colors appeared washed out.

Games and Personalization

Cricket Captr can be personalized with ring-tones and other graphics including Wallpapers. The phone comes with Midnight Pool2 games and MyBackUp application. You can download more options and games through Cricket Storefront.

Call Quality

We made few calls through Cricket Captr via Cricket Wireless for testing. The overall call quality was good. We received clear, natural and loud sound at our end without any static. The callers received natural and loud sound at their end without any background noise. On the contrary, the speakerphone call quality was poor. The callers received above average eco and received a bit more muffled sound with mild distortion. We received clear voice at our end with tinny voice.

Battery Life

Cricket Captr has battery life of 10.4 days of idle standby time and 5 hours of talk time. The digital SAR of the Captr is 0.739watt per kg in accordance with FCC radiation tests.

Verdict:

If you need a very basic phone for simple communication and do not mind lackluster display, poor photo quality and mediocre speakerphones, then you can buy Cricket Captr.