Last Updated on November 8, 2015 by Mathew Diekhake
The Big Red has added two brand new phones to their lineup. The LG Optimus Zone 2 and the Extravert 2 are both second generation phones that follow on nicely from their predecessors. The single downside is that both rely on heavily in the Verizon 3G network because neither handset operates with the new 4G LTE. Both of these phones are for buyers who want to be on pre-paid service just like the first generation was given. A big chunk of the people is just delighted to see that they get released and don’t expect much else to inspire them. Make sure you read after the drop because there is a lot to look forward to with one of these mobiles in particular.
The best handset here is the Zone 2 smartphone and it comes with neat features like WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and the fantastic Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box. It is the very latest OS Android has to offer it mostly only comes with projects Google looks after as the Nexus or much more expensive company flagships like the HTC One M8 and the galaxy S5. A lot of the problems that come out of the cheaper devices stem from the software rather than hardware and this should not give you any problems what-so-ever. The new Kitkat is fast, smooth and won’t lag or freeze like earlier past builds have been known to do. It does not stop there either, with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor also being in the hardware. Things now dip towards being far less than favorable with a 3 megapixel camera and a 1,700mAh battery.
Phone companies get many devices sent back to them under warranty because they begin to freeze. However, what people do not know is that there is zero that can be done for this other than adjusting the firmware version it is on. That is usually fine until the carriers stop rolling out new firmware so there is nothing to upgrade to. That leaves consumers with a faulty phone that they cannot do anything about and the carriers are not obliged to give them a different phone to compensate for it. To have this very low priced smartphone equipped with KitKat is a real blessing that many people should take advantage of.
The other handset in this range is the Extravert 2 feature phone. Feature phones are not as good as smartphones because they are just designed to take care of the main factors like talk and text with minor web browsing opportunities. For many that is the only reason they want a mobile phone so it makes sense for them not to spend more money they do not have on a device they will not even use. It is a slider phone that comes with a QWERTY keyboard like many of the other feature phones still do. LG has integrated the touch-based user interface, a 2 megapixel camera, 400 x 240 seen resolution on a 3.2 inch display. That size sounds tiny compared to the current five inches we are getting from premium end smartphones but again they does not matter here. Over three inches are all you need to view contacts, texts and browse the web for necessities.
Believe it or not, it is the LG Zone 2 that comes in at $49.99 and the LG Extravert 2 is $79.99. I cannot understand why the feature would be priced higher than the smart version, but that is what the price list says. If you want my opinion it is to jump all over the Zone 2. Why not own a smartphone that has a Snapdragon processor for nearly half the price of the feature phone?