Gadgetory

hi I'm Kent charm and senior managing editor here at seen it and I'm going to give you a first look at the ZTE reef for virgin mobile now with this phone version mobile is getting a couple things it doesn't have before line is getting a water-resistant device it's also getting a phone made by CTE which of course the big Chinese company that's still growing here in the United States start out with really basic phones but now it's getting into smartphones like this fortunately what the ZTE reef doesn't bring to Virgin Mobile is a handset with 4G LTE which virgin mobile now has and you don't get the latest Android operating system so little disappoint on both of those fronts but the water is this some thing is nice the only weird thing is when you look at this phone you don't really think it's water-resistant you know bottle water resistant phones they have rubber on the outside they have a lot of closed ports they're very kind of heavy or sturdy this just doesn't feel like that at all that's a plastic back feels really light in the hands not that lights a bad thing but just doesn't feel like letters and phone as I said I've talking asleep the 3.5 millimeter headset jack doesn't even have a cover the mic USB does now this couple reasons for that is that well this is a lot of resistant phone so you can dunk it in water you can do it for up to 30 minutes in a metre of water it's not designed to withstand elements like dust and salt fog and all the other things you might see on a you know like a little nextel phone or the GZ 1 commando so not that device but it is water resistant so you could leave it by the pool maybe at the beach and it should be fine overall though a pretty standard Android design a plastic Android rectangle is some people like to say there is a pretty nice display pretty bright and colorful all the usual customization options is adding folders or icons or deleting them you can go back and forth through the five home screens at the bottom of the display you see there's that standard app tray tits up to five apple for apps one is there's the menu right there so you can change that one but has four eps you can swap out that stays constant on all the screens you cycle through down below or three touch controls there's a back button there is the settings or the submenus also and there is a home key there is a 5 megapixel camera well stocked with features photo quality is fine nothing to scream about but you know get cheap I also shoots video there's a big speaker down there which actually gets pretty loud on a speakerphone I was pretty surprised behind the battery cover you'll find the micro SD card slot you also have to remove the battery too it's not under the battery it's just kind of beside it like I said the phone isn't hot on features it does have android for dot 1 it is not 4g LTE virgin mobile doesn't operate that network it has a couple phones out there that use it it is on 3g and i notice that even the 3g speeds that it has our run kind of slow of course virgin mobile doesn't operate its own network remember that so this is running on sprint's network sprint actually owns virgin mobile's so is using the big network is using something has a lot of coverage but just didn't really like the 3g speeds and then you have all the usual google apps and productivity features organizer options Wi-Fi Bluetooth GPS so pretty standard mid-range brilliant features virgin mobile stocks it with some bloatware like there's this feature which is virgin feed which shows you some popular music news stories and sort of use will sort it on there's a lot of icons that's stocked with like Wikipedia that BuzzFeed they have twitter they had Instagram or there's also the mobile ID packs which then you can sort of give your own different identities and a download certain wallpaper it's another feat other apps to go with it call quality was pretty good didn't have any major complaints but overall a pretty mid-range phone I just was disappointed that in stock a little more a couple more features but it is nice the Virgin Mobile get something you can take it for I'm Ken chairman and this is the Virgin Mobile reef you