Cricket Icon 3 is packed with decent features powered by MediaTek Helio A20. Find out more about the entry-level phone in this Cricket Icon 3 review!
Cricket Icon 3 is a basic smartphone with a budget price. Launched by Cricket Wireless, the Icon 3 is said to be the phone for work and play. It is powered by Android 11 and has a vivid display. An entry-level phone with an ergonomic design running MediaTek Helio A20 under the hood.
The device does not have earth-shattering features, but it is worth considering for those who take casual snaps, make phone calls, send text messages, and use social media only for weekends.
Is this phone a good buy? You can find out in this Cricket Icon 3 review!
Page Contents:
Key Specs
Cricket Icon 3 Specifications:
| Weight | 184g |
| Dimensions | 170 x 77 x 8.9mm |
| OS | Android 11 |
| Screen size | 6.5-inch |
| Resolution | 1600 x 720 |
| CPU | 1.8GHz Quad-core, MediaTek Helio A20 MT6761D |
| RAM | 3GB |
| Storage | 32GB |
| Battery | 3,500 mAh, Non-removable |
| Rear camera | 8MP |
| Front camera | 5MP |
| Features | Fingerprint Reader |
Design
Cricket Icon 3 is not a flagship phone, but the phone did make a good first impression when we laid our hands on it. The design and built quality are pretty standard, with matte material that does not pick up fingerprints.
For an entry-level phone, Cricket Icon 3 is super light weighing just 184 grams. It comes in a Maritime Blue color, and there’s a Cricket logo on the back of the phone.
The device is equipped with a rear fingerprint sensor. Yes, instead of placing the fingerprint sensor on the front, the phone has a fingerprint scanner placed at its back.
Display
The display of Cricket Icon 3 is 6.5 inches. It’s a medium-size screen. When doing this Cricket Icon 3 review, we tried swiping our thumb across the phone screen – from left to right – and it’s pretty convenient.
Most users would love its display size because a phone longer than that might be too tall for some people. Take Samsung for example, they produced large-screen phones up to 6.9 inches that users sometimes find inconvenient to hold. Thus, we give two thumbs up for the Icon 3 display size.
In terms of screen resolutions, the 1600 x 720 pixels is pretty standard, and most basic smartphones have this set of resolutions. Of course, playing multimedia on the screen may not give the best experience. But, still okay for occasional YouTube videos.
Camera
Cricket Icon 3 has an 8MP rear camera. We knew we couldn’t expect much from the camera features since it is a basic smartphone. Taking photos is better with portrait mode. We don’t recommend the phone for social media enthusiasts because taking pictures with an 8MP camera with no other special features might be disappointing.
It’s not bad, but it’s not good either unless we use a photo editor app to enhance the images. Nonetheless, basic features such as autofocus, touch focus, face detection, panorama, geotagging, scene mode, and self-timer are all available.
The front snapper takes pretty decent selfies even with only a 5MP lens. But again, there are not many features to brag about.
Read also: Boost Celero 5G Review: Large Display and Large Battery
Storage
Cricket Icon 3 has 32GB storage. This is probably the downside of the device. 32GB is quite small for smartphone storage, and we need to watch out for what apps we download because it fills up really fast.
Luckily, the storage is expandable up to 128GB via a MicroSD card. For shutterbugs, this space is huge enough to store pictures. Whereas for avid music listeners, 128GB might be the minimum requirement. For gamers? We recommend choosing bigger phone storage.
The bare minimum storage is arguably most suitable for those who use casual apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and a few light games.
Performance
Cricket Icon 3 sports 3GB RAM. It is questionable since today’s smartphones are specifically designed for multitasking with at least 4GB RAM. This means that having more RAM makes the phone run smoothly. The more apps installed, the more memory is needed to operate without glitches.
However, Cricket didn’t seem to create the Icon 3 for hefty work. This is also the reason why Cricket Icon 3 is not for avid gamers because 3GB RAM is not graphically excellent. However, we can still benefit from this storage for occasional streaming videos, viewing photos, reading news, and playing games because everything is pretty decent on the device.
Under the hood, there’s MediaTek Helio A20 MT6761D processor. Cricket truly understands that MediaTek Helio A20 is a highly affordable processor fit for budget phones. According to MediaTek, this particular type of processor offers high efficiency and great performance. Thus, we can expect smooth performance from this device for daily basic activities.
We tried its rear-mounted fingerprint scanner on its back, and it’s surprisingly fast and responsive as it takes only a second to unlock the phone. For us, placing a fingerprint reader at the back of a phone is a smart move because our index finger would fall naturally on the middle of the phone’s back. Of course, we are now trained to use our thumb with the new smartphones, and we have to admit that sometimes it’s not comfortable.
Cricket Icon 3 runs Android 11. It brings more features to the device. We noticed several ones from the previous OS – like digital wellbeing, wallpaper choices, and dark themes. Now, the latest software has more media controls.
Overall, the phone is good for sending text messages, WhatsApp chats, checking social media once in a while, making phone calls, and taking pictures of what’s important.
Connectivity
Cricket Icon 3 uses a USB Type-C connector. Something that we found convenient as it supports reverse insertion. What’s great about the USB Type-C port is that it transmit a higher data rate and supports a large charging current.
Cricket Icone 3 has standard features in terms of connectivity, and nothing is exciting about them. It has Bluetooth 5.1 and GPS, but unfortunately, no NFC feature can be found. We felt that the phone lacks modernity with the absence of such a feature.
The device comes with a built-in WiFi hotspot, and this is something nomad workers would greatly appreciate. The microphone, USB-C port, and speaker jack are laid on the bottom.
Battery
Cricket Icon 3 is equipped with a 3,500mAh non-removable battery. Its low battery capacity makes us think twice about using it for entertainment purposes. We thought this battery capacity contrasts what Cricket claimed: the phone is meant for binge-watching cinema.
Furthermore, it does not have either wireless charging or a fast charging feature. So, if the phone is dying, it could get inconvenient. Users need to charge it every night to ensure the device has enough power to get through the day.
It is safe to assume that Cricket Icon 3 is only good for bare minimum daily wear and tear with this capacity. Fortunately, it has a battery saver mode which conserves the power a little longer.
Is the Cricket Icon 3 a good phone?
Overall, Cricket Icon 3 is most suitable for those who prefer to use a phone as a phone. That means no constant web browsing, no hours of gaming, and no social media scrolling. It’s a perfect fit for typical users who only make phone calls, send text messages and occasionally search some information from Google.
Other than that, we’ve seen better devices with a better processor at a budget price. We don’t recommend Cricket Icon 3 for multitaskers due to its low power unless we get it for free.
Cricket offers this phone for free for their new customers. Anyone would love to accept a free smartphone, no matter how basic it is.
We would like to conclude our Cricket Icon 3 review with a statement. Like we previously said before, it’s a phone you need for bare minimum activities. But do people really want a device that has bare-minimum features? We’ll leave it to the customers.
Cricket Icon 3 Pros:
- Decent screen size
- Powerful processor
- Free for Cricket subscribers
Cricket Icon 3 Cons:
- Limited camera features
- Low battery capacity
- No fast-charging feature
