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Cricket Innovate E 5G Review: Entry-Level 5G Phone With NFC

Upgrade your old smartphone with a new phone that has fresh and advanced features. Check its capabilities on the Cricket Innovate E 5G review.

Cricket Innovate E 5G Review

The Cricket Innovate E 5G smartphone was launched in October 2022. New year, new smartphone. It’s refreshing to see the new smartphone lines from many brands recently. They vary from the lower to the higher price, from the simplest to the most complicated features.

But, have you ever seen an entry-level smartphone that comes complete with 5G network connectivity and NFC feature? If you haven’t, you may not know the Cricket Innovate E 5G. This phone has advanced features for today’s standards but is still on budget.

Are you eager to know this device in detail and consider it your new smartphone choice? Please take a moment to read the Cricket Innovate E 5G review and discover their capabilities, system specifications, and performance quality.

Specifications

Cricket Innovate E 5G key specifications:

Weight200g
Dimensions168 x 78 x 9.1mm
OSAndroid 12
Screen size6.6-inch
Resolution720 x 1612
ProcessorMediaTek Dimensity 700 MT6833V
CPUOcta-core (2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55)
RAM4GB
Storage64GB
Battery4,000mAh, Non-Removable
Rear camera13MP + 2MP
Front camera5MP
FeaturesFingerprint Reader

Design

Cricket Innovate E 5G
Cricket Innovate E 5G

By looking at it, the Cricket Innovate E 5G’s design represents a standard for current smartphones. It is considered big and tall with 168 x 78 x 9.1mm and 200g weights. It feels a bit bulky when we hold it, but it’s ergonomically fine to grip. As a bulky phone, it’s not fitted in most purses and pockets.

The front area is where a large 6.6-inch display screen can be seen. Comes sleek and minimalist with thin bezels around it. The camera has a water drop design to avoid interruptions when users use the device.

Switching back, the phone’s color instantly catches our eyes; it’s a Lightning Blue color with a glossy effect. Two rear cameras are equipped and placed with an LED flash. You’ll find a fingerprint reader at the center, an accessible area for users.

Display

Cricket Innovate E 5G Display

You won’t be unsatisfied with the Cricket Innovate E 5G display because it has a 6.6-inch screen. It’s obviously above the bare minimum, especially in an entry-level range. Users can freely walk their fingers around. It is also an enjoyable wide-screen viewing experience. Perfect for playing games and watching any movies.

However, their screen quality is not suitable for its big screen size. It is only equipped with 720 x 1612 pixel resolutions, which means the very least quality you can get is an HD+ (High Definition+). It can’t be compared with the full HD one, but as an entry-level smartphone, this quality is reasonable.

But the quality doesn’t stop you from experiencing clear quality and vivid colors in its icons and images. Pixelated icons and images can still be found, but we’re not bothered. The phone’s brightness is still okay, even though it is kinda off when we’re outside.

Camera

Cricket Innovate E 5G Camera

The Cricket Innovate E 5G smartphone has a dual camera at the back and a single camera at the front. Let’s discuss their rear camera first. It consists of a dual camera with 13MP for the main camera and 2 MP for the extra-depth camera. It’s a bare minimum for an entry-level smartphone.

Fortunately, it has several supported features to upgrade the camera’s quality. HDR mode, Night Mode, Portrait Mode with adjustable blurred background, Beauty Mode, and Pro Mode. The LED flash also makes an obvious difference in taking pictures in the dark. More than that, this device can even record a 1080p video with time-lapse mode.

The selfie camera at the front has a 5MP resolution. Back again, it’s not something spectacular but quite decent. It is not only for selfies but also for video calling.

Read also: Cricket Icon 4 Review: Massive Display and Battery on A Budget-Phone

Storage

The Cricket Innovate E 5G provides its users a 64GB of internal storage. We’re satisfied with this size since we have barely seen any entry-level smartphone with a huge capacity. Even after all the consumed apps and systems, the storage capacity works well for us having many files and installing many apps.

Some of us may not feel enough with this phone’s size. Luckily, this phone allows us to expand the storage. Doing this is easy; you must buy a MicroSD card at any phone store and install the card into the phone’s slot. Voila! The storage will get spacious again.

Performance

As an entry-level smartphone, the Cricket Innovate E 5G has a decent processor setup. It runs the system with an Octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 700 MT6833V. It’s known as a reliable processor for 5G smartphones. Although it doesn’t deliver an outstanding yet powerful performance, we can still depend on this for daily activities.

The 2.2GHz clock rate is a good spec to ensure the processor performs fast. It also makes the performance more stable. So far, we didn’t find any heating or lagging while using it for any light apps.

4GB RAM makes a great duo for the Cricket Innovate E 5G’s overall performance. This RAM size can handle the responsibility well when storing any temporarily running app.

Running basic operations like browsing social media, chatting, or playing videos doesn’t show us serious issues. However, it’s the opposite when we start using some high-intense apps like playing 3D games; it starts lagging and sometimes crashes happen.

For multitasking, the Cricket Innovate E 5G handles it well. Switching some apps back and forth is smooth and does not show any glitches.

The Cricket Innovate E 5G device is supported by the Android 12 to operate system. It’s not the latest one but still pretty decent for qualification of an entry-level smartphone. It has a clean, modern, and dynamic user interface. Even better, it has better responsiveness than its predecessors.

Android 12 is notorious for its users’ full-control privacy. With this, users can manage their own data by choosing what and who can see their personal information. Moreover, it also has effortless fluidity operations and better accessibility that is made for all.

The fingerprint sensor is the only security sensor available on the Cricket Innovate E 5G. As widely known, this sensor could do an easy job of unlocking the device without typing any passcode.

Connectivity

Recognized by its name, the Cricket Innovate E 5G has already come with 5G connectivity as its main network. It means you can get a whole better internet and communication experience. The internet becomes faster and more stable, while calling becomes crystal clear. Wi-Fi is also still available as the other network alternatives.

Sharing files with Cricket Innovate E 5G is easy with the help of Bluetooth 5.2. This version makes it possible to send files or connect with other devices more quickly than the predecessors’ versions.

Apart from being a charging cable, the USB Type-C can also transfer files into a computer. On top of that, this device accommodates NFC features for easy payment with only a tap of your smartphone.

Battery

A fine 4,000mAh battery capacity is presented by the Cricket Innovate E 5G to power up the device. You can expect the battery to last all day in moderate use. Nevertheless, Cricket has claimed that the device can last 22 hours max for talk time and 11 days max in standby time. Ultimately, it all depends on each user’s digital behaviors and activities.

The non-removable type becomes one of the advantages, though. The durability comes better, so it doesn’t get damaged easily. With USB Type-C, users can expect charging time to be a bit faster – it takes approximately three or four hours to fully-charged from zero.

Verdict

We finished the Cricket Innovate E 5G review with a conclusion; we’ve been impressed with this phone and highly recommend this to you. As a 5G smartphone with tons of remarkable features such as the NFC, great battery, and decent RAM and ROM size, it’s very dependable. It only cost you $160, which is a good deal.

However, some features could be better. Especially the camera specs and the low display screen quality. If you don’t mind those drawbacks, this Cricket Innovate E 5G is still good for you.

Cricket Innovate E 5G Pros:

  • 5G connectivity
  • Great battery capacity
  • Decent RAM

Cricket Innovate E 5G Cons:

  • Low camera specs
  • Low display screen quality