Find whether the phone is a good deal in this Cricket Ovation review. With its fingerprint reader and NFC, the phone is worth considering.
Cricket Ovation smartphone was released in August 2020. It’s among the phone models from Cricket Wireless you can get for an affordable price. But make no mistake, the specs are nothing to underestimate.
Featuring a 6.5-inch display, the phone looks alluring at the first sight. Its trendy design makes it worth comparing to popular budget phones. For example, phones from famous brands like Samsung.
Buyers will get a lot of perks, including a fingerprint reader and NFC. Photography fans will also be delighted for its triple-camera with high resolution.
This smartphone does seem promising. Combined with an affordable price, we can expect this phone to entice many. Let’s take a look more thoroughly at this Cricket Ovation review.
Page Contents:
Key Specs
Cricket Ovation specifications:
- Weight: 175g
- Dimensions: 170 x 76 x 8.9mm
- OS: Android 10
- Screen size: 6.5-inch
- Resolution: 1560 x 720
- CPU: 2GHz Octa-core, MediaTek Helio P22
- RAM: 3GB
- Storage: 32GB
- Battery: 4,000mAh, Non-removable
- Rear camera: 13MP + 5MP + 2MP
- Front camera: 8MP
Design
Cricket Ovation features a popular design you would see in 2020 phones. It comes with a big display, relatively thin bezels, and a notch. More accurately, the phone has a dimension of 170 x 76 x 8.9mm and a weight of 175g.
This design choice creates an impression that Cricket Ovation is more expensive than it looks. In our opinion, this phone pulls the expensive looks nicely.
On the back, you’ll see the cameras and the LED flash stacked nicely inside a square frame. There’s also the fingerprint sensor underneath. This phone is long and slim, therefore easy to hold despite the big size.
The phone’s body comes with a rounded corner for additional ease when handling it. The back cover is in shiny black color, seemingly to beautifully reflect lights that come into the surface. The effect is astonishing. It looks even more premium.
If we can rate Cricket Ovation’s design, we would give it 4 out of 5 stars. The only thing that makes this phone less perfect is the material. Understandably, it still uses polycarbonate plastic.
Read also: Cricket Ovation User Manual
Display
This phone also comes with a huge display for a budget phone. Cricket Ovation provides a 6.5-inch screen for users to play around with. Additionally, the display has a resolution of 1560 x 720 (HD+).
It has a rather uncommon aspect ratio at 13:6. As a result, you will get a very long display. We rarely encounter such a ration on a phone. This ratio affects viewing experience in some ways.
It means you will get a vacant space when watching movies. However, it also gives an impression that the display is really spacious. There are more app icons you can stack on the App screen. When stacking two apps using the split-screen feature, there is more room for each app horizontally.
As an HD+ screen, the display doesn’t disappoint in terms of quality. We got crisps icons and texts, as well as nice color output on most graphics and images. It’s a phone that doesn’t strain your eyes when looking at it for a long period of time.
We also see an extra perk like Corning Gorilla Glass 5 coating. You can be sure about the screen’s durability. The protection makes the display tougher when withstanding minor damages.
Camera
The triple-camera is one of the impressive things in this Cricket Ovation review. We’re excited about the 13MP camera and a 5MP wide-angle camera. The 2MP macro is also like some kind of a bonus. For selfies, the front camera provides an 8MP shooter.
Cricket Ovation spoils users who use a phone a lot to take photos. There are a plethora of options you can explore with the triple-camera combo. The main 13MP camera takes good pictures by itself alone. But when combined with the ultra-wide lens, you can get even more creative.
Using the aid of the second camera, the depth effect comes out pretty naturally. You can use the portrait mode to achieve it. The macro camera is able to capture details in small objects. However, our problem with the macro camera is the image result would only have a low resolution.
When taking pictures at night, we can use the combination of Night mode and the LED flash. The result from it is quite alright. The Night mode reduces noise and improves details in the picture. For videos, the back camera can record up to 1080p videos at max.
The front camera, at 8MP, deserves a shootout. The 8MP lens makes the front camera versatile for any occasion. It’s a capable camera whether you take a selfie, document yourself on a trip, or take a group photo.
Read also:
- Cricket Icon 2 Review: Very Cheap Basic Smartphone
- Alcatel Insight Review: Basic Android Phone With A Low Price
Storage
For data storage, Cricket Ovation provides users with 16GB of internal memory. It’s quite an average size among today’s smartphones. There’s no bigger version so you will need to upgrade using an SD card. The MicroSD card slot on this phone allows up to 128GB of storage.
If you decide to stick with just the internal memory, we’re afraid to tell you that it’s not enough. With around 20GB available for users, typically a user will eat that capacity up quickly. It’s better to use the internal storage for apps only, while storing pictures, music and downloaded files on the SD card.
Performance
Cricket Ovation runs on a 2GHz Octa-core MediaTek processor. To assist the CPU, this phone employs 3GB RAM. Meanwhile, the specs show Android 10 is on the software side of Cricket Ovation.
The MediaTek Helio P22 this phone uses is an entry-level CPU. However, it’s not on the bottom of the list. You can expect some nice performance with it when running a more demanding task. The 2GHz speed is quite fast for multitasking.
This CPU manages to support the whole system well thanks to the RAM too. The capacity at 3GB is above the average amount on a budget phone. It results in a speedier performance and faster launch time when compared to a phone with less RAM.
The fast clock rate makes it possible for users to watch high definition video without interruptions. Combine that with the DTS audio, this phone is perfect for entertainment purposes. From movie streaming to gaming, Cricket Ovation will give you a decent experience.
Running tasks on the phone is a delight most of the time. You can seamlessly edit photos and videos. The phone rarely struggles in graphics-heavy apps. Meanwhile, we got no complaints about basic document editing.
The Android 10 on Cricket Ovation is the most recent version at the time of release. Therefore, this phone enjoys the latest improvement and optimization on this version. We like how it’s also simple, without additional modifications from the manufacturer.
Due to the long nature of the screen, app icons look sparse and uncluttered. Google apps are neatly arranged in a folder on the Home screen. They’re ready for use without users needing to install them by themselves. Android 10 also comes with perks like battery optimization, multitasking, and Google Assistant.
Sensors come in a full setup as well with the fingerprint reader as a highlight. The sensor, which you can find on the back, provides extra protection for the security of your data. This feature alone makes the phone worth its price.
Other than that, this phone is rated as hearing aid compatible. Buyers who need a special device to use the phone will find the M4/T4 compatibility to be accommodating.
Connectivity
An impressive lineup of specs awaits when it comes to connectivity. This phone hasn’t had 5G yet, but you will make do with its 4G LTE. Other than that, Cricket Ovation is equipped with Wi-Fi, mobile hotspot, GPS, and Bluetooth v5. It’s safe to say that you will get everything you need.
The phone uses a nano type of SIM card. Call reception is quite clear most of the time, plus you’ll have the option for HD voice. Internet surfing has also been a nice experience with Cricket Ovation.
But it doesn’t just stop at those “basics.” We were delighted to find out additional perks such as NFC. Up until this point, NFC is still a luxury on a budget phone. Discovering it here adds allure to the already impressive specs of Cricket Ovation, especially at such a low price.
This phone uses the latest USB Type-C. Ensuring faster data transfer, this port type is also a surprise bonus for buyers of this phone.
Battery
Cricket Ovation has a sizable battery at 4,000mAh. Come in a non-removable form, the phone claims to have 12 hours of talk time and 2 days full battery time. When you let Cricket Ovation on standby, the battery can reach 292 hours.
Real-life performance depends on the user’s phone habit. But we expect a casual usage could easily pass the “one full day without charging” threshold.
The 4,000mAh capacity is actually very generous. Although not the best battery spec out there, Cricket Ovation delivers satisfactory battery performance. Not to mention, the charging port is in USB-C, which provides faster charging time.
Is the Cricket Ovation a good phone?
With a list of tempting specs, you may guess Cricket Ovation is well over $100. To our surprise, it’s only $79.99. That makes the phone a hard-to-miss product. What’s not to like about the phone’s fingerprint, triple camera, and NFC?
This product seems like a good investment. The newest technology strapped on it ensures the phone stays up-to-date a couple of years more. We can hardly think about the downside, except that the phone doesn’t support 5G yet. The display’s aspect ratio also takes some time to get used to.
Overall, this phone gets a standing ovation from us. That’s the conclusion of our Cricket Ovation review.
Cricket Ovation Pros
- Big HD+ display
- Fingerprint sensor
- Triple Camera
- NFC
Cricket Ovation Cons
- Unusual aspect ratio
- The internal storage can be bigger