Latest news with #BoostSummit5G
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Boost Summit 5G review: A budget phone for Boost customers
When we think of smartphone brands, we think of Apple, Google, and Samsung. Enthusiasts add Motorola, Nothing, or OnePlus to the list. However, carrier phones are another class of phones that most, including me, think about. Carrier phones are budget devices for those who want a phone that works and doesn't have many bells and whistles. Boost Mobile's carrier phone offering is the Boost Summit 5G, which is listed at $95. New customers who port-in to the service can have it for free, and existing members can get it for $20. While $95 or less is a compelling price, this phone's trade-offs are substantial. Poor hardware and performance make this phone hard to recommend to anyone, except those who don't use their phone for much. The Boost Summit 5G was released on November 11, 2024, for $95. Most people get it for free when porting into Boost Mobile's service, or for $20 for Boost members. You can purchase it from Boost Mobile's website or its brick-and-mortar stores. You can also get it at large retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart for varying prices. At the time of writing, the device is sold out on Boost Mobile's website, but it is available at Walmart and Best Buy for $50 or less. The best thing about this phone is the price. It's almost impossible to get new tech for under $100, never mind a smartphone, but Boost did it. It's a solid phone that looks attractive. It's made of plastic, which is typical at this price, but it is easy to grip and the Vista Blue color looks nice. The Summit does a serviceable job of being a basic smartphone. It runs stock Android 14, so the software experience is clean and simple. Still, it doesn't have unique or interesting features. Digital Wellbeing, the Security dashboard, and other core Android features are here. Making calls, sending texts, and surfing the web are easy to do and work well on the phone. While the MT6835V/ZA Octa-Core 6nm (23E+) processor isn't the fastest or most powerful, it works well for simple tasks or light gaming. I didn't find many issues with performance until I tried to push to the phone, which is solid for less than $100. You can do these tasks on the large 6.6-inch HD+ screen, which has a maximum 90Hz refresh rate that makes scrolling look smooth. iPhones that are many times as expensive as this phone don't have a 90Hz refresh rate, so it's nice to see a high refresh rate at this price point. It's powered by a large 5,000mAh battery, giving the phone great battery life. I got approximately two days on a single charge, which is phenomenal for a phone in 2025. It's also wonderful that the Summit includes two features from past flagships that should never have left: a headphone jack and expandable storage. The headphone jack is located in the lower-left corner of the phone next to the microphone, and allows users to use wired headphones. You can increase the device's storage by up to 128GB using a microSD card. These features aren't unique to the Summit as competitors like the Moto G (2025) include them, but they're welcome. The speakers are surprisingly good for this price. I found them to be loud and full and with good depth. They're not the best speakers, but they punch above their weight. While I think this phone has a lot of value, I have some gripes. Plastic phones are not necessarily bad, as you can add nice textures to them, but this one feels cheap to hold. The plastic feels like it's plastic, and the phone creaks sometimes, making the build quality feel poor. The haptics also make the phone feel cheap. The vibration motor is aggressive. Since the plastic build quality is poor, every vibration makes a loud noise. It's very unappealing. Another obvious issue is seen when looking at the phone's screen. While large, it's not very bright, vibrant, or crisp. It also has the largest bezels I've seen on a smartphone. They are so large on this phone that it's hard not to see them. They're not only large, but asymmetrical. They scream cheap from across the room. The screen also has awful viewing angles. If you're not looking at the phone straight on, it gets darker and darker and is hard to see past about 25 degrees in each direction. While this is helpful for privacy, it doesn't make it easy to show others content on your device, and watching a video with someone over your shoulder is difficult. Other phones at this price, like the Samsung Galaxy A15, include great screens, so it's disappointing how poor the Summit's screen is. The cameras also make me irrationally angry. The phone has a 5MP front-facing camera, two rear-facing sensors, a 13MP main sensor, and a 2MP depth sensor. There is only a single camera since the depth sensor helps add depth to photos, and these take up two of the four circles on the back of the phone. Another houses the flash, but the fourth is empty. The cameras and flash take up about 20% of the actual volume of these circles, so the camera bump is massive for no reason. I don't understand why Boost made this choice. Maybe it wanted to make the cameras look bigger and better than they are, but it comes off looking cheap and feels like a poor attempt to mislead consumers. I'm not a fan. In the middle of the camera bump, it says "AI-CAMERA," which means there's AI integrated with the camera. However, I found no mention of AI in the software or settings. The photos didn't look like they were enhanced with AI, so I'm not sure what they're referring to. Speaking of the photos, they're fine. In ideal conditions, the Summit takes good, but not great, photos. They look a bit washed out, lifeless, and lack detail, but they are serviceable. In less-than-ideal conditions, the photos are more of a mixed bag. They lack the post-processing you see on Samsung and Google phones. The camera app includes night and pro modes, which are missing from some smartphones at a similar price, but it's challenging to take pro or nighttime photos with a small, 13MP sensor. The internal specs are a little rough. The phone has 4GB of RAM, which is good for single, simple tasks, but gets choked up when the phone is pushed a little. The phone also has 64GB of internal storage, which is poor when the average smartphone starts at four times as much. It's probably a function of price, and you can expand the storage with a microSD card, so it's not awful, but I wish it had at least 128GB. Charging is slow. Boost doesn't list the exact specs, but it takes about two hours to charge from ~20% to full. The fingerprint scanner makes it difficult to interact with the phone. It is located on the power button, which is a fine location. However, I find it unreliable, and when I use it to shut the screen off, it sometimes tries to turn it back on before I can move my finger. I found this frustrating, but it may not be as frustrating if you wait until your screen times out. Software support is a big question mark. Boost does not list an official software support policy for the phone, but I found a few updates for the phone when I first turned it on. It looks like Boost pushes an update every other month, but I'm unsure how long these will last. When setting up the phone, you'll run into a large amount of bloatware that helps offset the cost of this phone. I found almost as many bloatware apps as system apps, which took a while to remove. While I removed most of them, I get notifications asking me to enter demographic information to find apps and games for me. This seems like a way to get better information to serve me ads, which I am against. This makes the software experience feel cheap, which is not a good look when paired with the hardware. While I'm a smartphone enthusiast, I'm not against cheaper devices as long as they make the right trade-offs to make the value worth it. The Summit makes too many trade-offs to make it worth recommending to most people. I recommend the Summit to folks who do not care about their phone and want the cheapest phone to pair with the $25 monthly Boost plan. I could also see this phone being an option for those on a limited budget. If you use your phone to game, consume content, or multitask, you'll spend a bit more to get a phone that can handle that. The Moto G (2025) or the Samsung Galaxy A15 have better screens, processors, and cameras for $200, which is a better option for many people. The Summit won't cut it for most people, even at such a low price.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Boost Celero5G TAB Review: Boost's excellent budget tablet offering
Carrier-branded devices often carry a stigma of being poor, bottom-of-the-barrel alternatives to those from well-known brands like Samsung or Apple. The big three carriers offer them, and budget carriers like Visible and Boost Mobile have them. These devices are mainly for those who don't care about which phone or tablet they use as long as it works. Plus, they're cheap. I discovered how bad carrier devices can be when I reviewed the Boost Summit 5G smartphone, so I didn't have high hopes for Boost Mobile's new tablet, the Boost Celero5G. However, I was surprised by how much value and quality were squeezed into this budget tablet, especially being from a carrier. If you're in the market for a cellular-supported tablet, consider the Celero5G TAB. The Boost Celero5G TAB will be announced on June 3, 2025, and will retail for $200 with a $20 a month data plan. For existing Boost Mobile phone plan customers, the tablet will be available for a discounted price of $100 with the data plan. It will be available for purchase online at the Boost Mobile website or in its brick-and-mortar stores starting on June 3. For a $200 tablet, the Boost Celero5G TAB has much to like that helps it punch above its weight class. The build quality on this device is stellar. The device is made of plastic with a finish that feels like metal. This makes it feel more premium than other tablets at this price point. The back has an interesting, almost two-tone finish. Most of the device is a light gray, while the top fifth is a slightly darker gray. The camera module features a stylish, textured finish with concentric circles around the lenses and flash. I like the way the tablet looks, and I think it's stylish. The weight and thinness of the tablet are good. It's 0.32 inches thick and weighs 520g. It's 0.02 inches thicker and 27g heavier than the similarly sized Google Pixel Tablet. While the difference in thickness may be hard to differentiate, I find the tablet slightly heavy to hold at times, but it's good overall. It comes with an IP52 water and dust resistance rating. That's good enough to throw it in a backpack and for it to survive the occasional spill. It's all you need for a tablet that you'll mostly use for entertainment. Others in the segment, like the Pixel Tablet and entry-level iPad, don't have an official IP rating, so it's nice to see one listed. The screen is also great for this price point. The Celero5G sports a 10.95-inch FHD IPS panel with a 90Hz refresh rate. It's not the most premium panel you'll find on a tablet, but it's great for watching videos or TV shows on the go. Its viewing angles are good, although the screen gets darker as you move side to side. The 90Hz refresh rate is a nice touch, as the nearly twice as expensive entry-level iPad and twice as expensive Pixel Tablet have 60Hz refresh rates. The bezels are reasonable to grip a tablet of this size. Could they be smaller? Sure, but I don't think they need to be. The speakers are the standout feature of the device. The Celero5G features one speaker on each side of the device, which sound solid. They're not the loudest or richest sound you'll hear, but they beat out tablets twice their price. The included BoostMax Audio software, included with the tablet, takes it to the next level. When you open the app, you can adjust the intensity of the sound and five volume profiles: Automatic, Music, Video, Games, and Voice Enhance. Using these profiles changes the sound output to fit the content you're consuming, and it makes a difference. Changing the profile to Video while watching YouTube balances voices and background music to optimize the listening experience. Changing it to Music while listening to new songs brings up the bass and makes instrumentals sound clearer. I like how you can customize the speaker based on what you're doing to enhance the sound. Can you do a similar thing through a third-party app? Sure, but it's nice that this is included out of the box. The internal specs are good for the price. It comes with a MediaTek MT8755 processor and 4GB of RAM, which does all you need. It can handle multiple apps, multiple browser tabs, and light gaming. I never found that it choked up while I was using it, but I didn't push it too much. It comes with 128GB of internal storage, and you can add 1TB of storage through a microSD card. I'm glad when a device has expandable storage, and I'm glad Boost didn't skimp here. The Celero5G features a 7,500mAh battery, providing great battery life when paired with the MT8755 and 4GB of RAM. I can go over a week without charging the tablet. I spend a few hours a day watching videos or doing light reading. When I need to top it off, it charges to full in a little over an hour and a half with the included 20W wired charging. Face unlock is enabled through the 5MP front-facing camera, and it works well. It's not Apple's Face ID in terms of usability and security, since it only uses the camera. However, it unlocks the tablet reliably in good lighting conditions. I can use it when looking straight at the tablet and at angles of about 25 degrees in either direction. It makes unlocking the tablet quick and easy, and I'm glad it's included. While there's a lot to like about the Celero5G, it has drawbacks. Like most tablets, the Celero5G TAB includes front and rear-facing cameras, but they're unremarkable. While functional for casual use, don't expect groundbreaking photography from a tablet, especially at this price point. Video calls will look acceptable with the 5MP front-facing camera. However, the 13MP main sensor and 2MP depth sensor on the back don't stand out much. They take fine photos but are better suited for scanning documents and not much else. The software experience is basic Android and nothing more. It includes all you expect from Android on a tablet, like the dock, Google's Entertainment Space, and Google Kids Space. There are no additional features or skin on the experience, just plain Android. That's not necessarily bad, if it wasn't for the bloatware. There is an absurd amount of bloatware on this tablet. It's similar to the experience I had with Boost's Summit 5G smartphone, where more than half of the pre-installed apps on the device were apps I didn't want. I get that bloatware is necessary to lower the cost of a budget device, but it's unbearable. Worse, some apps I deleted reappeared randomly, no matter how many times I removed them. This persistent bloatware is unacceptable, and its cause remains unclear. There's also a persistent notification to get me to set up Boost's game service to recommend mediocre games and finish setting up my device. Finishing setting up my device means giving Boost my demographic information so it can sell more ads to serve me. I understand that it's necessary, but it takes away from the user experience and makes the device feel cheap. Updates are a question mark. Boost does not officially give a promise for updates, so it's unknown how long it will provide them. This lack of a clear update roadmap is a concern for future-proofing and security. When I reviewed the Summit, it seemed to get bimonthly updates, but we'll see what happens with this device. It appears that updates bring back previously removed bloatware. Even if they're available, they seem to make regressions in some ways. While there are great budget tablets, I think the Boost Celero5G TAB stands out from the crowd. It features a nice screen, great battery life, and a solid experience. I recommend it as a good option for many people, except for one issue: it's only available for Boost Mobile customers. I think it is a viable competitor for those looking at the Google Pixel Tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+, or an entry-level iPad. However, its limited availability makes it a difficult sell. For those shopping at this price point who don't want Boost's service, the Galaxy Tab A9+ is a better option. It's available as a Wi-Fi-only tablet or as a cellular-enabled tablet on other networks. If you're open to Boost's service, or are a customer, and want a cellular-enabled tablet, the Celero5G is a great option. There is a lot of bloatware and a big question mark for long-term support, but if those aren't a concern, it may be worth considering.
