What we have here is the ZTE Warp, a solid Android Gingerbread-running smartphone that comes at the affordable price of $199 on Boost Mobile’s prepaid, no-contract service. The handset measures 5 x 2.7 x 0.5 inches and weighs 5.3 ounces which means that it is fairly compact. It isn’t one of the prettiest phones available right now but we do like the back of it because it has a nice rippled texture that not only resists to fingerprints but it also makes the phone easier to grip.

The front of the handset is dominated by the generous 4.3-inch display that has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. It manages to deliver a good amount of light, but it’s no Super AMOLED or Super LCD. The colors seem to be vivid enough but we don’t like that the screen is not as responsive as we’re used to. You can write messages either with the XT9 virtual keyboard or with the regular Android one, both of them sharing a lot of similarities.

Located above the screen is a silver earpiece speaker along with a notification light, something that you don’t see that often anymore. Below the display are the capacitive buttons for home, menu, back and search functions. On the right spine of the Warp you have access to the dedicated camera shutter and the microUSB port, while on top sits the small power key and a 3.5 mm jack. Looking on the left side of the phone we find nothing but a volume rocker. At the back is the 5 megapixel camera that has an LED flash, along with the main speaker. The microSD card slot is accessible without having to remove the battery.

The ZTE Warp is running on a pretty much stock version of Google’s operating system which would have to be Android 2.3.5. You get to use up to five home screens that can be filled with shortcuts and widgets, while on the official Android Market you’ll find more than 250,000 apps to try. As you would expect, the phone comes bundled with GPS, Gmail, messaging and e-mail support, along with a My Files app, stop watch, voice recorder, stopwatch, BoostZone app and the Mobile ID feature with which you can download themes and other similar stuff.

The ZTE Warp is fitted with a 1,650 mAh lithium-ion battery that has a rated standby time of up to nine days and nine hours, while the rated usage time is of five days. The phone is powered by a single core Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.0 GHz with 512MB of RAM. You shouldn’t experience any sort of lag while navigating through the menus and opening various types of applications.

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