kleon levon: AT&T Pantech Burst hands-on at CES 2012

Friday, January 13, 2012

AT&T Pantech Burst hands-on at CES 2012

Pantech has been going after the budget-conscious subscribers on AT&T for quite some time now, but it now it finally has the opportunity to do the same thing on Ma Bell's network that it did with Verizon: offer a cost effective handset with LTE included. And we have to say: we were overall quite impressed both with the phone's feel and laundry list of specs. For $50 with a two-year commitment, the newly announced Burst -- available in both black and red -- offer a 1.2GHz dual-core Scorpion CPU, Android 2.3 (which Pantech confirmed to us that it will be upgradeable to ICS at some point in the future), 5MP rear camera with LED flash and 720p HD video capture and 2MP front-facing cam.

Our first impression was rather positive. The 4-inch display will be a convenient option for most, and the Super AMOLED makes it bright and colorful. It felt comfortable in the hand and we enjoyed the smooth design and tapered sides. As always, we were disappointed in the lack of a dedicated camera button, though we can't say it surprises us anymore -- it seems as though Pantech typically shies away from that option. We're not huge fans of the proprietary OS, as mentioned in our review of the Pantech Pocket, but during our brief time with the device, it seems to be incredibly speedy and void of bugs. Check out the gallery below for plenty more angles.

Gallery: AT&T Pantech Burst hands-on at CES 2012