Sep. 10, 2012 at 7:02 PM ET
There's a growing number of 4G phones out there, but many will cost you more than $100. Monday, AT&T Monday introduced a budget contender that's $50 (with a two-year contract); it's LG's Escape, with a 4.3-inch display.
The phone will be out Sept. 16, and some might find it comparable in the economy league to Samsung's Galaxy Stellar, introduced recently by Verizon Wireless.
The LG Escape is designed to work best on AT&T's speediest fourth-generation, or 4G, LTE network and the carrier's upgraded 3G network known as HSPA+. The phone comes with 4GB of memory (you can add up to 32 GB with a microSD card), a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera, and a "qHD" IPS display that will give users "enhanced image clarity with true-to-life color rendering," AT&T says.
The phone has another feature of interest: it's enabled with a Near-Field Communication chip, which lets users pay for some items by transmitting small amounts of data, such as credit card numbers, over very short distances.
The Escape uses Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, and not Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. But for 50 bucks, you can't complain — too much.
You can learn more about the LG Escape here.
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