Huawei Mercury Ice Review

Introduction:

Despite failed attempt after failed attempt, well-known companies continue to feel that their brand power is strong enough to launch an MVNO. Huge brands such as ESPN and Best Buy have tried and failed, but that isn’t enough to stop Radio Shack from taking their cuts at the MVNO game. While their service is not limited to smartphones, their “unlimited” data and music offerings are certainly geared to those higher-spec’d devices. Radio Shack has turned to Huawei (Waa-way)- another large company looking to make their mark on the US wireless industry- to launch this new service.

The Huawei Mercury Ice is the same device found on Cricket, but with a pearl white paint job that earns it the Ice tag line. For $150 off contract the Mercury Ice will get you a decent 4” display, 8-megapixel camera and Android 2.3. It comes with a 4GB memory card, 3GB of which are dedicated to the Muve Music service offered with Radio Shack’s plans.

Design:

The non-descript white body and silver trim all surround a 4” 480x584 display, with the familiar four Android capacitive keys down below. Overall the phone just feels a bit cheap to us, in no small part due to the creaky, hard plastic. The buttons around the side offer enough travel and feel, but we would prefer that the power button traveled a bit deeper like the volume buttons do.



You can compare the Huawei Mercury Ice with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Display:

With a respectable 245ppi density, the 4” FWVGA display is relatively good for a device of this caliber. It doesn’t stand up to bright light very well however, and unfortunately it was not as responsive as we would have liked.