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Visible quietly adds ultra-budget ZTE phone to its available Android devices
- There’s a new budget ZTE phone available as part of Visible’s wireless service.
- The $99 device is no powerhouse, but looks nice and has some surprising features.
- Visible, a subsidiary of Verizon, has a one-size-fits-all plan which costs $40 per month.
Verizon subsidiary Visible just added an ultra-budget ZTE phone to its very short list of supported Android devices. The ZTE Visible R2 starts at only $99.
It was only a week ago that the company announced Android support on its previously iOS-only network. With that announcement, Visible revealed it will support the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus at first with more devices to come in the future.
Eventually, you will be able to bring own Android phones to the network, but the company is still signing deals with OEMs in that regard. In the meantime, the S9, S9 Plus, and this ZTE Visible R2 are your only options.
Since the R2 costs less than $100, it’s obviously not going to be a powerhouse. The R2 features a 5.45-inch HD+ LCD display in an 18:9 aspect ratio. It packs an unnamed 1.4GHz quad-core processor, a 3,100mAh battery, and 16GB of onboard storage (expandable up to 2TB with the built-in microSD slot). The listing does not say how much RAM the device has, but we can’t imagine it being more than 4GB.
Surprisingly, the R2 does have a USB-C port for charging and data transfer, which is pretty remarkable considering the price of the phone.
On the back, there’s a single 13MP camera sensor and a fingerprint scanner. There’s also a seemingly-textured back coating that gives off an early OnePlus One vibe. On the front, there’s a 5MP selfie cam.
The Visible R2 will ship with Android Oreo — we wouldn’t bet on it getting an upgrade to Android 9 Pie.
Visible’s one-size-fits-all service costs $40 per month and includes unlimited data, text, talk, and hotspot on the Verizon network with no throttling. However, speeds are limited to 5Mbps and video streaming is downgraded to 480p.
Click the button below to check out Visible’s service and the ZTE Visible R2.