Sprint Announces Family Friendly ZTE Fury

Sprint today announced the ZTE Fury, a budget-priced, family friendly Android smartphone that costs less than $20.

Judging by the specs, the Fury sounds like a pretty standard, midrange Android device. It has a 3.5-inch capacitive display with 480-by-320-pixel resolution and is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, which should keep things moving along at a decent clip. There's also 4GB of internal memory, along with an empty microSD card slot, expandable up to 32GB.

The Fury connects to Sprint's 3G network rather than WiMAX. It can be used as a mobile hotspot to provide a 3G connection to up to five different devices with the appropriate service plan.  The phone will ship running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and there's no word yet on whether it will receive an update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in the future.

The Fury is compatible with Sprint's family services, which means you get access to apps like Sprint Family Locator, which allows parents to locate family members on an interactive map and to set up "safety checks" to ensure everyone reaches their destination on time. It can get costly though. Sprint Family Locator costs $5 per month to locate up to four phones. There's also Sprint Mobile Controls, which is available on all Android phones on Sprint for $4.99 per month, per line. It allows parents to lock their child’s phone on-demand or to schedule locks, and to browse their child’s contacts and apps downloaded to the phone.

Then there's Drive First, which is an app that automatically locks the phone when traveling more than 10 MPH and unlocks it when the speed has slowed down. The app directs incoming calls to voicemail and silences alerts while in use. Drive First is also available on all Android smartphones on Sprint for $2 per month, per line.

The ZTE Fury will be available in Sprint stores and online starting Sunday, March 11 for $19.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $50 mail-in rebate via reward card. Check back with PCMag for a full review soon.

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