Motorola intros VE240, Hint QA30 Coming Soon

In an interesting turn of events, Cricket and MetroPCS have launched a Motorola phone, without a camera, with heavy-duty music playback abilities, at a very competitive price.

By heavy-duty music playback abilities I mean that the Motorola VE240 has dedicated music keyw...and a microSD slot. The descriptiion says that it only supports regular-capacity cards (up to 4GB, though 4GB regular cards are hard to come by), but I've seen a phone or two that has suppored MicroSDHC cards despite ostansibly lacking such support...so the VE240 may also exhibit such behavior. It even supports Stereo Bluetooth, so you can rock out without being tethered to this petite bar phone.

By "very competitive" I mean that this camera-less, small--screen handset is available for $99 on MetroPCS and $119 on Cricket...if you buy bricks-and-mortar. If you go online to grab the VE240, CricKet will let you have it for a clinically insane $49.99. Then again, CricKet tends to price their phones at a loss if they're trying to clear out old models...the dual-band EZ and Motorola v265 are both $30 phones if purchased online.

My verdict? Check this phone out if you don't mind not having a camera built in. If you were going to get a low-end cricKet or metroPCS phone, and were looking for a basic MP3 player, this is the model for you...

Also, it sounds as though the Motorola Hint, a squarish bar phone with a slide-out keyboard, may be coming to Cricket/MetroPCS soon as well...