Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile Launch $70 Alcatel Dawn Prepaid Smartphone

The Alcatel Dawn budget smartphone includes plenty of features, along with 4G/3G LTE connectivity and no-contract mobile services.

The Alcatel Dawn is a 4G/3G LTE-capable smartphone that includes a 4.5-inch Full WVGA (854 by 480) thin-film-transistor touch-screen display, a 1.1GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of memory and 8GB of on-board storage.

Also featured in the Alcatel Dawn phone is a microSDHC slot that accepts storage cards up to 32GB, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a front-facing VGA camera and a removable 1,780mAh battery.

The smartphone, which runs the Android Marshmallow 6.0 operating system, is 5.20 inches long, 2.56 inches wide and 0.39 inches thick, and weighs 5 ounces. The phone can be used in Mexico with a Mexico calling plan, according to Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile.

The Alcatel Dawn smartphone includes Bluetooth 4.1 and WiFi connectivity and can be used as a mobile hotspot. The handset has email and text messaging capabilities, and comes with a charger and USB 2.0 cable, an installed SIM card and a printed Get Started Guide.

Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile are divisions of the Sprint Prepaid Group and operate on Sprint’s networks. Both companies also offer unlimited music streaming to customers through certain music-streaming networks. The handsets are available from both companies’ online stores or through Boost Mobile retail stores and select independent wireless retailers in the United States.

A Boost Mobile calling plan including 2GB of high-speed data is $35 a month. A $45 monthly plan includes 5GB of high-speed data while a $60-a-month unlimited data plan is also offered. Customers can earn bonuses of 500MB of additional included data per month on their “Growing Data” plans after every three months of on-time payments, up to a bonus of 3GB after 18 months. Each cellular plan also drops in price by $5 a month if a customer selects an automatic payment option.

Virgin Mobile customers can get calling plans for $30 a month for 500MB of high-speed data and unlimited talk and texting, $40 a month for 4GB of high-speed data and unlimited talk and texting, or $50 a month for 6GB of high-speed data and unlimited talk and texting. Customers can add more high-speed data at $5 for 1GB or $10 for an extra 2GB of data.