LG Lucid

Verizon Wireless' top Android LTE smartphones sell for $199 to $299, so you figure there's a catch when a phone costs on $79 on contract. In the case of the capable and very attractive LG Lucid, you actually get a very nice smartphone with serious style. The Lucid has a 4" IPS display that's very colorful, sharp and bright. It has a 1.2GHz dual core Snapdragon CPU that's plenty fast and 4G LTE. So what's the catch? There's no HD resolution here, the phone runs at 800 x 480 resolution, there's a front camera and 5MP back camera (no 8 or 12MP here) and that's about it. The phone runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with a promised upgrade to Android 4.0 ICS (no timetable though).

The Lucid is slim and has a serious amount of good looks, which is rare for less expensive phones. Voice quality and 4G LTE speeds are good. It's hard not to like this phone. It run the LG UI, which we actually find mostly useful despite the slightly cartoony icons. We like the controls except the faux button on the upper left side that provides visual symmetry to the power button on the upper right.