T-Mobile Comet

The T-Mobile Comet is a rebranded version of the Huawei Ideos, which is a low-cost Android phone. It certainly is budget-friendly; the entry-level smartphone is free with a two-year contract (alternatively, you can get it as a prepaid option for $200) and offers some nice features, such as Android 2.2, a compact design, and excellent call quality. However, it also suffers from a smaller display and sluggish performance, and our review units also had a design malfunction. If the Comet were the only free Android phone on T-Mobile's roster, it'd be an OK choice, but the carrier also has the LG Optimus T, which offers better hardware and additional features, also for free with contract, so that would be our recommendation.

Design
At just 4.09 inches tall by 2.16 inches wide by 0.54 inch thick and 3.6 ounces, the T-Mobile Comet is quite the petite handset. It's certainly easy to travel with, and the curved edges and rounded corners make it comfortable to hold, but we have some concerns about the overall build quality. It's not so much the durability, as the handset feels quite solid, but the plastic piece covering the navigation control area started peeling off almost immediately. It could be an isolated situation, but we received two review units and it happened on both. In one instance, simply pressing down on the plastic cover fixed the problem, but in the second instance, the left corner kept popping back up, which only got worse as more dust and debris collected on the adhesive strip.