MetroPCS LG L70 - cheap and superb

MetroPCS has been selling the LG L70 for only $49 for quite sometime. What a steal!

• Unlock costs less than $2, then it can be used on T-Mobile and AT&T etc. I bought the unlock code from UnlockScout (delivered within 3 to 30 minutes), dialed 2945#*323# and only used the SP_LOCK code for the Service Provider Unlock.
• No LTE, but H+ on both T-Mobile and AT&T. Much better reception compared to Samsung and Pantech. The LG F6 supports LTE for just $20 more, another steal!
• 4.5" screen is 16:10, far better than 16:9. Its fonts are very bold, extremely easy on eyes (see above photo).
• Build-in multiple languages: English, Espanol, Francais, Korean, Chinese (Taiwan) and Chinese (simplified, including Pinyin and voice input).
• Chinese voice input works extremely well, the only voice input I actually love to use.
• Battery life seems very good and phone stays cool, even when used as a WiFi hotspot and/or streaming/recording Internet radio. Never had a phone this cool (cold).
• When play music, beautiful warm sound.
• I use Tetherfy for WiFi hotspot, very good speed.
• Double-tapping on the screen wakes up the phone, I really like this feature.
• Root is extremely easy with Towel Root and I removed some blotware.

Don't make a mistake to relate performance, features and building quality with its low price tag. This phone has nothing to lose to so called hi-end phones that add lots of garbage to a clean Android. This is one of the few times you do get far more than what you pay!

My favorite browser Boat cannot do text wrapping on this phone (stupid Google removed it from KitKat) but UC browser does that well. Boat (not the mini version) is by far the only browser that does not consume CPU while idle. UC uses a small amount of CPU time now and then, still far better than others such as Opera Mobile on this regard. Other browsers are poor on text wrapping, they are useless, not worth of mentioning.

A tip: don't tear off the factory screen film, just cut off the tiny tab with an X-ACTO and you have a perfect screen protector!

Another tip: you may buy one from BestBuy and they will price match

[update] There is a hidden menu (3845#*323#, WCDMA-Only > Modem Settings > Network Mode) that lists all the WCDMA bands. I tried each of them, but only 850, AWS and 1900 are successful. So, no 2100 and 900 that are 3G bands used in other countries such as China.

[Blotware Removal]