Cell phones from lesser-known manufacturers

Jessica Dolcourt
Senior Editor February 3, 2011 (updated on: July 26, 2011)

We all know about HTC, LG, and Motorola, but here in the U.S. there are other perfectly good manufacturers still fighting for a slice of the pie.

Huawei has been a little more active of late, expanding what is basically a rebranded version of the T-Mobile Comet to MetroPCS as the Huawei M835, an entry-level Android phone. We'd hold out for the forthcoming Huawei Ascend II, a larger and hopefully faster phone than this number, although we will say that the M835 is pretty affordable.

Pantech may not be a lesser-known, but the manufacturer consistently produces good handsets. The Pursuit II for AT&T is its latest messaging device with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a reasonable price tag. Then there's Kyocera, which is no newcomer to the cell phone game, even though its brand no longer holds the prominence it once did. We applaud Sprint and Kyocera for its bold dual-screen Echo, a unique-looking Android smartphone, even if it's not without its problems.

ZTE, in the meantime, is a Chinese manufacturer with piquing U.S. ambitions, but we haven't heard many peeps out of it of late. The AT&T F160, introduced as a freebie with a two-year service agreement, or $15 without a contract, was the last phone we've seen released here even though tablets and Android smartphones entered global markets months ago. Finally, there's Sharp, a brand that very rarely pops up. Marketed by PCD, its latest tango with the cell phone world was with the Sharp FX, a messaging phone for AT&T.