The budget-friendly unlocked Verykool Black Pearl (pictures)
This $230 smartphone has a sharp screen and useful software extras.
Sarah Mitroff
Sarah Mitroff is a Managing Editor for CNET, overseeing our health, fitness and wellness section. Throughout her career, she's written about mobile tech, consumer tech, business and startups for Wired, MacWorld, PCWorld, and VentureBeat.
Verykool's Black Pearl is unlocked phone that costs just $230. At that price, it's a great value, thanks to its crisp screen, fast processor, dual-SIM capability, and software extras.
The phone is nearly identical to the Samsung Galaxy S4, just thicker. Officially, the phone measures 5.4 inches tall, 2.7 inches wide, and 0.4 inch deep. It weighs 5.6 ounces, which makes it feel hefty and solid in my hands.
There's an 8-megapixel main camera on the back of the phone, which protrudes slightly above the back cover. There's also an LED flash right below the lens. Overall, it takes decent, but not great, photos.
The power button is up top, and is built into the back cover. Next to that is the headphone jack. One the bottom, there is a Micro-USB port for charging.
Though it looks as though the Black Pearl is running a vanilla version of Android Jelly Bean 4.2, there are a few modifications, including settings to swap between each SIM, if you have two installed.
The Black Pearl is an unlocked dual-SIM phone that can be used on any GSM network worldwide. You must remove the back cover and take out the battery to access each SIM card slot.
