>> I'm Kent German, Senior Editor here at cnet.com. Today we'll take a First Look at the Cricket MSG M8. This is a new texting phone for Cricket service and if you want the technical model number it is the A300. This is built for messaging as you probably can see there is a full keyboard down below. The phone manages to be relatively compact though. It's really just about messaging so they put the keyboard front and center. It is a pretty accessible keyboard. The individual buttons are a little bit thin. You'll also find the usual shift, function buttons, things like that. The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the space bar; it's a little off center. Also it isn't very big, prefer to have it maybe right down there in the middle but I supposed that's something you'll probably get used to. The display is okay; it probably could be a little bit bigger but easy to get around. The graphics and photos looked okay, colors were fine, it's bright enough. The navigation control down below is square. Did find that it was pretty easy to use, it's raised just about the surface of the phone and there's a nice OK button right there in the middle. The phone has a pretty nice feel in the hand. If you have larger fingers like I do you might find the keyboard a little bit small but overall I thought it was pretty easy to use. You'll also find a 1.3 megapixel camera. Of course there's a messaging, some basic organizer apps and access to games and other applications. So decent messaging phone for Cricket.
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