Starting today, Cricket customers can get their hands on the Motorola Evoke QA4, Cricket’s first full touchscreen handset. The Evoke will be a sweet addition to Cricket’s lineup and will feature:

• CDMA 800/1900/1700/2100, 1900MHz and 2100MHz EVDO Rev. A
• 2.8-inch WQVGA 240×400 touchscreen display
• 2 megapixel camera with 5x digital zoom
• 256MB Internal storage, microSD expansion
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• Widget-Based, customizable home screen
• MySpace, YouTube and Picasa integration
• Full HTML browser
• Centralized & conversational style SMS and email (POP3/IMAP4)
• 108mm x 50.5mm x 17.5mm dimensions

The Evoke will retail for $299 and should go live soon on mycricket.com. It will also be available shortly in Cricket retail locations across the country. Woo! Hit the jump for the full press release.

Cricket Debuts Feature-Packed, Full Touch-Screen Motorola Evoke™ QA4

Advanced Multimedia Features Include Integrated Home Screen Widgets, Real Web Browsing and IM-Style Messaging over Cricket’s 3G EVDO Network

SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cricket Communications, Inc., a leading provider of unlimited wireless services and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leap Wireless International, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEAP), today announced the immediate availability of the Motorola Evoke™ QA4 to Cricket customers. The feature-packed 2.8 inch full touch-screen device keeps users constantly connected to friends and family via texting with both a full touch-screen keyboard and slide out traditional numeric keypad. Web info is displayed on the home screen, which can be customized using integrated widget and personalized RSS feeds. Evoke also features a full HTML browser – all over Cricket’s 3G EVDO network.

“When our customers ask us for a “smartphone” what they really want is access to personal email, fast Web browsing, great multimedia features and a cool phone form factor. Cricket has worked closely with Motorola to deliver the Evoke and the recently launched Motorola Hint QA30 devices that fit the desires of our customers but at a much more affordable price and no expensive service contract,” said Jeff Toig, vice president of product marketing for Cricket. “In addition, Cricket’s 3G EVDO network allows our customers to take full advantage of Evoke’s many capabilities and features.”

“We designed the Motorola Evoke to give consumers multiple ways to stay in touch, whether they prefer IM-style texting, mobile blogging or simply a phone call to keep up with friends and family,” said Dan Papalia, vice president, Motorola Mobile Devices. “With Cricket’s 3G network, customers can get instant gratification with real Web browsing, RSS feeds, one-click social networking and more.”

Evoke is highly customizable with widgets to provide real-time access to the information that is most important to users, such as Google Web Search™, MySpace, YouTube™, Picasa™, weather forecasts and customizable RSS feeds. With a 2.0 megapixel camera/camcorder, Cricket customers can quickly and easily upload their pictures and videos directly to their MySpace page, blog or photo sharing sites such as Picasa™, straight from the device over Cricket’s 3G EVDO network. Additional features include an integrated music player and microSD card slot with removable memory for music, stereo Bluetooth®, preloaded BREW games, voice activated dialing and more.

Motorola Evoke is available now at www.mycricket.com for $299.99 and will soon be available at Cricket retail stores and Cricket dealers. For more information, please visit www.mycricket.com/evoke or www.motorola.com.

We’ve seen some great stuff at CTIA so far this year but as we’re sure you are well aware, there really hasn’t been anything too earth shattering on display. As such, we might go as far as to call the Motorola Evoke QA4 the most interesting handset we’ve gotten our grubby mitts on so far at the show. The QA4 first made an appearance earlier this month, and it was subsequently announced for Cricket just before CTIA lifted off. We must admit, the handset didn’t exactly bowl us over on paper but now that we’ve had some face time with it, things have changed. Surprised and impressed are two words that most certainly encapsulate our reaction. Pinned somewhere between a feature phone and a smartphone, the Evoke packs a Moto-customized Linux OS — think of the Ming, then imagine something 100 times cooler — sitting beneath a solid build and a terrific design.

The UI on the QA4 is essentially widget-based as many are these days but Moto’s interpretation is well thought out, well organized and responsive. The 2.8-inch touchscreen also returns some nice haptic feedback as you swipe and poke your way through various menus and widgets. Sure to please anyone and everyone, there are also three different keyboards available: A physical 0-9 pad, a virtual 0-9 pad when the handset is held vertically and a landscape virtual QWERTY invoked by the accelerometer when the device is turned on its side. The QA4 is by no means a savior but at the right price it’s a fantastic handset with a wide range as far as target market is concerned. Hit the jump for more shots of the Evoke, due out this quarter in both the US and Canada.

Motorola made it official today, the QA4 Evoke will be coming soon to CDMA carrier near you. The touchscreen QWERTY slider sport the following specs:

• CDMA 800/1900/1700/2100, Diversity 1900MHz and 2100 MHz EVDO Rev A
• 2.8” WQVGA 240×400 Touchscreen display
• 2 megapixel camera with 5x digital zoom
• 256 MB Internal storage, microSD expansion
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• Widget-Based, customizable homescreen
• MySpace, YouTube and Picasa integration
• Full HTML browser
• Centralized & conversational style SMS and email (POP3/IMAP4)
• 108mm x 50.5mm x 17.5mm dimensions

No word on which carrier Cricket will pick up this latest and greatest offering from Motorola and it is expected to debut in Q2 2009. Woo!

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The Motorola QA4 gets even more mysterious as additional information about this touchscreen slider is uncovered. The handset made its way through the FCC way back in September 2008 with 800/1700/1900 CDMA bands, suggesting that the phone was intended for use on US Cellular, MetroPCS or Cricket. As of Monday, the supporting FCC documents (manual, test images, etc) surrounding this handset are now available for public view. From these documents, we can glean that the QA4 has EV-DO Rev. A, aGPS, Bluetooth with A2DP, AVRCP and DUN support, on-screen landscape QWERTY keyboard, widget support and built-in syncing with Google contacts, YouTube and Picasa. The QA4 reviewed by the FCC also sports a slightly different keyboard than the recently leaked press photos suggesting that the model the FCC approved was an early design. The handset was initially rumored to land at US Cellular but was shelved indefinitely as it reportedly failed to pass carrier testing. Dying but not dead, the handset made a second trip through the FCC on 3/5/2009 with a Class II permissive change. This latest revelation coupled with the handset’s recent appearance on Motorola’s website suggests that the QA4 may still be on Motorola’s radar for launch in the near future.

[Via Phone Arena]

Read (FCC 9/17/2008)
Read (FCC 3/5/2009)
Read (US Cellular rejection)

As Moto fans and curious passers-by alike sit waiting for more news on the next-generation Moto handsets we scooped back in December, one of a few interim items of interest has just popped up on Moto’s site. The Motorola Evoke QA4 is a bubbly but intriguing handset that hasn’t yet been officially announced, which makes it peculiar that it would appear on Motorola’s site. Odd, yes, but perhaps Moto is as eager to push out new handsets as we are to critique them. Little is known about the Evoke QA4 for the time being, though we would imagine an official announcement can’t be far off. All we have thus far is a feature phone with a slider form factor, 2.8″ touchscreen display, standard 12-button keypad and CDMA/EV-DO connectivity. At the same time, it’s a design that strays from most of the handsets the struggling manufacturer has issued in recent history so we’re going to give it the benefit of the doubt. Interest piqued? Fork over some personal info over on the Moto site to receive “periodic updates” via email.

[Via Phone Arena]

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