LG Optimus F3 with Android Jelly Bean announced by Sprint as its cheapest LTE phone

Sprint has officially announced the LG Optimus F3, a brand new Android smartphone that was first seen a few weeks ago.
The Optimus F3 will be Sprint’s cheapest LTE-capable handset at launch, costing only $29.99 (after a $50 mail-in rebate, 2-year contract required). Customers will be able to buy it starting June 14. There will be two color versions: purple and silver.

Part of LG’s F-Series (like the Optimus F7 that was released today by US Cellular), the F3 runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

Its features include:

• 4 inch IPS WVGA display with Gorilla Glass 2.0
• VuTalk (enabling “users to send handwritten messages
• Photos or drawings back and forth in real time”)
• QSlide 2.0
• QTranslator
• QuickMemo
• Wi-Fi Direct
• NFC
• 5MP rear camera
• Front-facing camera (probably VGA)
• 1.2GHz dual-core processor
• MicroSD card support
• A 2,460 mAh battery
• The F3 runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean

The new handset is Sprint’s first to have TalkBack out of the box – this is “a text-to-speech accessibility feature from Google that helps blind and vision-impaired users interact with their devices more easily.” There is also a “unique LED indicator on the LG Optimus F3′s home button”, offering “a rainbow of color options that can assist those with hearing impairment, such as green for a phone call or red for a text message.”

After launching the Optimus F3, Sprint might also release the high-end LG Optimus G Pro (but there’s nothing official abut this at the moment). The Optimus G Pro is already available in the US anyway, as AT&T is selling it for $199.99 on contract.via