looking for phone advice, <$100, rootable

[bigfuzzymonster]

TL;DR What are a couple cheap, decent GSM or CDMA rootable phones for under $100?
(obviously this is in the US market)

I had a Kyocera Echo that just up and bricked on me one day. I went to Sprint, and they said they could give me a reconditioned one for $50. I said sure, lets do that. Months later, the "new" one is acting up, and either the phone is failing or the batteries have lost their capacity.

I'm on Sero, or whats left of it, so I can't upgrade in store, and I'm not even sure if I can do it online. If I try to go to a 4G phone, I know it will cost another $10/mo, so I'm not interested in that. Besides that, I'm not a big fan of contracts in general.

What I'd like to do is get a couple phone candidates for each band, and then look around to see if I want to stick with Sprint or maybe move to T-Mobile or an mvno or something.

So I appeal to you knowledgeable folk. What is a decent, cheap, rootable Android phone? Bonus points for good battery life, and I'd probably consider spending more if it means a better camera.

Thanks
-BFM

 

[kate]

Hi bigfuzzymonster, welcome to the site

You can go to Boost Mobile and get a Moto G for $99. Here is some root/ROM info for it.

If you are looking for a used Sprint phone you could get a Galaxy S2 (Epic 4G Touch, root info) for around $100, or a Galaxy S3 (root info) for a little more.