14 DAY TRIAL // Cricket Wireless has decided to offer its customers the possibility to pre-order the affordable Sanyo Zio Android-based smartphone, which will ship on August 21st. The device goes for as low as $229 and comes with a $55 per month unlimited plan.
Cricket's Zio is a mid-budget smartphone, which is powered by a 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor.
Unfortunately, the device runs Android 1.6 OS, but there's hope, as Kyocera promised to offer an upgrade to Android 2.x in the near future. Still, those with owning the Cricket Zion might not see a dedicated software update too soon.
Zio comes with a 3.5-inch WVGA touch screen display (400 x 800 pixels resolution), a 3.2-megapixels camera with digital zoom and video recording, microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32 GB), WiFi connectivity, and microUSB 2.0 port.
The Android-based phone features a 1130 mAh Li-ion battery with up to 432 hours standby time and up to 360 minutes talk time.
It is well-known that Cricket carrier does not require contracts, so customers are not forced to subsidize the cost of their phones with their monthly plan.
Thus, you will be able to acquire the Zio with a $55 per month plan and get unlimited talk, text, and web.
Usually, the device is selling for $249, but those pre-ordering the smartphone online can get it for only $219, as they benefit from a $20 web instant discount and $10 pre-order discount (taken at checkout).
Cricket's Zio might be one of the cheapest Android-based phones that is available in the U.S., and the fact that it can be grabbed without a contract makes it even more interesting for Android fans.
Since Cricket just signed an important network agreement with the bigger carrier Sprint, this might improve the former's revenues since it now has coverage in all 50 states.
Unfortunately, it only took one day for the carrier to deplete its Zio stocks. Even though it offered pre-orders yesterday, Cricket Zio is now out-of-stock, which means you won't be getting the $10 pre-order discount anymore.