14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Cricket Wireless is one of the last US major carriers to receive the popular Optimus One smartphone
It looks like last week's rumors about the phone's release date have now been confirmed, but the phone is much cheaper than what was initially believed.
The budget Android smartphone is available for purchase for $130 off-contract, after a $20 web discount and a $50 mail-in-rebate. However, customers will have to sign up for Cricket's $55 month unlimited plan to be eligible for the offer.
Other versions of the Optimus One seemed pretty solid and fast for an entry-level smartphone, so we should expect the same from the Optimus C, which is identical to the original, performance-wise.
The Optimus C has a slightly different design compared to the original Optimus One, but it has the same specs sheet.
The device runs Android 2.2 Froyo out-of-the-box, which is upgradable to 2.3 Gingerbread. Apparently, the Korean manufacturer has confirmed plans to roll-out an Android 2.3 software update in late May.
The Optimus C is powered by a 600 MHz processor and embeds a high energy 1500 mAh Li-Ion battery which is rated by the manufacturer for up to 700 hours (550 hours for 3G) of standby time or up to 8 hours (7 hours and 30 minutes) of talk time.
It comes with a 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen with 262k colors support and 320 x 480 pixel resolution, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate and proximity sensor for auto turn-off of the screen.
The Optimus C is HSDPA-enabled and offers users a wide range of connectivity solutions such as, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, GPS with A-GPS support, microUSB 2.0, as well as Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support.
Furthermore, the Optimus one sports an average 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus and video recording capabilities. The phone packs only 170 MB of internal memory, but it embeds a microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB, 2GB card included).
