Sanyo Zio M6000 – wide open and costlySanyo Zio M6000

Android has made to all the major carriers here in the U.S. and now it is moving to smaller players. U.S. Cellular first got the HTC Desire and Samsung Acclaim and now Cricket Wireless is here with Sanyo Zio M6000. The manufacturer’s first introduced this phone has Kyocera Zio, as Kyocera bought Sanyo last year. The handset has a minimalist feature set and design and you get all the basic things that you’d yearn for in a phone. There are no mind blowing features on this phone and I am not complaining about it. But I will certainly scoff at outdated Android OS 1.6 aka Donut. On the bright side, the performance is quite satisfactory.

This phone is best for Cricket’s budget clients. The price of this phone is $249 (if you buy it online, the price is $229). The price is certainly not a bargain but then there are no contract obligations. The data plan of this service provider for Zio and all future Android handsets is just $55 for a month and you get unlimited text, data and voice.

There is not anything sexy about the Sanyo Zio M6000. It has a usual candy bar layout with simple black color, rectangular shape and clean lines. In the end, you get a bit of boring and utilitarian looks but it works well. The front face is dominated by a touch screen and there are some physical controls below. The device is 4.26 inches long, 0.48 inch deep and 2.3 inches wide. This phone is lightweight and compact at 3.7 ounces. It feels very solid and comfortable in the hand.

Three and half inches big display of The Sanyo Zio M6000 and the size are good for a touch screen. You get a resolution of 400×240 pixels with support for 262,000 colors which is acceptable in such a low end smart phone. The graphics and colors are vibrant and there is something called auto brightness feature which doesn’t get the screen get too dark. This feature can be turned on or off according to your liking. The screen also has an accelerometer along with adjustable backlight time.

 The Sanyo Zio M6000 allows you in style the display with wallpaper, widgets and custom folders. Cricket and Sanyo didn’t cram too much for the home screen beyond the regular Google search bar. For customization, there are just three home screens which might disappoint you. The display is not as responsive as I’d have liked but you can always change the sensitivity on these handsets. You can access the menu through the usual pull tab and the design of the menu follows the standard grid format.

The Sanyo Zio M6000 has a few touch based controls like menu shortcut, Home key, search key, and back button. They are very responsive; you just need to press them lightly. The navigation ball is recessed and a bit small but it is still responsive and user friendly. On the left side of the trackball, there is the trackball with the End/Power buttons on the right. All of these are physical keys.