By We had a feeling (not to mention a bunch of evidence) that the Kyocera Zio would launch on Cricket as the carriers first Android phone – and we were right. Over at BGR they’ve got a full presentation chock-full of Cricket’s 2010 devices and what is one of the featured phones? None other than the Zio!
The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price is listed at $299.99, so you can expect the phone to cost significantly less than that, especially with contracts and rebates. It should launch in July of this year and specs include a 3.5-inch screen, WVGA resolution, Wi-Fi, and 3.2MP camera.
The important thing here, in my mind, is that yet another carrier is giving its customers access to Android. Regardless of Cricket’s relative size measured by subscriber base, there will be a lot of people eagerly chirping about this one. And now I’m wondering if they should launch their own little version of Twitter.
Chirper anyone?
“The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price is listed at $299.99, so you can expect the phone to cost significantly less than that, especially with contracts and rebates.”
What contracts or rebates? Cricket is a no-contract carrier.
Yea, most if not all their phones sell at retail price. Their service is gawd awful and their data plan is garbage. I had a cricket usb connect for my laptop and it couldn’t even give dialup a run for its money.
I had cricket for a while here, for my wife. We actually liked the service, didn’t have any issues with bad data rates or anything. But as the first comment says, all plans are no contract, and phones are all MSRP. Still, cricket has been needing a smartphone for quite a while that can deal with the 50$ unlimited everything plan they’ve got…
I agree, the cricket usb broadband is trash. And the customer service
is very bad. Alwways loosing my payments and cutting my service off.
Its bad all the way around…but a android phone being offered on a no
contract plan. I will give in once again,and buy this phone. Only because
i wont do a contract. Ever. $300 for the phone,maybe a new higher
priced rate plan. Oh, Cricket will probably say its a smart phone so it costs
more to use. Who knows. But i will try it.
Heys Guys check out this plan from T-mobile I saved so much money that I bought a Nexus One off contract. It’s pretty bad that on AT&T you pay $110/month for the same service.
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/cell-phone-plans-detail.aspx?tp=tb1&rateplan=Even-More-Plus-50
It will be interesting to see how well it runs on the network.
I’ve owned a Cricket phone for more than 3 years and have never dropped a call, the quality of their network is excellent. I use Cricket Broadband to work at home every day and it works just fine. Yes I do have to buffer when watching Hulu, which I do infrequently, but for only $35 a month I consider it well worth it. Cricket works great for me and I’m looking forward to their Android phones.
I’ve had Cricket for several years and haven’t had any problems with the service. I hear a lot of people talking about how bad Cricket is but I think it may just be the service in certain areas. My only problem with Cricket is their customer service. It is very hard at times to speak to someone when you call 611. I can’t wait for this and the other Smart phones come out. I was informed that they were going to have this phone along with a Blackberry and HTC phone.
The cricket data plan is an additional $15 for the smart phones on top of the regular price of your plan. I haven’t used the data service plan yet myself so I can’t say if its any good from personal use. However for new customers coming to cricket, you may see an instant or mail in rebate once the phones comes out. Most phones do, but not all. As far as customer service, calling 611 is often useless. They are hard to understand and don’t give the right information. Your best bet is to try to find a local store with good sales representatives who are willing to be honest and try to help you. And yes a Blackberry is also in crickets future! :)
This is AWESOME… Cricket service is really good, and dependable… the only thing I don’t like is the crappy selection of phones. And since I’m in an AWS area I can’t just flash any ole’ CDMA phone. As soon as this puppy launches, I’m all over it!
I have had a cricket for about eight years now and I must say they have improved alot in this time. I tried verizon for a bit and quickly got of the contract to go back to cricket. Cricket is still a growing company and can improve certain things but they can only get better as they have been doing so. They still have some catching up to do, but overall I haven’t had many problems out of my service and I can’t wait to see how well they improve over the next eight years.
hay I had cricket 4 9 years an had some problems with the service as well but It don’t cost as much as other phone compernes an I can’t weat to the new smartphone come out I’m go to get the tuch phone but you can’t beat 30 or 40 doller a month four unlimetde call tex an web it get no beater then that I think so if you do got cricket you need to cuz its chep ok service an now have smartphone lol
hay I had cricket for 9 years an had some problems with the service as well but It don’t cost as much as other phone compernes an I can’t weat to the new smartphone come out I’m go to get the tuch phone but you can’t beat 30 or 40 doller a month four unlimetde call tex an web it get no beater then that I think so if you don’t have cricket you need to cuz its chep it have ok service an now have smartphone if thay can inprove the service a lil more thay might be the best phone comperne out the or one of the best lok
One post mentioned that Cricket will add a smart-phone fee like other carriers do when they release the ZIO. But I use a flashed Palm Pre smart-phone on Cricket now and pay no additional fees. Granted, my Pre doesn’t work as well on Cricket because its a flashed phone (the internet works occasionally w/o rebooting, and the regular phone signal is weak, even downtown) but it is so affordable that I deal w/ it’s limitations. I use the Pre for organizing mostly and it sever my purpose. Would I LOVE to have a smart phone that fully functions on Cricket? YES! But will wait to see what cnet.com says about the phone after it is released.
I’ve got the moto droid fully working on cricket for 6 months and never had a problem but can say i already have a android phone with cricket. I live in houston and the 3G works fast and very dependable.
Ive had my hands on the actual Cricket Zio from a rep of Kyroceras, and it works great,we even raced a Iphone 3gs and saw little diffrence(about 3 secs)on download speed. They have they same size screen and the Kyrocera is thinner. I currently work for Cricket… Im not giving it Kudos for sales, Cricket has never had a problem with that! If you have Cricket you know we have lines to the door sometimes. My advice is to get with Cricket soon though since Cricket purchased pocket you might see the monthly prices go up soon, best to get locked into a low rate.Everyone who does not like Cricket should be happy, Cricket is around, Cricket is the reason other carriers are adding unlimited plans!
I as well have the motorola droid fully flashed to cricket. The 3g is great and I have no problems whatsoever with it here in Portland OR. It’s nice and quick and better yet, only 50 bucks a month. Try telling me that unlimited everything on vzw, tmobile, att, won’t cost more than 50 a month. I think cricket jumping on the android train is a great idea.
So when will Cricket make this offering available. Evidently I need tri-band in my area and I’ve read flashed phones cause the tri-band feature to not work. :-(
I can’t wait for Cricket to have an Android device. I have spend hundreds of dollars to have other Android phones flashed over to Cricket because I don’t like their current offering. This has been with varying degrees of success, since some of the features have stopped working on my Motorola Droid recently.
Cricket has recently signed on with Sprint to use their towers across the U.S. So I can only assume that the service that Cricket provides is as good as Sprint.
In three years, I have experienced no problems with dropped calls on Cricket. Just limited service area.
I don’t mind the cricket service but the USB Internet card is a joke. I have a 7 Mb connection through qwest for the same price. Last year crickets card only got up to speeds of 52Kbs it was $35 and a complete rip off. I will buy the Kyocera Zio when it comes out because I love android.
I work in a sub basement and the only 2 carriers that get a signal are at&t and Cricket,I refuse to go to at&t because of their cap on data usage. I’ve had Cricket service for about 3 years now and I haven’t had a problem with the service yet and I can’t wait for the Zio to be released.
Cricket is not bad at all. You get hat you pay for. I went into a local branch the other day and their customer service was GREAT! They are really helpful. The only thing that sucks is having to pay $3.00 in the store to pay for your bill. Who does that. You shouldnt be charged if you drove to the store and make an effort to pay.
I totally agree with Leeah… Why should it cost $3 to pay your bill in the store?? Seems to me it should be the other way around. One good thing about it, tho… Maybe it cuts down on the size of the lines at the door. I may jst give in and try this Android Wannabe.
I just bought this phone today, I live in San Antonio and the coverage is good here and the webservice is fast on this phone. I was streaming music from a online radio and watching youtube videos at the same time with no problems. The youtube videos are not in the best quality but I was watching movie trailers on flixster and it streamed just fine. Very happy with the speed but I’ve had a few problems with the phone in the first day it froze up three times, had to take the battery out and restart. Hoping the software update with is coming soon will fix what ever is wrong.
I just purchased the Android for Cricket today. The phone and the service have absolutely blown me away, atleast so far. The internet is super fast, and there are so many applications for the phone. I use to have Sprint/Nextel and had the BlackBerry with PTT. Unfortunately I was paying about $85 a month for the unlimited plan with insurance. Customer service wasn’t that bad, but to be honest why should I have to pay almost $85 when I can pay $55 for unlimited local and international text as well as unlimited phone calls? It has everything that sprint has but it still makes me wonder why I paid that much for two years. Overall I like the Cricket phone so far and I hope it makes me happy in the future. I just heard the customer service sucks :P Havnt tried them yet.
I own this phone and it is nothing but horrible. The screen lags; you can only use one finger at a time; there are miss strokes all the time. If you swipe left or right sometimes it will go up and down. Kyocera and Cricket Customer Service are impossible to work with to get an upgrade to 2.0. The phone freezes often and you have to hard boot it. The screen will time out for no reason at all no matter how long you have the screen time out set for. The soft keys only light up on start. There is a constant flashing green light you can never get rid of. For your money, the best thing to do to save you all of these headaches and more that i didn’t mention, you should find an actual Android phone and not consider either “droid” phone cricket has available.
Does anyone know where I can have a Verizon Android flashed to my Cricket account? I was told that the cricket dealers do not flash phones. I live in San Antonio TX. Thanks