Sanyo Zio - Hands-On Review! The
Sanyo Zio smartphone has now been released on a number of carriers,
including prepaid wireless providers. i-wireless was kind
enough
to provide me with a demo unit to use. After a good solid
month
of usage, I was able to get some really great hands-on experience.
On this page you'll find my thoughts and opinions about this
prepaid smartphone and service. As per usual, I want to note
that
although this Android smartphone was provided by i-wireless, I'm in no
way being compensated by i-wireless to provide a good review.
This site remains an objective resource for prepaid wireless
and
prepaid broadband and related topics, so you can rest assured that this
is an objective point of view!First Impressions The Sanyo Zio came in what I refer to a dealer box, meaning that it's not in those plastic bubble packages usually found in retail stores. I like this packaging because you don't end up destroying the packaging, or injuring yourself, when trying to open it, and it's compact, and generally a clean look and feel. Aside from the Sanyo Zio smartphone, the box comes with a USB charger with an AC adapter, a 2GB microSD card (which seems so small nowadays!), an SD adapter for the microSD card, and the user guide. The box contained only the required essentials, which I appreciated. My first impressions of the Sanyo Zio were that it's really sleek and smooth. It feels great in my hand; even better than Metro PCS' LG Optimus M. The screen design is unique in that there's no bezel; the edge of the screen rounds smoothly into the edges of the phone, making for a great look and feel. It actually makes swiping very smooth and fluid. The only real downside that I can see is that putting a screen protector on it (which I always like to do) is somewhat awkward because there's nowhere for it to hide. In other words, you would see and feel it on the screen, particularly as you swipe across the smooth surface.
 One
aspect that I find extremely peculiar about the design of the Sanyo Zio
is the trackball navigation.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of a physical hardware means of
scrolling and navigating around smartphones, even though they are all
touchscreens. Particularly with larger screens (this phone
has
the same size screen as the Apple iPhone), using your finger to
navigate the touchscreen can become difficult when using the phone
one-handed. However, Sanyo chose to use a trackball for
navigation, which I find to be an extremely odd choice. Given
the
major issues that people had for years using similar trackballs on
BlackBerry smartphones, and RIM's subsequent move to touch pads as a
result, I'm surprised Sanyo would use this antiquated technology.
I personally find trackballs to be extremely irritating to
use (too much finger movement required).
I don't find track pads to be much better either; I much
prefer a
D-pad, though this approach has seemed to have long since disappeared.
All-in-all, I find that I never use the trackball.Lastly, the back cover of the phone is a nice soft touch feel, which contributed to the nice overall look and feel of the handset. Operating System The Sanyo Zio from i-wireless ships with Android OS 2.1, which was nice to see. Although it's not the latest Android operating system (at the time), which was Froyo 2.2, it's a dramatic improvement over OS 1.6 that ships with Cricket's version of the Zio. To this day, I haven't heard any news regarding a 2.2, or even 2.3 upgrade for this smartphone; at this point it's pretty much an end-of-life smartphone anyway. I have to say that I was disappointed to find that the handset doesn't support pinch-to-zoom in the browser; apparently this is a Sanyo limitation, and not an Android or i-wireless issue. i-wireless Extras i-wireless' version of the Zio smartphone comes with all of the basic Android OS apps. I actually found this to be somewhat refreshing, because a lot of carriers load additional email, navigation, and other carrier-specific apps that I generally find aren't as good as the standard applications, and the average user would simply find it confusing to figure out which app to use for what. There were a couple of notable differences worth pointing out:
Screen & Keyboard Although the 800x480 3.5" WVGA touchscreen was a nice size, bright, and crisp, I was disappointed with its performance. I don't know if this is a function of the slower processor in this phone compared to other smartphones, or the actual responsiveness of the touchscreen itself; however, I found that the screen often didn't register my touches. I would almost venture to say the the screen is borderline unresponsive, which made not only navigating, but even more so, using the virtual keyboard to be quite frustrating. Also, the keyboard doesn't support Swype technology, though I have to say that at this point in time, I'm not a fan of Swype anyway, so I really didn't miss this feature at all. This issue alone makes this smartphone a horrible choice. Camera  As I've been finding with most smartphone cameras, the 3.2 megapixel camera on the Sanyo Zio is good for taking pics in well lighted places, but anything in poor ambient light will come through too dark. Also, I find the shutter speeds on smartphones to often be too slow, which was the case with the Zio. So I would describe it as a nice to have feature, but it's not good enough to replace my point and shoot camera. Reception/Service I was very impressed with the service quality of the Sanyo Zio, both in terms of reception, voice quality, and data speeds. Although Sprint MVNOs don't roam on Sprint roaming partner networks, where I used the phone, I never had a reception issue. Data speeds were also just as good as any Sprint smartphone I've used. The only reason to ever use WiFi would be if you're in a very rural area where Sprint doesn't have native coverage, or if you think you may be at risk of going over your data allowance. Overall, I had no complaints about the voice service or data performance. Performance I found that the phone was not as zippy as it should be. As noted earlier, I found the screen to have responsiveness issues, which may very well have to do with a combination of screen attributes coupled with the phone's processor performance. Battery Life Unfortunately, I found the Sanyo Zio battery life to be extremely poor. It comes with an 1130mAh battery, but really should have shipped with a 1500mAh battery. Even when I put the smartphone in airplane overnight as a test, the battery would drain by the morning. Smartphone batteries are all generally poor, however, in comparison to the other smartphones I've used over the years, I found the Zio to be worse than average. Overall Conclusion I really really want to love this smartphone. I think the look and feel are fantastic, and the service is very good. However, with the responsiveness issues I experienced with the screen, the generally sluggish performance, and poor battery life, I was disappointed. For a prepaid smartphone, if it were priced at $49, I could see an average user who always has a charger with them to be quite satisfied with the Sanyo Zio; however, at $199, it really does miss the mark. To share your comments on this smartphone, please feel free to visit the Sanyo Zio Review page. To see how the Sanyo Zio compares to other prepaid smartphones, please feel free to visit the Smartphone Comparison page. To share your opinions about other smartphones, please visit the Smartphone Review page!
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