Taking a peek at the ZTE Prelude (pictures)

LAS VEGAS -- Currently priced at $49.99 and sold through Aio Wireless, the ZTE Prelude was showcased at this year's CTIA tech show in Las Vegas.

As an Aio handset, you'll get Aio-specific apps like My Aio, which lets you check your phone's usage info, and productivity apps like Kingsoft Office.

The left edge houses a volume rocker, while up top you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack and sleep/power button.

Measuring in at 4.6 inches tall, 2.4 inches wide, and 0.43 inch thick, the Prelude is small and compact, and weighs 4.4 ounces.

For such a basic smartphone, I was pleased to see that the Prelude ships with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. In addition, you'll get your standard family of Google apps like Chrome and YouTube.

The handset is powered by a 1GHz single-core processor and a 1,400mAh battery. Additional features include 512MB of RAM, 4GB of ROM, 32GB of expandable memory via a microSD card slot, and Bluetooth 3.0.

On the rear, you'll get a 2-megapixel camera (with no flash, unfortunately) that's capable of shooting VGA video, and below that are two slits for the audio speaker.

The handset also features a 3.5-inch TFT LCD display (with a 320x480-pixel resolution), and three hot keys below it for back, home, and menu.