When I first heard about Virgin Mobile and their phenomenal talk, text, data package, I was intrigued. Then when I went to their website and found that they offer an Android phone, I was super physched!! I ordered it and waited impatiently.
When it arrived I opened it and carefully took it out. I charged it up. When I tried to activate it, I had trouble, so I called customer support. They seemed to be helpful & got my account set up. I thought my phone had been activated, and they said I should get a text message in an hour or so. Well, the hour came and went. Didn't get it. I should stop here and explain that I apparently get poor Virgin(Sprint) coverage at my house. Thus, I will review both the network and the phone semi separately.
As for the network first, I got 1-2 bars outside my house, and usually none inside. Keep in mind, I live in the city, not the country. I even drove around with the phone to try and get good coverage so I could activate the phone. I drove on a 2 mile stretch of road and got absolutely no coverage! Come on sprint. I found a 5 bar area and tried activating the phone again, but it failed. So as for the Virgin Coverage review, they get a failing grade.
Now, network aside, since that didn't work, let's talk about the phone itself. It runs Android 2.1 OS. It has both a slider keyboard and onscreen keyboard, both vertical and landscape mode. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is common now, but still greatly appreciated. It comes with a 2GB micro SD card, but you can of course ad a bigger one. I am a huge user of google, especially google voice. Unfortunately I was unable to try the android integration between the phones phone and google voice.
The app store didn't seem quite as good as the iPhone app store, but I didn't do an extensive search. I did download about 15 apps I use on my iPhone. I did like being able to get free ring tone apps and download them directly to the android phone.
The mp3 player was very acceptable, the best I’ve seen on a cell phone. It's not as good as the iPhone, but the iPhone is built around an iPod and more readily designed for such use. The android does do album artwork and have repeat/shuffle options. I didn't find that it allows for changing songs without unlocking it like the iPhone, so it is a bit slower and more inconvenient, you have to slide to unlock the phone and then change your song.
The whole system was slow and sluggish. This is probably the phones fault and not Androids. This phone is an entry level phone and isn't as fast as others.
The screen resolution is low and I found it to be grainy especially when reading text. When viewing photos or videos its slightly blurry.
The screen is a bit small, especially if you plan to view documents on it frequently.
This phone has been available to sprint customers so there are already lots of accessories for this phone which is a huge plus.
Buy it if:
You have good sprint coverage in your area, and if you can handle the phones sluggishness.
Don't buy it if:
You need a fast phone and cant wait for things to load.
When it arrived I opened it and carefully took it out. I charged it up. When I tried to activate it, I had trouble, so I called customer support. They seemed to be helpful & got my account set up. I thought my phone had been activated, and they said I should get a text message in an hour or so. Well, the hour came and went. Didn't get it. I should stop here and explain that I apparently get poor Virgin(Sprint) coverage at my house. Thus, I will review both the network and the phone semi separately.
As for the network first, I got 1-2 bars outside my house, and usually none inside. Keep in mind, I live in the city, not the country. I even drove around with the phone to try and get good coverage so I could activate the phone. I drove on a 2 mile stretch of road and got absolutely no coverage! Come on sprint. I found a 5 bar area and tried activating the phone again, but it failed. So as for the Virgin Coverage review, they get a failing grade.
Now, network aside, since that didn't work, let's talk about the phone itself. It runs Android 2.1 OS. It has both a slider keyboard and onscreen keyboard, both vertical and landscape mode. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is common now, but still greatly appreciated. It comes with a 2GB micro SD card, but you can of course ad a bigger one. I am a huge user of google, especially google voice. Unfortunately I was unable to try the android integration between the phones phone and google voice.
The app store didn't seem quite as good as the iPhone app store, but I didn't do an extensive search. I did download about 15 apps I use on my iPhone. I did like being able to get free ring tone apps and download them directly to the android phone.
The mp3 player was very acceptable, the best I’ve seen on a cell phone. It's not as good as the iPhone, but the iPhone is built around an iPod and more readily designed for such use. The android does do album artwork and have repeat/shuffle options. I didn't find that it allows for changing songs without unlocking it like the iPhone, so it is a bit slower and more inconvenient, you have to slide to unlock the phone and then change your song.
The whole system was slow and sluggish. This is probably the phones fault and not Androids. This phone is an entry level phone and isn't as fast as others.
The screen resolution is low and I found it to be grainy especially when reading text. When viewing photos or videos its slightly blurry.
The screen is a bit small, especially if you plan to view documents on it frequently.
This phone has been available to sprint customers so there are already lots of accessories for this phone which is a huge plus.
Buy it if:
You have good sprint coverage in your area, and if you can handle the phones sluggishness.
Don't buy it if:
You need a fast phone and cant wait for things to load.
Buy it here
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