Lg optimus v (virgin mobile)

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Bman123

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2008
3,221
1
81
Vm would be good for a family I think sure you eat the cost of the phone but put everyone on the $25 plan and call it a day
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,688
2,811
126
Vm would be good for a family I think sure you eat the cost of the phone but put everyone on the $25 plan and call it a day

Cost of the phone is not the problem. Most people on the big 4 carrier spend $200-300 per phone so VM would be cheaper for the phones. But the plan wouldnt necessary be all that cheaper for families since you can add a line for $10 and add $15 reduced data plan. Sure VM would be slightly cheaper but I dont know if the small savings outweigh the cons. It's great deal for individual plan but for families it may not be.
 

RavenSEAL

Diamond Member
Jan 4, 2010
8,661
3
0
Got mine yesterday, pretty sweet.

The best buy in my hood didn't have em in stock, and they wouldn't have any til next wednesday, so i just bought it at target for $135 with a friends employee discount.

Loving it so far :thumbsup:
 

jchu14

Senior member
Jul 5, 2001
613
0
0
Got mine yesterday. I really like this phone. Good to hear that overclocking made a difference in smoothness of the phone. I don't really get satisfaction from overclocking my desktop anymore because it's already so fast, maybe overclocking cell phone is the next step!
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,081
136
Cost of the phone is not the problem. Most people on the big 4 carrier spend $200-300 per phone so VM would be cheaper for the phones. But the plan wouldnt necessary be all that cheaper for families since you can add a line for $10 and add $15 reduced data plan. Sure VM would be slightly cheaper but I dont know if the small savings outweigh the cons. It's great deal for individual plan but for families it may not be.

It would automatically be cheaper cuz you're not locked in to a contract. Anyone decides they need something different they can just quit any time.
 

RavenSEAL

Diamond Member
Jan 4, 2010
8,661
3
0
I don't know about rooting it just yet, i'm happy with the performance. They phone works smoothly even with SEVERAL widgets running. Not having any problems running games. web browsing can get a bit choppy, but no bigie, i got an app for almost everything(thanks for not having a fantasy app for android ESPN, bastards) in my home screen.

3G is fast for the price($25 a month). Speed test is giving me 1.7mb/s up .8 mb/s down.
Call quality perfect so far, no dropped calls either(Looking at my friend over there across the street with verizon and his 5 dropped calls in 30 minutes lol)
No dropped or delayed text either.

I'm a happy camper! :awe:

(So glad i ditched MetroPCS, thank you jesus!)
 
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hanoverphist

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2006
9,867
23
76
i bought one last nite, gonna pick it up today at lunch. im hoping the sprint service here is good enough.
 

JACKHAMMER

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
2,870
0
76
Has anyone had data issues with theirs? Mine seems to lose the data connection, it just won't work despite a strong signal and 3g bars going like crazy. Connecting to wifi and then disconnecting fixes it, same with a reboot. A couple people mentioned this over on Fatwallet too. I am wondering if a new ROM wil fix the problem.
 

macwinlin

Senior member
Apr 11, 2002
523
0
76
Has anyone had data issues with theirs? Mine seems to lose the data connection, it just won't work despite a strong signal and 3g bars going like crazy. Connecting to wifi and then disconnecting fixes it, same with a reboot. A couple people mentioned this over on Fatwallet too. I am wondering if a new ROM wil fix the problem.

Same here.

I also see plenty of complaints on the VM USA Facebook page and Howard Forums.
 

Svnla

Lifer
Nov 10, 2003
17,986
1,388
126
Questions for OP and people that are using this LG Optimus V phone/Virgin Mobile.

1. How do you like the phone? Good, bad, ugly? Pro and Con.

2. How do you like Virgin Mobile? Good, bad, ugly? Pro and Con.

3. Do you have to pay junk fees and taxes on top of the $25 monthly fee or $25 is all you have to pay?

TIA.
 

jchu14

Senior member
Jul 5, 2001
613
0
0
Questions for OP and people that are using this LG Optimus V phone/Virgin Mobile.

1. How do you like the phone? Good, bad, ugly? Pro and Con.

2. How do you like Virgin Mobile? Good, bad, ugly? Pro and Con.

3. Do you have to pay junk fees and taxes on top of the $25 monthly fee or $25 is all you have to pay?

TIA.

1. I like this phone a lot. Though to be fair, it's my first smart phone. The phone at stock is pretty decent, but can still feel a bit laggy (not totally smooth transitions). With the adw launcher, a custom ROM, and overclock (600mhz stock, 806mhz o/c), it feels really really smooth now.

Phone call quality is good. I usually only get 1 to 2 bars in my apartment, and havent had any issues with static or dropped calls. Much better than my old at&t phone.

Web browsing is okay. The screen is a bit small and I feel the browsing experience is better on my ipod 4g.

Phone feels very solidly built. No problems at all.

Battery life is atrocious at stock settings (7-8% battery drain /hour while standing by). But with a couple of tweaks and using a battery saver app, only 1% battery drain/hr overnight now. I can use the phone moderately throughout the day and still have 50% battery left when I get home.

2) VM was pretty good in the activation process. Haven't had to deal this them otherwise. The CSR was curteous and got all the information necessary to port the number form AT&T. My old phone was disconnected in about 10 minutes and my new account was active on VM's website after an hour. I logged in the website, added money to account, and everything works.

3) There is some fee if you refill/auto renew on VM's website. For $25 plan, i think it was like $28 after tax/911 charge. However, you can buy top-off cards (instant delivery PIN) online for about $24. That includes everything.
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,562
9
81
Well, I finally broke down and bought an Optimus V. My old Nokia candy bar is getting pretty old in the tooth, and my usage has picked up quite a bit so TMobile prepaid doesn't make much sense anymore.

So far I really like the phone, no real complaints. I don't have anything to compare it with since it's my first smartphone, so I'm pretty well wowed by simple things like access to my Gmail+Calendar from a phone. As I'm start my own IT consulting company this things will come in seriously handy.

Battery life is pretty sad, but that sounds par for the course from smartphones in general. I like the size, sure a bigger screen might be nice for looking, but I think anything bigger would feel too large. I wish I would have jumped on it back when it was going on sale for $130 instead of the $200 it's going for now, but other than that I'm pretty pleased so far.
 

Jinny

Senior member
Feb 16, 2000
896
0
76
the phone itself is fantastic, infact so good i bought the sprint version.
i originally wanted to switch from sprint to virgin mobile but it turned out , vm was too unreliable for me. i sometimes lost the data connection for a few hours sometimes teh whole day. i got rid of it after 3 weeks of using the phone/service.
 

macwinlin

Senior member
Apr 11, 2002
523
0
76
Questions for OP and people that are using this LG Optimus V phone/Virgin Mobile.

1. How do you like the phone? Good, bad, ugly? Pro and Con.

2. How do you like Virgin Mobile? Good, bad, ugly? Pro and Con.

3. Do you have to pay junk fees and taxes on top of the $25 monthly fee or $25 is all you have to pay?

TIA.

I've had this phone since late February, and I had other Android phones before (Samsung Vibrant on T-Mobile, Samsung Epic 4G on Sprint, also currently have T-Mobile G2).

1. Good: For a low to middle-end phone, it's pretty good overall. The touchscreen is responsive, and any lag that appears isn't too bad. The fact that there's no UI overlay such as Samsung's Touchwiz or Motorola's Motoblur is good, which helps, IMO.

Bad: I've noticed is the size of the screen may make it hard to use the touchscreen keyboards to type, even in landscape mode. It doesn't have a lot of storage for plenty of apps, compared to many other phones.

2. Good: Virgin Mobile service is good, but I'm in the Los Angeles area where Sprint is good in my area. I don't have many problems making or receiving calls. I don't text a lot, but most texts are sent quickly and arrive to its recipient. Data (when it works) is good (800-1700 kbps down 600-800 kbps up).

Bad: No conditional call forwarding, which means if you use Google Voice, it won't work properly. And although it seems better now, but there were problems with data connectivity a month ago, requiring turning off and on the data setting. And I lost all 3G data connectivity this past Sunday (4/17).

Automated payments don't seem to work well, especially when using top-ups/cash balances. I had to call customers service and ask to "restart my plan month" even after I paid for my next month in advance. What I mean by that is I noticed a problem when I opened my web browser the day or the day after my plan should have started over, but I couldn't access any website other than the Virgin Mobile USA website (a known problem, but I guess they haven't or won't fix it). I had to call in to fix it so that I can access other sites.

It seems better when I use a credit card so that I don't have the hassle of having to constantly check, but I get charged taxes when I have it automatically billed (see #3 below).

Check the Virgin Mobile USA Howard Forums page or Facebook wall to see more details about the problems.

3. When I allowed my credit card to be charged monthly, taxes were charged. So, instead of $25, I paid $27.44. However, since I switched to cash to top-up (added at a automated kiosk in one of the corporate Sprint stores), I wasn't charged anything extra - nothing for taxes or fees.

My opinion for anybody curious about the phone & service is to buy a phone at Best Buy or other store where you can return it, and try it for a few weeks to make sure service works for your areas. Check not only the voice, but the texting, and especially the data connection.