zerocool84
Lifer
Sprint's pathetic footprint? The only carrier with more coverage is Verizon.
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Samsung Intercept on Virgin Mobile: $25/mo????
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Sprint's pathetic footprint? The only carrier with more coverage is Verizon.
Pliablemoose
Lifer
Yeah, it's no Verizon, but it'll work for me.
Also added tethering 🙂 Can't find what Virgin caps at though....
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
Err... try again. Hell, T-Mo has a larger coverage area than Sprint does.
Keep in mind, I'm talking about Sprint NATIVE coverage, not partner coverage. VM is limited to Sprint's towers only. So basically metro areas and along major highways mostly on the east coast.
All four of us in my family are on that Virgin Mobile plan (2 with the Kyocera X-TC and 2 with the LG Rumor Touch)... And I am actively looking to change to a better carrier.
Their payment plan is horrible... You keep money in your "account" with them, and once a month they pull from that acct to pay for your service. And then when your account drop below a set amount, it pulls from your CC/Debit. Well, it's supposed to. We haven't had a month go by yet, where we didn't lose service on at least one of the phones, and I had to go into my account and manually "Top Up".
The voice service is just fine, I haven't had any issues with that.
The texting is completely hit and miss. Sometimes texts go through without a delay, sometimes there are hours in between, and sometimes they just disappear.
Other than the Facebook app, the web service is completely useless. Frustratingly slow, incredibly rudimentary, and just totally pointless.
And while I realize that none of these experiences are with their new Droid offering... No way would I even consider shelling out the money up front for a phone on the Virgin system.
Their payment plan is horrible... You keep money in your "account" with them, and once a month they pull from that acct to pay for your service. And then when your account drop below a set amount, it pulls from your CC/Debit. Well, it's supposed to. We haven't had a month go by yet, where we didn't lose service on at least one of the phones, and I had to go into my account and manually "Top Up".
The voice service is just fine, I haven't had any issues with that.
The texting is completely hit and miss. Sometimes texts go through without a delay, sometimes there are hours in between, and sometimes they just disappear.
Other than the Facebook app, the web service is completely useless. Frustratingly slow, incredibly rudimentary, and just totally pointless.
And while I realize that none of these experiences are with their new Droid offering... No way would I even consider shelling out the money up front for a phone on the Virgin system.
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Pliablemoose
Lifer
I have a friend with the LG Rumor, it's pretty bad, just a feature phone with WAP and Sprint (Virgin) modded it to have even less features...
The Samsung Intercept is certainly no killer device, but it's pretty good for $25/month.
The Samsung Intercept is certainly no killer device, but it's pretty good for $25/month.
Show some proof.. Every 3g coverage map I've ever seen Sprint has the 2nd best native 3g coverage, only Verizon is better. Sprint is much better than ATT, T Mobile 3g is way way behind.
http://www.cellularmaps.com/3g_compare.shtml
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
I don't give a shit about 3g coverage when I'm talking about Virgin Mobile... I'm talking plain coverage, voice, plain and simple. Virgin Mobile ONLY runs on Sprint towers. If there's no Sprint tower, you have no service... plain and simple. Virgin Mobile does NOT roam on Sprint's partner (Verizon) coverage. In terms of plain voice coverage, T-Mo has better coverage than Virgin Mobile. In terms of DATA coverage (note, DATA, not 3g, plain data... whether it's GPRS or 3g), T-Mo has BETTER coverage than Virgin Mobile.
Yeah, if you want native 3g coverage, I'll give you that. But you have to realize the caveats.
maniac5999
Senior member
I've gotten the phone, and overall service has been ok (I'm in North Jersey and frequently go into NYC) I've had data coverage virtually everywhere I checked (coverage is spotty right in the middle of my steel and concrete office building) and have had voice coverage that's been just fine except for one time when I had a call drop 4 times from a friend while trying to figure out what we were going to do friday night. Oddly this was in my apartment, and normally I get good data and voice signal there. (another call placed the next day to my parents, who use verizon sounded just fine) Maybe they were doing maintanaince on my local cell, who knows <shrug>
I'm likely not going to be able to really test the coverage any further until I go to DC the weekend after next, at which point I'll post an update about coverage. I'm also going to see about typing up a review on the phone if I get the chance. (my 16GB SD card should be arriving today, so I can put more stuff on it.)
I'm likely not going to be able to really test the coverage any further until I go to DC the weekend after next, at which point I'll post an update about coverage. I'm also going to see about typing up a review on the phone if I get the chance. (my 16GB SD card should be arriving today, so I can put more stuff on it.)
Thanks for the thread. I'm not looking for this specific deal, but because I read this, I went to VM's site and saw that they had $40/mo unlimited mobile data. I have a Mifi right now with Sprint @ $60/mo, but I'm within my first 30 days so I'll be canceling for this one. Yeah, I have to buy the device, but that's fine, it'll pay for itself in under a year.
For $20/mo, I can deal with not having a consolidated bill.
For $20/mo, I can deal with not having a consolidated bill.
I'll break the suspense for you. Most of the DC area has great Sprint 3G coverage. The only place it sucks is in the middle of my bunker of an office building.
I rarely roam onto Verizon, usually only in underground areas.
maniac5999
Senior member
Just a little something I worked up in my down time at work today:
Samsung Intercept Review (Virgin Mobile)
Let me start by giving you my background. I’m a cheapskate. I’ve been on a Verizon family plan with my parents (and grandmother) for the last half-decade plus, and have never had a smartphone before. I’ve played around briefly with all of the different generations of iPhones, and a couple different Android devices. I suspect that I’m pretty typical of the average purchaser of this phone.
The Intercept is pretty much the bottom of the barrel performance-wise when it comes to Android phones. It’s got an ARM v11 running at 800mhz, and it lacks a dedicated GPU, instead using software to handle video. Just flipping through menus back to back on both this and a Droid 2, you can notice that there is a few millisecond delay between making the request and the phone responding to it. The delay isn’t a deal-breaker, but can be a bit of an annoyance if you’re coming from a high end device. Figure that given the architectural differences between the v11 and A8, it’s probably about as fast as the original Droid.
The body of the Intercept is actually quite nice. It’s relatively compact, if a little on the thick side. (4.4” X 2.2” X 0.6”😉 and is comfortable to hold up to your head for phone calls. It’s a slider phone, and the slide action feels solid and firm, and the keys make a reassuring click when pressed. It’s good that the keypad works well, because the small size and low resolution of the screen make the on-screen keyboard very tough to use. It’s seriously bad. The contrast seems OK, and the screen gets quite bright, but when push comes to shove it’s still just a 3.0” 240x400 display. The resolution is just too low for even a screen this small. When watching movies there’s a noticeable screen door effect, and even when reading text, you need to zoom in slightly more than you otherwise would.
Gaming on the intercept is basically limited to 2D titles. The lack of a GPU means that any game even slightly graphically intensive is going to stutter, people have even reported stuttering in relatively lightweight games like tower defense. Even worse is that the non-standard resolution means that some of the games that otherwise would play just plain aren’t compatible with the phone. (Angry Birds, I’m looking at you)
That being said, there are still a lot of games that DO work on the phone, Labyrinth 3D works fine, as does Winds of Steel. People have also reported that NESoid (NES Emulator) runs just fine, as do many others.
One area where the Intercept really shines however is battery life. With light to medium usage, the screen set to stock 45% or so (plenty bright for most uses) GPS on all the time, and wi-fi on when using it in my apartment, the phone still managed to last three days, compared to virtually any other smartphone this is excellent. My friend with the Droid 2 reports that if he doesn’t charge his every night it dies on him, as have friends with older iPhones. (I didn’t ask the friends with the 4G about battery life)
Overall, compared to other Android phones, I’ll give the phone a solid C+. Performance is mediocre, the screen resolution sucks, and it has some compatibility issues due to the lack of a GPU and the resolution. It is however pleasantly small to carry, and the battery life is good enough that you can almost go away for a weekend and leave the charger at home. It’s not a great phone by any means, but it’s an OK Android phone, and that makes it better than any Non Android or iOS phone on the market. (I’m not a fan of blackberries)
PROS
-Battery Life
-Size
CONS
-Mediocre Performance
-Small Screen/Odd Resolution
Samsung Intercept Review (Virgin Mobile)
Let me start by giving you my background. I’m a cheapskate. I’ve been on a Verizon family plan with my parents (and grandmother) for the last half-decade plus, and have never had a smartphone before. I’ve played around briefly with all of the different generations of iPhones, and a couple different Android devices. I suspect that I’m pretty typical of the average purchaser of this phone.
The Intercept is pretty much the bottom of the barrel performance-wise when it comes to Android phones. It’s got an ARM v11 running at 800mhz, and it lacks a dedicated GPU, instead using software to handle video. Just flipping through menus back to back on both this and a Droid 2, you can notice that there is a few millisecond delay between making the request and the phone responding to it. The delay isn’t a deal-breaker, but can be a bit of an annoyance if you’re coming from a high end device. Figure that given the architectural differences between the v11 and A8, it’s probably about as fast as the original Droid.
The body of the Intercept is actually quite nice. It’s relatively compact, if a little on the thick side. (4.4” X 2.2” X 0.6”😉 and is comfortable to hold up to your head for phone calls. It’s a slider phone, and the slide action feels solid and firm, and the keys make a reassuring click when pressed. It’s good that the keypad works well, because the small size and low resolution of the screen make the on-screen keyboard very tough to use. It’s seriously bad. The contrast seems OK, and the screen gets quite bright, but when push comes to shove it’s still just a 3.0” 240x400 display. The resolution is just too low for even a screen this small. When watching movies there’s a noticeable screen door effect, and even when reading text, you need to zoom in slightly more than you otherwise would.
Gaming on the intercept is basically limited to 2D titles. The lack of a GPU means that any game even slightly graphically intensive is going to stutter, people have even reported stuttering in relatively lightweight games like tower defense. Even worse is that the non-standard resolution means that some of the games that otherwise would play just plain aren’t compatible with the phone. (Angry Birds, I’m looking at you)
That being said, there are still a lot of games that DO work on the phone, Labyrinth 3D works fine, as does Winds of Steel. People have also reported that NESoid (NES Emulator) runs just fine, as do many others.
One area where the Intercept really shines however is battery life. With light to medium usage, the screen set to stock 45% or so (plenty bright for most uses) GPS on all the time, and wi-fi on when using it in my apartment, the phone still managed to last three days, compared to virtually any other smartphone this is excellent. My friend with the Droid 2 reports that if he doesn’t charge his every night it dies on him, as have friends with older iPhones. (I didn’t ask the friends with the 4G about battery life)
Overall, compared to other Android phones, I’ll give the phone a solid C+. Performance is mediocre, the screen resolution sucks, and it has some compatibility issues due to the lack of a GPU and the resolution. It is however pleasantly small to carry, and the battery life is good enough that you can almost go away for a weekend and leave the charger at home. It’s not a great phone by any means, but it’s an OK Android phone, and that makes it better than any Non Android or iOS phone on the market. (I’m not a fan of blackberries)
PROS
-Battery Life
-Size
CONS
-Mediocre Performance
-Small Screen/Odd Resolution
ESN has to be in their system, so they have to sell you a branded device. I'd gladly give up 4G on my Evo for their $25 plan, but it's not possible 🙂
Pliablemoose
Lifer
Only virgin branded stuff unfortunately...
I'm sitting here thinking what I use my Evo for, and honestly, NES games are all I really play. Everything else requires virtually no CPU power.
Really considering going for the Intercept and cutting my monthly cell phone bill by $50/mo.
Time to check ebay and see if selling my lightly used Evo would cover the ETF.
Really considering going for the Intercept and cutting my monthly cell phone bill by $50/mo.
Time to check ebay and see if selling my lightly used Evo would cover the ETF.
Pliablemoose
Lifer
It's pretty laggy till you mod it, and then, it's just "acceptable"
A year from now it'll be pretty slow...
Of course, they'll likely have a faster handset by then too...
But, it's enough for me, all I really want is Google's cloud services...
A year from now it'll be pretty slow...
Of course, they'll likely have a faster handset by then too...
But, it's enough for me, all I really want is Google's cloud services...
I will check XDA for more info, but has it been rooted? Has anyone ported Froyo to it? If that's the case, it should be a decent phone. Especially if it's possible to overclock w/ a custom kernel.
The thing I love about my Evo, though, is the large screen. It'd be hard to give that up, but.... $50/mo in savings? Shit.
maniac5999
Senior member
It seems that it's becoming a lot more popular to hack since Virgin picked it up. It's been rooted. People have figured out how to wirelessly tether and enable JIT on it, but AFAIK there isn't any FroYo for it. (YET, sprint has stated they will support FroYo on their Intercepts, Virgin will likely do the same, even if they don't it'll be real easy to reverse engineer.) Also, unfortunately, there's no ROM yet, you need to get into the nitty-gritty to enable everything. (personally I'm waiting for everything in a nice easy to use ROM before digging into my new phone.)
What is your source that Tmobile has better voice coverage than Virgin Mobile ?
Pliablemoose
Lifer
Considering a $200 subsidized phone costs about $2K (phone + contract/service) over a 2 year contract, $850 for this phone is a steal.
It's obviously an entry level Android phone, but if enough people switch to plans/phones like this, it'll force the major carriers to reduce their prices...
Virgin is making money on this offering, the major carriers are bending us over with no lube for our cell phones and service...
AstroManLuca
Lifer
Pliablemoose
Lifer
$250 (phone) $600 (service for 24 months)
Throckmorton
Lifer
Wait... so it's really $25?? If so, I think I need this. That's what I pay monthly for my Clear 4G access point.
Is tethering possible?
Is tethering possible?
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