Virgin Mobile LG Optimus V

I just picked up one of these over the weekend, thought I'd share my thoughts on it.

It WAS available for $150, but they could not keep them in stock. The clerk at Walmart where I got mine, said that a new batch comes in every couple of weeks, and they were usually gone in a day or two. She had one left, only because someone stashed it away under the counter, saving it for a customer that never showed up to pick it up. Virgin Mobile raised the price up to $200.00 just the day before, and sure enough when she scanned it with her gun, it came up on the register as $199.00 plus tax.

I bought this because of the price of the monthly bill. The plans are based on talk time. $25 for 300 minutes, $40 for 1200, and $60 for unlimited. The great thing: all three plans have unlimited data and texts. I pay $100 minimum now to AT&T for 450 minutes plus data and texts, so I figure this will save me some money.

The phone itself. It does everything, as far as I can tell, as my daughter's iPhone can do. (My Angry Birds plays smoother than her 3GS.) The amount of apps in the Android market, especially free ones, is simply amazing. There is an app for just about anything you can think of. Battery life is awful, and it doesn't come with a car charger. It charges with a regular usb to micro usb cable, so you can find a car charger to use in the truck just about anywhere, or you can just plug it into a laptop at night if you have one. It comes with wifi, bluetooth, and GPS. The touch screen is fast and responsive. Typing on it is a chore though, not because of any fault of the phone, but because I have a huge finger and can't see the letters under it. I've found it's easier if I turn it sideways and use the landscape mode. It's also a decent GPS unit, there are several apps in the market, including Co-Pilot for trucking. Co-Pilot is expensive though, $149. Luckily, there are cheaper ones, even free ones, but I doubt as good.

Tethering. Tethering is against the terms of service. This phone is capable of becoming a hotspot, but the option is hidden, taken completely out of the setting menu. So far I've found two apps that toggle this feature on. Quick Settings and SuperBox. You can also use PDANet or EasyTether to tether with the usb cable. So, tethering is not hard to accomplish. At the moment, I also have their USB dongle, that I'm paying $40 a month for, I plan on keeping it a while and let others be the coal mine canaries and see how Virgin deals with the heavy tetherers. I don't see what the can do about them, since the phone is prepaid, other than shut their service off and block the ESN on the phone from being activated again. My guess is, if you keep it at a reasonable level. you should be fine.

So that's my take on this. If you want a great smart phone, reasonable cell bill, ($60 unlimited everything) with no contract, this phone is great. It uses the Sprint network, so if you frequent areas with spotty Sprint coverage, it's not for you. So far, I'm fairly impressed with mine. Just wish the battery life was a little better.