This is my month-long trial of Virgin Mobile cell service and the LG Optimus V smart phone. Both these subjects are equally important, so here's a little background information. I'm currently with Verizon. I've been with them since they bought Alltel. My wife and I both use an LG Versa. It's a multimedia phone that doesn't require a data plan. I like this phone a lot. It's fast, has great reception and call quality, and has a really intuitive and snappy interface. The Verizon service is also top-notch. I get service just about everywhere I go and haven't had many dropped calls in the last few years. Speaking of where I go, my service needs to cover Ouachita, Richland, and Franklin parishes.
While the phone and service are good, I don't make use of this phone's "smart" features because I don't pay Verizon for a data plan. That's $30 per line (no sharing!), half of what I pay for cable internet at home. Sorry... not gonna happen. I have access to computers and the internet most of the places I spend time, so it's not a big deal.
So the plan we share now is about $91 and gives us 1250 anytime minutes, 1000 texts, free mobile-to-mobile calls and texts, free nights and weekends, but no data. Data is $2/megabyte pay-as-you-go.
The Virgin Mobile plan, which runs on the Sprint 3g network, is $25 for 300 minutes, unlimited text, and unlimited data. A little skimpy on the minutes, but that's more like it! They also have a $40 plan that increases minutes to 1200, but I'm trying the lower priced one. Those minutes aren't just anytime, they're all the time, because Virgin doesn't give free nights and weekends or free mobile-to-mobile calls/texts. But with the option of making calls with voip apps that use wifi or 3g and not your 300 minutes, it seems like the way to go.
The blog will focus on how these services actually fare in real usage scenarios.
