Virgin Mobile - LG Optimus Elite No-Contract Cell Phone - Black

First off, Virgin Mobile runs off of Sprint so make sure to check their coverage maps. If you're in a big city, chances are Sprint has you covered with 3G well. In more rural areas, coverage gets iffy. I've had Virgin Mobile as a spare business line for a couple years now and I really like them. The monthly service plans are attractively priced - who can beat $35/mo for 300 minutes, plus unlmited messaging and data? The plan is perfect for teenagers and young adults who text and surf the web more than they talk. No expensive overages for using too much data which is a relief. The phone itself is a bargain for the price. It has Adobe Flash on it (a lot of low end phones lack this), a 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and flash, and enough horsepower to run apps just fine. I stream Netflix and TuneIn internet radio on it all the time and it has been flawless. Battery life is the same as any Android smartphone - dismal if you use it non stop, but it's more than enough to get you through the school or work day without a problem. Call quality is great. I really think this is one of those "no brainer" type of deals. This is the perfect price point to get into the smartphone world. Perfect price for kids too just in case they lose or break it. An iPhone can top $600 without a contract on one of the big name carriers if the phone is lost or broken before the 2yr contract is up; this phone costs about a hundred bucks. Easy decision for me!

I own a Samsung galaxy s2. I was looking for a second phone for personal reasons. This one was on sale so I gave it a shot. I used it for a week then I had to return it. Overall the phone felt sturdy and navigating the screen was fine. It was giving you what was advertised. Here are some of the issues I had with the phone. When connected via usb the phone would go into screen timeout but still be slightly visible albeit very dim. I tried adjusting the settings and it is what it is. Also one time I tried connecting it to my pc via usb and it wouldn’t work. Initially I thought it was my pc or a bad cable but when I used the usb cable it came with it worked. Go figure. Is it a prioritized thing? Not sure what to make of it. I even did it twice just to see if I was tripping. People might say oh it you but that was weird. Also while navigating the screen was fine the interface seemed old and clunky especially the phone. When I would look at the call log the phone had me thinking I was randomly calling people. I saw outgoing calls at 1:00am and I had to call people the next day apologizing not sure if I had called or not. Even though I had numbers in my contacts when dialing matches would come up. This was very annoying. My phone had screen lock and a pin code blue tooth turned off so I am like how is this phone dialing out? It got to the point where I said hey it has to go back. I returned it and spent more money and picked up the evo 4g that was just released and I will say that it is definitely what I was looking for. Even though it isn’t the gs2 the Ice cream interface gives it a serious run in my book. Another issue both phones is the coverage area. I live in Md near Dc and I should have more than 1 or 2 bars at my house. I am not bad mouthing the phone. At that price point I so wanted it to work. It just had some very annoying features. It could have been my phone but I said to myself since it is new I will write a review of my findings. One of the questions asked would I recommend this to a friend? I would if they never owned a smartphone. If they already owned one Iwould tell them to keep looking.

If I hadn't googled the words "memory" and Optimus Elite, I would NEVER have known how to use the memory card. It's not in the user manual, I had to find it on a Sprint website. The back of the phone is hard to get off, which can be good, but if you want change out your memory card, it's kind of a pain in the butt. Overall, the phone is nice, I had the Optimus V, I liked it very much, but my daughter lost her phone, so I gave her mine, rather than buy her a brand new phone that she could lose again. The Elite is a bit lighter than the V. Screen is just big enough to seem bigger than the V, meaning, 3.2 inches doesn't sound that much smaller than 3.5, but it's a nice bump in size without carrying around something tablet like. I like Virgin Mobile, have had it for a couple of years, it was nice when I was only paying 25.00 a month, but now even 35.00 a month is a deal for me since I don't actually use many minutes a month, this is the plan and phone for me. I also like that you can get rid of most of the apps that come pre-installed on the phone, didn't have that option on the V.

I bought one from best buy mobile, and two weeks later I had to replace it with a new one. I got a new Elite bc the old one randomly made calls from my kitchen counter, and would freeze on the call screen so I could not answer or hang up the call. Also, it shut itself off and started up about 25 times bright and early in the morning and would get to the annoying Virgin mobile screen/song and then do it all over again. My second phone randomly freezes and doesn't always connect to the internet, even when I am in an area where I have signal. Sprint's network also isn't the best; I've dropped several calls on several different occasions. I will lose all of my bars, then five seconds later, get them all back again. Not a result of a bad phone, but still... So far, I've had this phone for a month and at least once a day I have to pull the battery off to reset it in order for it to work right for a few hours. So far I haven't been able to send any text messages out; it keeps giving me an error code, regardless of what I do. My settings are where they're supposed to be, everything is connected, but this phone is just garbage. I text frequently and it seems the phone cannot handle it. I prefer texting over calling. When I text, the first word always seems to take forever to show up, and the phone always glitches and either puts in random letters that I did not type, or it duplicates the word I just attempted to put in and is extremely slow. The fb app barely works bc I don't have a strong enough connection for it to work, supposedly. I can be in an area with 3g and full bars, and yet I don't have a strong enough connection. Definitely getting a different phone ASAP!

So Ive been with virgin mobile for a couple years and have never really had a good phone with them. Most of their phones are cheap and typically will break within a month. However this is the first phone I can say that has been , Carrier Quality. Touch screen doesnt seem cheap. Speaker is pretty decent. Battery life is not really that bad. Ive watched netflix using 3G and on wifi and it plays pretty decently when I have reception for 3G. I have a 32g card in it for my music and apps. Phone quality is pretty clear. Im really impressed by this phone and the quality that virgin mobile has been bringing to the company. HTC EVO V is probably a better buy in terms of hardware and software but this phone has been pretty awesome without having to throw down 300$. I know even the iPhone has come out for Virgin Mobile in the US. Still though this phone is cheap, has good quality and its not expensive ether. Get the warranty with Best Buy to be safe, these phones are typically cheap and Best Buy will help you get a new phone without charging you loads of money.

My 61 apps use 188 MB of "internal storage" and there is 701 MB free for a total of 889 MB, which is great. In addition, there is an "internal memory" (same as a built-in SD card) of 1.9 GB. Only 10 of my 61 apps can be stored in internal memory, which is an Android/Google peculiarity, but any other files can easily be placed in the internal memory. RAM for running apps is currently 121 MB used and 171 MB free for a total of 292 MB, which is adequate. There are several apps which will stop or kill unneeded running apps (google likes to keep several of its apps running in the background). A few other peculiarities: no auto brightness control for the display. I downloaded a widget from the Play Store which works fairly well. And there is no way to manually set the date and time. I was in an area with no wireless connection and the phone set itself to January, 1980, and I could not change that. Finally, I was able to use wifi in a local store and the time and date corrected themselves. As there was still no cell phone connection, I set the device to airplane mode and it kept the correct date and time.

This is a nice upgrade, as another reviewer pointed out, from the Optimus V. In terms of connectivity (cell signal, data connection, GPS), this phone seems to work as well as the Optimus V. The big advantage is that it has almost 1 GB of main memory free for apps. One difference is that this phone does not come with a microSD card, though it does have a slot for a card. Instead, there is approximately 2 GB of memory internally that is included as added storage that you can treat as if it were an SD card (such as for moving apps out of main memory). If you install a microSD card, you can then use that space as additional storage, available for pictures, music, or other files. One last note, while the specs say the processor is 800 MHz, Quadrant identifies the processor as running at 1Ghz. This is what my phone shows, and others are reporting that is what their phone shows as well.

I have been looking for a starter smartphone for my 11-year old daughter. Something that has unlimited data and messages without breaking the bank. A prepaid service is the way to go. I used to subscribe with Virgin Mobile long ago when I used to live in Palm Coast, FL. The signal was horrible, and so it took me a lot of thinking until I decided to get this phone yesteday, a Black Friday, at Best Buy Daytona Beach for about 100 bucks including the first month service plan and the extended warranty. Boy, I never regret getting it. It serves it purpose and the signal is good in Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach, where I live now. My daughter is so ecstatic. The only downside that I see is the battery life. Well, it is probably because my daughter is running a bunch of apps at the same time. Also, the length of the charger cord is short. I may have to buy an extension. So far, so good!