Anybody tried Virgin Mobile?

I'm tempted by Virgin Mobile's bundle as well. Does anyone know how they compare to Verizon?

I've been tempted by mobile virgins...Married though.

I dunno about the phone side of it, but the VM 3G internet side is much better than AT&T, who I would drop in a minute if I could figure out how to get this land line changed.

I thought Craigslist banned that type of service.

I can't help with the cell service though. I use T-Mobile.

IIRC, Virgin Mobile is owned by Sprint, or at least shares their towers. From something I read a while back, Sprint is planning on switching fully to 4G and leaving 3G for Virgin and Boost to use.

Sprint owns Boost and Leases to Virgin.

several yrs ago I had Virgin... coverage was very spotty... didn't work at my brothers house deep in WNC.. didn't work at VIR or CMP... YMMV

use Net-10 now .. much happier

In reply to FlightService:

Thanks. I knew Sprint owned Boost, but I wasn't sure about virgin.

Check the coverage maps. Around here Virgin is pretty much city bound.

i had them at one time... they where OK for a pizza delivery... but that was also 5 or 6 years ago... back in the day of bar phones that still had antennas on em... and a monochrome screen with back lit screen .. but looking at coverage it's pretty spotty in my area... will have to find somone with similar stuff when i need a phone.

MrJoshua wrote: Check the coverage maps.

This is the best advice and should serve as step #1
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/check-cell-phone-coverage
Better in some areas more so than others.

FlightService wrote: Sprint owns Boost and Leases to Virgin.

This was true until last year when Sprint took 100% ownership of Virgin Mobile's USA operations. VM in Canada and elsewhere is not owned by Sprint and is not compatable. Boost and VM owned by Sprint.

The $25 offer is geared at the user who is heavy on the thumbs but light on the talk. For $25 you get unlimited text, picture text, web, email, picture mail, facebook, twitter, etc. and 300 minutes of talk (about 10 minutes a day.) Extra talk is 10 cents per min. This offer is huge with the younger crowd who communicate with their thumbs first and formost, rarely do they call.
Need more, $40 gets the same but 1200 minutes of talk; $60 get unlimited talk.
The hottest phone right now is the full Android.
You can even do this all on a Blackberry but that costs $10 more (so Blackberry can get paid) totaling $35, $50 or $70.
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-plans.jsp

If you talk more than text, try this offer $30 = 1500 minutes, 500 text, 10MB of data. http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/paylo-plans.jsp

Again, these are value offers. Much of that value comes from the fact that the phones will only make calls on towers owned by Sprint. The contract customers of Sprint pay more per month but for what they buy they are then allowed to make and recieve calls on other companies towers as well (roaming.) This roaming does not cost the comsumer more money but Sprint does pay that other company - because of this they have to charge a bit more.

Dr. Hess wrote: I dunno about the phone side of it, but the VM 3G internet side is much better than AT&T

This unlimited broadband for $40 is hard to beat.
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/mobile-broadband/broadband2go.html

Thanks for allowing me to place this commecrial (yeah, I work for Sprint) and with that said, you buy the handset (which has a 30 day return policy) and I will pay (credit) the first month's service so that you can try it out with no risk. Send me a PM.

jrw1621 wrote: Thanks for allowing me to place this commercial

Was it coincidental that there's a picture of a canoe in your post?

I use one of their prepaid phones - I don't talk on it too much, so it works out to $10 to $15 per month, and I just use the phone for talking. Sure, it would be nice to get a smartphone to play Angry Birds on, but I can't justify the big step up in phone bills. And my cell phones tend to die grizzly deaths - I'm worried a $400 smartphone would be trashed within a year if I had one.

For some reason, my phone has issues with data service, but it can't really do anything with it anyway (they also offer some slightly less basic phones than mine). And I like having the option to just toss the phone in a Dumpster if their customer service ever pulls something like some of the stunts the regular Spring customer disservice department did when I had a phone with their regular division.

I have Virgin- no problems. I am prepaid also, prefer it, don't use the cell as primary phone, just back up and when driving, so my usage is pretty low.

I wasn't aware of the unlimited text and data/web deal. Right now I am paying $56/month for just 450 minutes a month and unlimited texting to other Verizon phones, no web/data/email, etc.

Does the unlimited texting work for messages sent/recieved to any providers or just Virgin/Sprint?

I may have to cancel my Verizon contract and pick up one of those Android phones.

Also, I only use about 100 minutes talking a month so that isn't really an issue. I text much more but that isn't even that much. Not nearly enough to justify what I am spending for service currently.

I got a Blackberry at work earlier this year. Before that I had, and the rest of my family continues to have, Virgin pre-pay. I never use my phone, so I was able to keep the thing alive for about $6 a month. Can't beat that. The wife and kids use theirs more, but mostly text. Still really, really inexpensive. Always worked fine for us.

EvanB wrote: I wasn't aware of the unlimited text and data/web deal. Right now I am paying $56/month for just 450 minutes a month and unlimited texting to other Verizon phones, no web/data/email, etc. Does the unlimited texting work for messages sent/recieved to any providers or just Virgin/Sprint?

Yes, $25 gets you unlimited inbound and outbound text messaging to any US phone numbers at no additional charge, not just Virgin/Sprint.
The current VM ad campaign is "Don't be stupid. Go crazy!"
This is geared at pointing out that most of the companies do no trailor their plans for the way that people are currently using their phone. In most cases to get the big web and text packages you have to add that onto a huge calling package that the user is not really interested in. The net is that if you want to use a lot of web you end up paying typically a minimum of $60 per month. To get unlimited web and text is typically $100 per month - in the cell phone contract world.

Here is a link to that long version of the current commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDCFQu4EHLQ&feature=player_embedded
A few things to watch for in the commercial...
The priest is none other than Rob Halford of Judas Priest.
The girl in the tub is Sasha Grey - you can google that one yourself. It seems that she enjoys the phone.
These commercials are directed by the same guy who did Lady Gaga's videos.

Virgin-mobile makes me think of Pedo-van.

I use Virgin Mobile as a backup phone.

No contracts, no home addresses, telephone in any area code you want, decent selection of phones, 2 smartphone options.

the only downside is you own that phone, and you pay full price for it. That doesnt bother me in the least.

Another update, I have been using VM for the past month and couple weeks. It does more than I got from Verizon at over half the price. I am very happy with it.

I got the Samsung Intercept & the turn by turn directions / nav is great ! I ditched my landline (actually carried my number over to VM) years ago. I am very happy with it !

My wife and I use the roaming coverage enough to go for a contract. If we could get away with only ever having to make calls in town, we'd go pre-pay with the phones we currently have (of course, unlocked to another carrier).

I do find it somewhat annoying that I don't get to take advantage of the 4G coverage I pay for (Sprint) when I'm at home. At least we are able to fully take advantage of it in Orlando, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville.