Pages

Sunday, June 19, 2011

LG Optimus Prepaid Android Phone (Virgin Mobile)

LG Optimus Prepaid Android Phone (Virgin Mobile)


Price:$234.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Digitech Toys

Average customer review:  

Product Description

Upgrade to Android 2.2 on this 3G & Wi-Fi capable smartphone. Navigate on a 3.2" touchscreen with a virtual QWERTY keyboard and Swype® text entry. Check in with GmailTM, Twitter®, and YouTubeTM. Download apps from Android MarketTM. And get your personal and corporate email on the go.


Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #235 in Cell Phone Accessories
  • Color: Black
  • Brand: LG
  • Model: Rumor 2
  • Released on: 2009-12-09
  • Dimensions: .90" h x 1.90" w x 3.50" l, .17 pounds

Features

  • Android 2.2 Operating System
  • Fast 3G connectivity
  • Onscreen keyboard with Swype input
  • Bluetooth connectivity (version 2.1)
  • What's in the Box: LG Optimus handset, rechargeable battery, charger, 2 GB microSD memory card, quick start guide, user manual


Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Product Description 
Do more on Android with this 3G and Wi-Fi capable prepaid smartphone. Navigate on a 3.2" touchscreen with a virtual QWERTY keyboard and Swype text entry. Photos and web pages look fantastic on a bright, 3.2-inch QVGA display, and multitasking is a snap on the 600mHz processor. Make calls, send messages, play music, and more hands-free using Google Voice Actions. Stream music 24/7 from past and present Virgin Mobile Festival artists with Virgin Mobile Live. Studio tracks, exclusive Festival performances, and more--it's all free.
Virgin Mobile LG Optimus

Featuring a 3.2" QVGA touchscreen display. View larger
Virgin Mobile LG Optimus

Multitask seamlessly with an Android 2.2 OS. View larger

Google Android OS with Thousands of Applications

The LG Optimus runs on the Android 2.2 operating system (OS) from Google, and is a Google Experience Device. The Android 2.2 OS is designed specifically for touch screen devices, and makes navigation and operation intuitive and enjoyable. You'll have integrated access to all your favorite Google services and applications, including Google Search by Voice, Picasa, Google Talk, and more. You'll also have access to both personal and corporate email, calendars, and contacts supported by Exchange Server and Gmail. Also included is Google Maps Navigation, which provides GPS-based turn-by-turn voice guidance to get you where you need to go. Useful tools such as an alarm clock, calculator, and stopwatch are all included, and you can head over to the Android Market where there are thousands of applications available for download.
The Android OS lets you multitask so you can listen to music, browse the web, receive email, and more--all at the same time. If someone calls you, you can take the call and then resume what you were doing without interruption.

Vital Statistics

The LG Optimus from Virgin Mobile weighs 4.7 ounces and measures 4.5 x 2.3 x 0.5 inches. It comes with a standard capacity lithium-ion battery that offers up to 6 hours of talking time and up to 7 days of standby time. It runs on Sprint's 3G 800/1900 CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A frequencies.
What's in the Box
LG Optimus handset, rechargeable battery, charger, 2 GB microSD memory card, quick start guide, user manual.

Key Features

  • Fast 3G connectivity via Sprint's 3G network

  • Powered by the Android 2.2 operating system with deep integration of Google services and access to thousands of apps to customize your phone via the Android Market

  • Preloaded Voice Actions from Google allow you to send texts and e-mails, navigate to local restaurants, search the web, or play music--all simply by speaking

  • Built-in GPS for real-time location on maps, driving directions, and more (additional charges may apply)

  • Google Maps Navigation (Beta) provides free, pre-loaded turn-by-turn voice guidance. Powered by Google and requiring an Internet connection, it enables you to simply say "Navigate to [your destination]" to get on your way. See live traffic, use Street View or satellite imagery to view your route, and get access to the most recent maps and business information from Google Maps without ever needing to update your device

  • 3.2-inch touchscreen display (480 x 320 pixels, 16 million color depth)

  • Onscreen keyboard

  • Swype input system allows you to input text faster and easier by gliding your finger around the keyboard, moving from letter to letter in one continuous motion. The Swype technology then calculates what word you're intending to type

  • 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera/camcorder

  • Digital media player compatible with MP3, WMA, and AAC music files plus MPEG4 video formats

  • FM radio

  • Bluetooth connectivity (version 2.1) includes profiles for communication headset, hands-free car kits, and the A2DP Bluetooth profile--enabling you to wirelessly stream your music to a pair of compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones or speaker dock

  • Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g) for accessing home and corporate networks as well as hotspots while on the go

  • Wi-Fi and mobile calling enables you to send and receive calls and messages over any Wi-Fi network, whether at home or on the road with Wi-Fi and Mobile Calling--even in areas that have little or no network coverage

  • 2 GB microSD card with support for optional cards up to 32 GB

  • Text (SMS) and picture/video (MMS) messaging

  • Access to popular instant messaging services

  • Access to personal and work e-mail (supports Microsoft Exchange corporate e-mail)

  • HTML Web browser

  • Organizer tools including calendar, voice memo, calculator, and alarm

  • Airplane mode allows you to listen to music while the cellular connectivity is turned off

  • USB connectivity with mass storage and charging capabilities

  • 3.5mm headset/headphone jack


  • Swype Keyboard

    Swype Keyboard
    An alternative to the Android virtual keyboard, the Swype virtual keyboard allows you to input text by swiping the finger with one continuous finger or stylus motion across the screen keyboard. Based on testing, speed and accuracy are equal to or better than the traditional keyboard-tapping method. You can activate the Swype keyboard by pressing and holding in a text field, wait for popup to appear, click Input Method, and then select Swype.
    In the image to the right, the word "quick" was generated from tracing the path shown above in a fraction of a second, by roughly aiming to pass through the letters of the word. A key advantage to Swype is that there is no need to be very accurate, enabling very rapid text entry.

    Virgin Mobile Service

    With Virgin Mobile, you can pay only for the calling time you use. You can choose a plan that's based just on minutes (with rates between 5¢ and 10¢ per minute, depending on the amount of minutes you buy). Plans start as low as $25 per month, or you can choose a monthly plan with no annual contract, including Total Unlimited Calling for $79.99. Pay-as-you-go users can easily Top-Up your Virgin Mobile account right from your phone. First, buy a Top-Up card at one of the thousands of retailers that carry them; or register your debit card, credit card, or PayPal account at the Virgin Mobile USA web site in order to add minutes to your account directly from your phone.
    Additionally, you can choose from a variety of mobile messaging plans, which includes text and picture messaging, email, and IM (via AOL and Yahoo!). Virgin Mobile USA's national coverage is powered by the nationwide Sprint PCS network.
    Virgin Mobile contributes 5 percent of profits from downloadable content to The RE*Generation, its pro-social initiative to help homeless teens, as well as provides postage-paid return envelopes in every new package for customers to recycle old phones.

    Also Available for this Android Device

    Amazon Appstore for Android
    Get a great paid app for free every day.
    Kindle
    Buy a book once and read it everywhere with our free Kindle Reading App for Android.
    Amazon MP3
    Shop 15 million songs and stream your Cloud Drive music directly from your Android device.
    IMDB
    Find local movie showtimes and TV listings, watch trailers, and search the world's largest source of entertainment information.
    Audible
    Download audiobooks directly to your Android device, then listen wherever you go, get audiobook news, earn badges, and more.
    Amazon Mobile
    Shop for millions of products, get product details, and read reviews--right from your mobile device.


    Customer Reviews

    Most helpful customer reviews
    79 of 83 people found the following review helpful.5LG Optimus V - Virgin Mobile By J. Corbett I have never had a cell phone plan, and I don't plan on having one any time soon. When I first started using cell phones, the curse of prepaid services were the phones. Companies like Net10 had fantastic deals, but the phones were always cheap and disposable, which of course is the great part about prepaid service. I'm not stuck with a phone for two years and if I need one, I'm not worrying about the price. 


    Another great part about prepaid service is that I will never have to speak with a representative. Virgin Mobile is an easy set up and upon start up, the phone was quick to activate and start my service. This two reasons are high on my list for why prepaid trumps contract phone plans. 


    When this phone was announced, I was a bit skeptical. I was worried that it would be a watered down version of the LG Optimus S, but I am happy to report that it is essentially the same device. The following will mention the look, feel, and speed of the device. 


    The touch screen: Nimble! Going from screen to screen is fluid, transitions are visible. For every single touch and swipe, the device is right there with you. There is no lag to be found. However, there are times when I'm playing Angry Birds, and there is considerable lag. It usually happens for the first thirty seconds of the game. 


    Screen resolution: High quality but with the plastic front, it cheapens the device. However, I am not complaining. Zooming in and out on a webpage, you might notice that it's a little pixelated when you get close to the text. 


    3G capabilities: Testing this against my friend's iPhone, it's very fast. I was incredibly surprised by the responsiveness and how quick I could go from webpage to webpage. But, I will say that there are times there is absolutely no service. After looking through forums, one easy way to fix this is by activating the phone again. I did this once, and it helped tremendously. 


    App store: Although it's not as big as Apple's app store, it has everything one would need. The great thing about Android is that if there's something you don't like, you can change it. Widgets are absolutely one of the best features about Android's app store. You can even change the web browser if you don't like it! 


    This phone does not support Flash, so don't be disappointed. 


    Navigation: A dream. It works better than my Garmin, the voice is loud and concise. I will say that after plugging it into my auxillary connector that it does sound a little muffled. But I'm not disappointed at all. The maps are amazing. There was one time the directions were a little funky and another that it was taking a while to acquire satellite. 


    Camera quality: I have to say, the quality of the camera is amazing. With auto focus, it's great. And with the camera apps, you can create some great effects. 


    Overall, this phone is a great value. I talk a lot, so I use the unlimited everything plan for $60.00. It's not a bad deal considering I would be paying well over $100.00 anywhere else. 


    There are a lot of other prepaid services you might want to consider if you want to go prepaid. If you aren't someone who talks a lot and just need a phone, Net10 is the perfect service. But if you do talk a lot and browse the internet, then services like Boost Mobile, AT&T GoPhone, Straight Talk, and Virgin Mobile are great alternatives to the high cost of contracts. 


    The problem with prepaid still? The phones need a lot of work, but this is the first I've seen to make a huge step toward a great future with prepaid service. 


    Update: I love this phone. It has efficiently replaced my iPod and GPS Navigator. Put in a 16gb micro sd card, and you're set. Apps like Double Twist make music listening a great experience (and for $4.99, you can sync your music wirelessly, listen to radio stations, AND podcasts) 


    If your car as an auxillary connector or even a tape adapter, connect your phone, and you can listen to Navigation WHILE listening to music. I know it's a weird thing to obsess about, but I always thought it was one or the other. Directions are precise, so I'm not constantly looking at my phone wondering where I am. 


    Streaming on Pandora and NPR is great. However, after a few hours, it completely stops and you have to get back into the app. It's not terrible, but I like to listen while I'm at work. 


    The Android App Market has everything you're looking for as long as you know how to search. I would recommend joining forums, because that's how I found out about different apps. One I love in particular is the WiFi Hotspot widget. With a simple click, you can connect your laptop and computer to the phone's 3g network. Other apps like Car Home allow you to travel and easily find navigation, music, and manage what apps you need on the go. 


    Depending on where I am, Youtube can lag a little. I expected this. But for the price and the fact that I have completely replaced a few gadgets I own, this is totally worth it.75 of 79 people found the following review helpful.5Awesome (and inexpensive) phone and plan(s) By ajpd I had to abandon my ATT family plan in favor of letting my youngest daughter get on it and enjoy the free family minutes and unlimited texting, etc., which I don't use so much (already had 5 lines and they won't let me add another one). So, I was looking for the cheapest alternative to getting a 6th line, at least comparable to what I would have paid for the 6th line on ATT. I looked all over and all the individual plans where $40+ or so, without including texting. Then I came across the Virgin Mobile $25 unlimited data, text, web + 300 minutes and it seemed that it would fit the bill. 


    I got the phone on sale for $105 and it is just the best phone I have ever had, although I have not activated it yet (more on this later), at an awesome price. Why haven't I activated it yet? Well, it turns out, this android phone lets you install all kind of apps from the android market via wifi without activating the phone, you can pop in an 8Gb, 16Gb or 32Gb SDHC card and use this as a pretty awesome (and cheap) ipod/iphone substitute. I have installed apps for watching TV shows, read news (USA Today, NYTime, Bloomberg, etc), Pandora radio (sound through the speaker is very full for such a tiny device), GPS navigation/maps, calculators, MS Office documents viewer, a few games, GasBuddy to find cheap gas locally (pretty handy these days), etc. All FREE from the Android market. But, BY FAR, the best applications I installed are Google Voice, which together with SIPDroid (after signing up for a free GoogleVoice account and a free PBXes.org account) allows me to link them together and configure the phone to use VOIP to make my calls through the internet instead of using the limited 300 minutes I would get if I signed up with Virgin Mobile for $25/month, I can also use it to do unlimited free texting through my Google voice number. 


    I wanted to do this to make sure I did not go over the 300 minutes and start racking up a huge bill with VM once I activated the phone, but as it turns out, this has worked out so well that I am still undecided as to weather I will need to activate the phone and sign up for the monthly service. Granted, I can only make/receive calls when I am within WIFI range, but, WIFI is so prevalent these days. Many of the establishments a person does business with have free internet access for their customers: Starbucks, Dennys, Mcdonalds, Barnes&nobles, Homedepots, Panera bread, Hooters, highway rest stops, libraries, Krogers, Quiznos, Schlotzsky, FedEx offices, Hotels... the list goes on and on. I also installed a WIFI Analyzer App which shows if there is a free/open WIFI within range and its signal strength. You can get a nice directory of wifi spots in your area here-> [...] which of course does not list all the available ones. 


    What happens when I'm outside WIFI range? Well, of course I can not make calls, inbound calls go to my GoogleVoice voice mail and as soon as I get into WIFI range and connect, my inbound text messages get delivered and/or I get a notification of a missed call which I can check right away. Obviously not something I would want to use as a business phone, but for personal use when you do not need to be available 24X7 this works great! You also get a great excuse when you don't want to answer someone, later you can say... "Sorry, I was not in WIFI zone...", you can even put that in your answering message. This setup would be great for students who live on campus where they have free access to the campus WIFI network (many of them provide free open WIFI all over campus). All these for $0 a month plus the cost of the phone. 


    If you feel you need capability to make calls from anywhere in case of emergencies, or for 24X7 availability, then just activate the phone and pay the $25/month. You would get many other benefits which would make this device a very capable business phone. I've read that once activated, you can install an app to make the phone a WIFI hub for up to 4 or 5 devices (supposedly there is an app for that, :-) pun intended, in the android market). This would provide internet service to your WIFI based laptop anywhere. I will investigate this more if/when I activate the phone. I have to admit, it would be fun to be able to go on trips and have internet in the car for my kids ipod touches or laptops while we are on the road. The more they can entertain themselves, the less "are we there yet?, are we there yet?" questions we will get... :-) 


    Summarizing, if you activate the phone, you get unlimited texting, phone web browsing, tv watching, internet radio, etc. + unlimited internet based calls using the provided unlimited data service + internet for your computer/ipod touches anytime/anywhere. All these for $25/month? Sweeeet! I don't think any carrier can beat that, the closer unlimited everything plan is cricket for $55/month for an android or blackberry phone. ATT, Verizon, etc? $70 and up... Virgin Mobile uses the Sprint 3G network, so, it's coverage (at least here in Houston) is pretty good. 


    I hope you find this useful. 
    Enjoy! 
    35 of 37 people found the following review helpful.5Superb smartphone, I would recomend this to anyone! By James Barkman I purchased this phone at my local Radio Shack a couple days ago, and it has been awesome so far! The performance of the phone is zippy, and it actually performed faster than the Samsung Intercept, which is also from Virgin Mobile, and has a faster processor. Also, the screen is much clearer and colorful than the screen on the Intercept. It's glass covered instead of plastic, unlike the Intercept. The phone looks great, it seems to be built very well (especially considering the low price), and it looks like a more expensive phone. Most apps on the Marketplace work, and there are some that really add to this handset's functionality. The camera is great, takes awesome images for a 3MP shooter. 


    Get this phone, you will not be disappointed, especially for the price!

    No comments:

    Post a Comment