After three years, my Motorola Razr was starting to show its age so I thought it was time to upgrade. I wanted to join the 21st century with a smartphone, but despite the abundance of cheap phones most of them had a major drawback – the contract. Smartphone plans are normally $60-70 a month, which is more than I can justify for a phone. Luckily, I heard that Virgin Mobile was offering a smartphone plan for $25 per month (!) which included three-hundred minutes of talk time, unlimited texting, and unlimited 3g data. That was too good to pass up. As with most prepaid plans the phone choice was limited to one: the LG Optimus V.
I was concerned that the Optimus V would be a cheap phone with no features, but despite the bargain plan the phone is actually very high quality. It is thin and sleek, with a rubber textured body and bright screen. The 600MHz processor manages to launch apps almost immediately upon touch, and 512Mb of RAM allows several apps to run at the same time before the phone begins to slow. Yes, a 1GHz processor would make the operation smoother, but I can live with 600MHz. The most significant drawbacks to the Optimus V are the amount of onboard memory, and the battery life. 250Mb of memory limits the number of apps you can download. The memory can be expanded with Micro SD cards, but not all apps can be moved to the expanded memory. Without downloading a task manager like Advanced Task Killer to kill background programs, the battery will barely last a day. Using Wi-Fi significantly reduces this life, and even maximizing battery life I still have to charge the phone every night. Despite these problems it is still a very useful device and does truly function as a smartphone. It has opened up many possibilities over my old phone including playing music, internet access anywhere, and a plethora of other tools and features.
Overall Virgin Mobile’s LG Optimus V is a very good deal – mine came at a cost of $150 from Radio Shack but significantly low monthly rate means it has paid for itself several times over. If I ever need more minutes I can easily upgrade to a higher level, still an excellent deal. The last point I would like to make about the Optimus V is that the budget service has surprisingly good coverage. VM uses Sprint towers to provide their cell coverage, so it gets service in almost all populated areas. Even in North Dakota! So don’t let worries about the quality of the phone or service put you off, take advantage of this deal while it is still available. The price has already gone up from $25 when I originally got the phone to $35, so take advantage of the pricing while it stays low. Demand for this phone is high!