My wife’s Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept Android phone had one thing she liked: Its physical keypad. It had more things she didn’t like:
Touchscreen (she doesn’t like touchscreens).
Laggy (unresponsive) touchscreen
And it had some bugs:
Internet would drop out for hours multiple times per week, even per day sometimes. Power cycling phone didn’t help.
The Android Notifications bar which you slide down from the top of the launcher screen would frequently just not work. As far as I know, rebooting would handle this. Happened all the time. Drove me batty.
So we returned it to Best Buy within our 30 day return period. That went smoothly. And I got my wife a Virgin Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8530 instead. I’m disappointed to report two things:
- There’s a $10 BlackBerry internet services (BIS) fee on top of the Virgin Mobile plan rates if I want any internet access on the BlackBerry. WTF?
- The internet comes and goes throughout the day on the BlackBerry. WTF?!? I don’t get this one and it’s pretty frustrating to me. Does anyone else have unreliable BIS internet access with their Virgin Mobile Blackberry in the Tampa, Clearwater or Dunedin, Florida areas?
P.S. My T-Mobile Comet ran faster and seemed to have a more responsive touchscreen, though I realize that might just be its increased general speed.
12 March 2011 update: It’s been almost two weeks. So far, so good. My wife really relates with her Blackberry and doesn’t miss her Android phone at all, it seems. She’s just not a touchscreen girl. And not a big web browser, either.
29 August 2011 update: As far as I know, internet is now reliable on my wife’s Virgin Mobile-branded BlackBerry. Furthermore, and far more importantly, my wife just doesn’t complain about her BlackBerry. She wishes web browsing wasn’t such an utterly crappy experience, but she’s in love with her phone still. It gives her her constant Google Chat, email and Facebook notifications and that’s pretty much what she wants from a personal access device. She has 300 voice minutes per month and seldom goes over. When she does, Virgin Mobile just charges me $10 for 100 minutes. That’s an okay deal. She thought incoming calls were free until recently, but that misunderstanding didn’t make her want more minutes. Is $35/month worth it? You bet! It’s just right.