iPhone for Virgin Mobile - yes or no?

[BellyNel]

Hello everyone. Never been to this part of the forum before.

Anyway, does anyone know of the prepaid phone company Virgin Mobile? I've been with them now for the past almost 7 years now. Wow - time flies! I pay only $38 a month for 300 anytime minutes, and nearly unlimited data, message, and web surfing. The plus side - NO CONTRACT - you can leave them without having to pay nearly half a grand to get released. It's through the Sprint umbrella. I've had three cell phones through them - a old candy bar phone with an antennae, a flip phone, and currently, a Blackberry. You should've seen my face when I saw that Virgin Mobile was offering the phone as a prepaid phone, and for a very reasonable price, too!

Anyway, earlier this month, I saw that Virgin Mobile was going to offer the iPhone 4S!!!! I was grinning from ear to ear literally! And, the monthly bill would be cheaper, too - $30. But the drawback - $649 for the phone. That's the price of buying it from Apple direct!

What do you think? I want the iPhone just for the sake of having one. I use my Blackberry now to get text messages, which I get a couple of daily, to get my emails, which I can get at work and at home, and to get my Facebook and Twitter messages and stuff, which I can also get at work and at home. My Blackberry works "fine", I guess. Sometimes it stalls. I get my text messages and emails late sometimes, it has a decent camera, no flash. The reception: I swear, my old dinosaur flip phone had like the best reception ever, and Virgin sometimes has spotty reception, too. Surfing the net? Not the fastest in the world, but decent.

For those of you on AT&T - truthfully - is what you're paying worth it? How's the reception? Speed of downloads? How about Sprint? Verizon?

Is the iPhone all that it's hyped up to be? Would it be a colossal waste of money to get it just for the phone, text messaging, surfing the internet, Twitter, and Facebook?

[DasFischer89]

buy one one on ebay. Im on my 3rd iphone 3GS broke the other two. I spent less than $649 on the two used ones.

[Runner67]

I absolutely love my iPhone. It was the first "smart" phone I've ever owned. I'm with Verizon; but with as rural as I am, there's not a lot of options for cellular reception here (AT&T which is hit and miss, Verizon and some other company I cannot think of).

Other than using it as a phone, text messaging and facebook, I use it to play some games, listen to music and use it while running / biking to keep track of my pace and miles.

When I bought it I was kind of like you in the aspect I didn't really need it; my old cell phone (a flip phone) died so I did have to replace it but I really didn't need all the extras the iPhone has; however, I don't regret buying it.

I do have the 2-year contract with Verizon but I've been with Verizon for a long time. I really don't have any concern as far as leaving them and getting hit with a large penalty because I don't have any plans of getting rid of the cell phone.

Speed of downloads when I'm not on a WIFI sometimes seems slow, but it's probably more of I'm used to having it tied into a network. WIFI is pretty fast. When just on 3G, a couple apps I downloaded did take a few extra minutes but it was nothing unreasonable. Any websites I pull up load reasonable fast also. I don't browse a lot online with it, but there's a few sites I pop into.

Reception here like I mentioned can be hit or miss. If I get out into the hills or down in some valleys around the lakes there's no reception (but there's no reception for any carrier). It's not a fault of the iPhone but a lack of coverage/towers by the carriers. However, Verizon provides the best reception of any of the carriers around here. As long as I have bars, I have not had any dropped calls.

Is $649 the 16, 32 or 64 GB phone? While the price is high, it's not tied into any contract so upfront you spend more but in the long run (if there's no hidden fees with Virgin Mobil) the $30/month would be cheaper than getting the phone for $99 and a 2-year contract.

Do you have to buy directly from Apple? Not sure, but I suspect if you shop around you can find it for cheaper than $649.

[pellaz]

you can still get a new iPhone 3gs. iOS6 and the new iphone will be out end of summer. Lots of the iOS6 will work on the 3gs but the new navigation app will not, the current navigation sux. The voice control works on the 4gs only.

buy a phone on craigslist or whatever but nice if the phone is 3-4 mo old, batteries will be completely dead after 2 years. If you home skill it and replace the battery, the battery is not expensive but difficult to install.

iPhones are fabulous in every way. Easy to use up lots of band width with it.