I recently switched from Sprint to Virgin Mobile. At first, I bought a used Blackberry 8530. It was a terrible phone and it stopped communicating with Virgin Mobile within a week. On the hunt for a new phone, I heard about the Optimus V. It kinda reminded me of the Hero in it's look and capabilities, and coming from an EVO 4G with Sprint, that really didn't seem like enough.
That's when I found the Optimus Slider. The Slider has an 800mhz processor, which I feared would still be too slow, but was actually very snappy. Without the bloatware UI you find on HTC phones, this phone despite not being as powerful as my Evo, actually is faster in the menus. I used to get lag all the time with my Evo, and so far nothing with this (and this is while running live wallpapers and alternate launchers like Go Launcher).
The phone plays all the apps well that I had stored on my Android account, and works flawlessly with Amazon's app store. This was a huge plus for me, as when I rooted my Nook Color I had all sorts of problems running many applications. Everything on this however works flawlessly.
The keyboard's buttons are huge, and feel much easier to type on than other slide out keyboards. I never mess up while typing now, and never use the on screen keyboard. The red accents on the keys give it a very nice "droid" look, and the included Home/Menu/Back/Search buttons on the keyboard are a nice touch.
The camera is pretty ho hum. 3.2 Megapixels and no flash. It records video, which is a plus, but only has a rear facing camera. Overall, it's much worse than my Evo, but then again, my Evo's cameras weren't good enough to take high quality photos in either. I usually use my stand-alone camera for good photos, so on the go quick snapshots work just fine for what it is.. a phone.
The slider is quite smooth. In fact it's better quality than my old Playstation GO's slider, which violently snapped into place. This is much smoother and doesn't wobble like my GO's slider once fully pulled out.
All in all, this is my first LG phone, and I have to say, I'm very impressed. For what I paid (168 free shipping) with no contract, it really highlights how much other carriers are over-charging for their phones (most of which are 5-600 out of contract!). It was nice to be able to replace my Blackberry without waiting for a contract to expire. I simply went out and bought a new one at the same price everyone else pays. The 3G is just as fast as the 3G on Sprint, so for 35 out the door for unlimited data and texts, it's a no brainer. I'm very happy I finally left Sprint, and I'm very happy with this phone.
If you are still suffering with an Intercept, this is the phone for you! Although the specs say the screen is the same size, the Slider screen is higher resolution and slightly larger. Physically it is a little flatter and wider and it feels like a much more upscale device. There is virtually no lag in the UI, versus the tens of seconds on the Intercept. Physical Android keys mean positive feedback that you pressed one.
Games like Angry Birds and Nano Panda run great. Music output is clean, and videos play smoothly. Photos and videos are also an improvement over the Intercept.
The Android 2.3 dialer interface is MUCH improved over the one in 2.2 on the Intercept and you'll find yourself using fewer keystrokes and accidentally hanging up or re-dialing a lot less often. Recommend Mintues Checker for Virgin Mobile from the Market to keep track of how many minutes you have left. Skype also works almost okay over the 3G data connection, but there is enough distortion that touch tones don't work. Skype over WiFi is great with a headset, and toll free calls in the US are free on Skype (e.g. conference bridge numbers) and of course don't use any of your Virgin Mobile minutes.
Google turn by turn navigation with GPS and satellite images is there, although you have to download a voice synthesis app from the Market before you get voice prompts (it tells you which one to download).
Voice dialing is supported, but I highly recommend Choice Dialer+ Free for this phone, as you get confirmation of names before it calls unlike the native Google dialer that will happily start to call your ex-girlfriend or the San Diego Zoo when you asked it to call your Mom.
On the downside, battery life isn't as good as an Intercept. While actively fiddling it is surprising how fast it burns through battery. With JuiceDefender and ATK I CAN make it through a business day with about 40% power left. Red lettering on the keyboard is difficult to read in low light and numbers require pressing the Fn key. It also seems slow to charge (takes well over an hour). Also Flash is not supported on this device, but there is a YouTube app. Lack of a light sensor means you sometimes have to manually adjust brightness to avoid being blinded, or to read outside.
Like the Optimus V you can enable the hidden WiFi Hotspot function, but unfortunately on this device it still doesn't work. PDANet on the Market does work fine.
If you are making an hour or two of calls a day and check email SMS very 30 mins or so this phone should work out great for you. If you are on an Intercept, this is a no brainer upgrade for you.
UPDATE since this phone came out Boost Mobile has made available the Transform Ultra, which is a much more powerful phone than this with more internal memory. If looking at unlimited plans, I think going to Boost for the Transform Ultra makes a lot of sense as it starts at $50 and with shrinkage gets down to $35 over 18 months. You CAN port from Virgin Mobile to Boost.
Buy LG Optimus Slider Prepaid Android Phone (Virgin Mobile) VMM701LGKIT156 Now
I have owned the LG Optimus Slider (VM701) phone nearly a month. My spouse and I were able to take advantage of a Radio Shack special for Christmas 2011 that made this a far better buy. I can't complain about Virgin Mobile's service. We had to call customer service a couple times during and after activation and the reps were always friendly and we were not disconnected. That being said, I would advise that you activate your phone online. I called in my activation but had to go online before it "took". It took me about four hours for the phone to activate using my existing cell number but nearly two days and several phone calls for my spouse. (There is an "activation status" link on the Virgin Mobile website.)
As a first-time Android owner it is fun to explore the Android marketplace, where it is possible to download a number of apps directly to the handset. You name it, there's an app for that. That's the good news. Now for the bad: with 181MB internal memory -not the 512MB indicated in Amazon's description -the VM701 fills up very fast when running apps that must utilize or reside on that space. Here's what we learned: All apps, even apps that can move to the included 2 gigabyte micro SD card, require some of that internal memory to operate. To write text messages or the like, you must always have internal memory free or errors and freezes will occur. I loaded enough apps at one point to come within 14MB of the internal memory limit only to encounter a severe memory outage. My phone froze and I had to reset the battery five times in a row before I caught a tiny status message on boot-up indicating that memory had run out. Consequently, if I had to name one bad thing about this mobile phone it is that you will run into memory limitations very quickly if you go "app happy" like I did. Some apps, like wallpapers and themes, insist on running on internal memory and you will have to make decisions about what takes priority. I recommend a minimum of 20MB free of internal memory at all times to avoid crashes and hangs.
I am not sure if it is the phone or the Gingerbread OS but this phone sometimes has a mind of its own. I set a custom ring tone for my spouse and after two weeks it decided to switch to the Virgin Mobile start-up tone. A check of the settings revealed that my custom ring tone was still in place and that my preferred ringtone for general calls had changed on its own. When my spouse calls I get the "generic" ring tone instead. The other thing that has caused a fair amount of frustration is that the ringer mutes upon boot-up, yet only intermittently so. I like to turn my phone completely off at night and if I don't remember to check the volume button on the side of the phone when switching it on the next morning I will find it on "silent" later in the day even though I did not enter the operating system settings to mute it. I still haven't ruled out if an app is causing the issue, which is possible because my spouse has the same phone and has not had this particular problem.
Above and beyond anything else I *assumed* about this phone, my spouse and I expected that like our feature phones the LG Optimus Slider would support audible (spoken) caller ID. This is not to be confused with the visual caller ID where you see your contact's picture and phone number pop up on the scree when the phone rings -this form of caller ID is built in and functions flawlessly. Rather, we are attempting to enable an overlay such that when the phone rings it reads aloud what is shown on the screen. Thus far, I have paid for several apps and downloaded all the free apps on the market for "voice announce" caller ID and it does not reliably work -even for callers who are in our contact lists. Once in a great while it will surprise us by correctly stating who is calling but for the most part our phones ring as normal or, if the SVOX voice says anything at all, it is to identify all incoming calls as "unknown". In searching various Android websites, I learned that audible caller ID is supposed to be a stock menu option in the Gingerbread OS but for whatever reason LG and/or VM has altered the menu so that it is omitted or hidden. If VM customer service has fallen short on one measure, it is in the conflicting responses I received to this question. Nobody can tell me whether it is a carrier vs. a hardware limitation, and the PDF owner's guide I downloaded didn't address the subject either. A post to the LG forum didn't clear up the issue, and attempts to use LG's web email form failed as did the Virgin Mobile website support form, neither of which have been working recently. It may have been VM's decision to strip this option out of the settings menu in attempt to streamline the OS to run on the phone's limited memory but that doesn't explain why I can't get a stand-alone app to fill in for the missing function.
The best thing I can say about this handset is that it is solid in feel and will allow you to experience Android smartphone functionality for a low monthly prepaid price. The worst thing I can say about this handset is that reception, coming from AT&T and Verizon, isn't up to par. It's not clear whether the network is to blame or the phone itself is lacking for an adequate antenna. All we know is that calls commonly clip or cut out when one of us is inside a mall or big-box retail store (though not at home or in the car, typically). Still, it is to the point where my spouse has left a store to complete a conversation outside. LG voice quality is good and the in-call volume is adequate when reception is good. Whether reception is adequate in the first place is the wild card, however. This phone utilizes the SPRINT network and here in SoCal that network ought to be as good as any. Unfortunately, we have noticed that sometimes our phones can be side-by-side and one of us will get the 3G signal (green bars and indicator) and the other will get white bars and 3G symbol, which if I am not mistaken signifies a slower 2G data connection. Odder still, we were driving beneath a SPRINT tower one day where we had five bars and on the other side of the street behind a small fast food restaurant all data connectivity dropped temporarily. If I had to evaluate VM as a carrier for business use -and if I do recall the TOS for VM the company actually forbids commercial use so this may be a moot point -I would recommend against Virgin Mobile and its parent company, SPRINT. However, if your primary aim is to own a modern smartphone while saving more money than you can with any other provider at present for unlimited data and texting, this prepaid LG smartphone is a great value. The VM voicemail system is better than AT&T's because it will time-stamp messages but on the downside I had to download a "missed call" app to get a tone to alert me to a missed text or voicemail message. That is because the phone's built-in notification consists solely of a tiny icon on the status bar and an equally tiny LED light that glows green when the phone has completed charging and/or an unheard or unread message has arrived. Both are far too discrete and easy to miss, but fortunately there was an app to solve the problem.
A lot of LG Optimus Slider owners have complained about battery life, whereas a PC Magazine website article describes it as "excellent". I wouldn't call it excellent but it has not been as bad as I expected, either. My spouse typically needs to recharge half way or so through the day, whereas I can get through an entire day without a recharge even with frequent use (for me that is WI-FI more than talk or text, thus far). The phone is rated for 4.5 hours of talk time but when fully charged an app I downloaded, "Easy Task Killer", indicates that I have six hours of talk time. I have not talked on the phone for more than an hour continuously, however, so I don't know how accurate that is. In any event, we each use an application, available on the Android market, to conserve battery life. My spouse uses the free "Easy Battery Saver" app and I paid for "Juice Defender Plus" to compare the differences. What we learned is that some of the optimization settings to eliminate drains on the battery can also disrupt WI-FI and data connectivity. We at first thought our phones were faulty because we downloaded a battery-saving app first thing, only to find that the phones would drop WI-FI at random sitting five feet from the router, or after going out and about the data connection would not surrender so that the handset could seamlessly pick up in-home WI-FI. We set our phones to use a static IP address and that helped moderately with the WI-FI issue. However, I highly recommend Juice Defender Plus because not only will it keep the battery going it has a "mobile data" force-on feature and WI-FI fix. Once I went to the application settings and checked those fixes I have had no further problem with random drops when switching between the VM data network and WI-FI. All this aside, if you have particularly bad battery performance it may be a defective phone or battery. If, on the other hand, you are a heavy user the solution may be to seek out a compatible aftermarket battery that is rated in excess of the stock OEM battery rating of 1500mA. Please be advised, however, that the use of a third-party battery may void your handset warranty.
With respect to the slide-out keyboard, I am glad we opted for the LG Optimus Slider over the Optimus V, which differs chiefly in that it omits a physical keyboard. The Slider's QUERTY keyboard is much faster. In contrast, I find that the Swype keyboard is too narrow due to the limitations of the screen size, and therefore I am prone to making more mistakes on the virtual keyboard than its physical counterpart. That being said, I have been frustrated in that there appears to be some way of accidentally triggering a copy/cut/paste function. I still haven't quite figured out why but if there is something in my clipboard and I hit the letter "v" the content is either pasted in over what I am currently composing or lost, depending on the action I have accidentally triggered. I attempted to post this how-to question to the Virgin Mobile product page Q&A for this handset but VM never posted it.
The web via Android is generally accessible but not to be compared with the experience of a conventional Internet browser/computer connection. This mobile phone, other than the built-in YouTube app, does NOT support Adobe Flash (contrary to Amazon's description). Whether for this or some other reason, some websites that permit comments don't allow for successful login, nor the ability to submit comments using the built-in Google Android browser. Alternatives such as Dolphin, Opera or Skyfire mobile phone browsers are not much better in this particular regard. I have spent a fair bit of time retyping things that I lost because the cursor is missing from the comment field or the clipboard content I had intended to paste is pushed out by accidentally triggering the "copy" function while attempting to get a cursor to move or a "submit" button to work. As expected, there are some websites that are optimized for mobile viewing and others that are not. It takes good eyesight to make use of non-optimized websites. Normal newspaper print type is 9 points whereas the type on a conventional (non-mobile) web page, when viewed on this phone, hovers around 5 points. You can zoom in with the flick of two fingers but that, in turn, means that the text doesn't always wrap correctly for easy reading. I can understand why a lot of people who own these smartphones also end up buying a tablet. Fortunately, the LG Optimus Slider screen features crisp resolution and the brightness options are adequate for all but the most glaring outdoor conditions. The only downside in this regard is that the brightness adjustment is a manual one. This handset does not come equipped with a light sensor to automatically adjust screen brightness but you can always install a toggle switch on your home screen for instant access to this setting, if need be.
The 800Mhz processor seems fast enough for most tasks. The phone bogs down a bit when multiple apps are going but game-play in Angry Birds, for reference, is smooth with few "force quit" issues. Internet radio via Pandora and iHeart Radio work well. Oddly enough, however, it took some doing to get the VM Live app to buffer the carrier's own streaming content. To my pleasant surprise, I also found an app that will allow iTunes to sync with my phone, and sound quality through the mono speaker or stereo headphone connection is quite good. On the flip side, it is puzzling why some apps insist on running even when you don't want or need them. Using the free and highly functional "Android Assistant" to perform backups and to browse the phone's internal file structure, one of the system processes that runs frequently in the background is the built-in Facebook app. This is both creepy and inexplicable given that I choose not to join Facebook and have no need to operate it. (Unfortunately, it ships with the phone and can't be deleted to free up space.)
This handset is Bluetooth compatible and provides turn-by-turn GPS navigation functions, but I have comparatively less experience with these other than to say Bluetooth, GPS and data usage hasten battery drain. For GPS use I recommend a car charger, sold separately. As for the 3.2MP camera, I must admit that I was disappointed with image quality. Shutter lag is significant, which results in soft, unattractive pictures under artificial indoor light. There is no flash but the camera works better than my first impression led me to anticipate under natural light or sunlight with pleasing color accuracy. There is not a front-facing camera for video conferencing but that was not a high priority for me in the first place -one camera is enough for the price. Last but not least, it is my understanding that the LG Optimus Slider will NOT receive the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) OS update because the internal memory and/or processor speed is inadequate to support it.
All in all I am happy with the purchase of the LG Optimus Slider. The stars I have docked are for poor indoor reception foremost, and secondarily for the operational glitches that seemingly give this handset a mind of its own.
Read Best Reviews of LG Optimus Slider Prepaid Android Phone (Virgin Mobile) VMM701LGKIT156 Here
Not sure why currently the shipment time is 5-8 weeks on Amazon, but I picked this up today from Best Buy (begrudgingly). The phone is basically the older Optimus V, which I currently have, with a faster processor (800Mhz vs 600Mhz I could tell a big difference when using the operating system, it's much snappier now), more internal memory (512MB vs 256MB), a physical keyboard, and Anroid 2.3 (vs 2.2). It's really a nice phone that you can tell is made well the fit and finish is really nice. The keyboard slider works well too it's a very smooth action that just feels right. My only complaint for this phone is that it has a fairly small screen of 3.2". It's just a little on the small side for browsing webpages and such. Also, now that I think about it, I wish the camera had a flash for it. I do highly recommend this phone though if you're looking to switch to Virgin Mobile or to upgrade your Optimus V or Intercept.
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I bought this phone as a replacement for the LG Optimus V (already from Virgin Mobile) and I really like it.
A few things that I noticed:
GPS is much faster, and is actually usable in real time with navigation (I had issues with the previous phone)
Keyboard is really nice to use, slide really smoothly and I actually find the 4 Android buttons on the left pretty useful
Android 2.3 Gingerbread provides a really nice touch to this phone, and is much faster than 2.2, download management, application and power management are some of the new nice features of 2.3
Last but not least, the memory!!! twice as much as the Optimus V, this is really the main reason I bought this phone. It was really annoying to have to delete most applications just to install a new one that cannot be moved to the sd card. Because they are a couple like maps which take a lot of space and that you cannot move. Really frustrating...
The main downside is the battery life which is still not much better than the previous Optimus V
I just want to clarify that I bought this phone on cyber Monday for 99$ at Virgin Mobile. So not that much for a nice upgrade!
Anyway, I think this is the best phone from Virgin Mobile so far
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