- Apr 19, 2006
- 7,553
- 4
- 50,315
This is just a post about my experience switching from Verizon to Virgin Mobile (Sprint). Not really asking any questions... just posting some thoughts...
Anywaste, the reason why I switched from Verizon to Virgin Mobile is because my Motorola Droid basically flatlined recently at the beginning of February 2013. I had thoughts about switching over to Virgin Mobile basically due to the difference in the price plan. I bought my Droid back in January 2010 when Verizon still had the $30 per month mandatory unlimited plan. With my company's corporate discount the total bill was about $72.26 per month. That's with $40 voice plan (450 minutes) and $5 for text. As everyone knows Verizon changed their price since then and there is no more Unlimited Plan. The move to Virgin Mobile was just to cut down on my phone bill since I opted for the $35 plan ($38.07 with tax) which comes with 300 minutes. Yeah, yeah, I know for $45 I would get 1,200 minutes, but based on my usage with Verizon it's rare that I would use more than 200 minutes per month. That basically means I am saving $34.20 per month.
I was hoping to stick with Verizon just little while longer since Sprint is going to release new Android phones that supports 4G LTE rather than the abandoned 4G WiMAX which Sprint has stopped building any new WiMax towers. Also test reports have stated that LTE provides up to 22mbps while WiMax tops out at 16mbps. Unfortunately, the death of my Droid forced my hand. I ended up buying the HTC EVO V 4G phone for $150 + tax ($163.13). Since I am currently saving $34.20 per month, after 5 month I would breakeven on the phone compared to if I was still paying $72.26 for Verizon.
I won't say too much about the phone itself other than the 4.3" screen is bigger than the 3.7" screen on my Droid. It lacks a keyboard (which I kinda miss) but it is slightly lighter than Droid. The 3D camera is a gimmicky feature, yes it does take 3D pictures, but you can only look at it in 3D on this or any other "3D smartphone". You need to look at the screen at the proper angle in order to see the 3D effect without any distortion. The 3D camera basically takes two photos side-by-side (left eye / right eye) and they are merged together when you look at it on the screen. Interesting but not really useful. The screen is pretty sharp and clear. I viewed an e-book version of a textbook that I have. Like all textbooks the print is rather small to pack in a lot of text per page. I sized the page so that I so that I could read the textbook in portrait mode and zoomed out so that I could see all the text between the left and right margins. The text was really tiny and I was surprise I could actually read it, but I'm sure it puts a great strain on my eye.
Battery life seems to be okay but I have not truly tested it yet. However, most complaints about the phone was about the relatively short battery life. The good news is that the battery is replaceable. That means you can buy spare batteries from Amazon for this phone and swap out batteries when it is running low. I believe the HTC EVO has a 1800mah battery. There are also extended batteries for this phone which can be bought from Amazon with capacities that basically rounds up to 3000mah, 3500mah and 4000mah. These batteries are physically bigger so most of them come with an extended casing for the HTC.
The two things I don't like about the HTC EVO V 4G are the mushy buttons and the fact that the camera sticks out from the back of the phone. The mushy button means that some times when I try to turn on/off the phone nothing happens and I just need to try again. The same could be said about the volume buttons, but they are more responsive. Because the camera stick out a little further from the back of the phone it means it can be more easily scratched. Not really a big deal for me since I don't really take pictures. The mushy buttons are part of the HTC's casing so replacing the case should hopefully cure the mushy buttons (unless it is a poorly designed casing). However, that still leaves the camera exposed, but that can be fixed with an extended battery and casing which basically means the camera would be recessing in the case give it some protection again potential scratches.
Call quality is decent, but I only made a few short calls so far.
Lastly, there is the data plan. I have to admit that coming from Verizon's "truly" Unlimited Plan to this is quite a bit of a change. I will say that I did not really bother conserving my data plan usage. Therefore, it is not much of a surprise that I exhausted my 2.0GB data limit in less than 4 days, I actually did not even switch on 4G, I had the phone in 3G mode so I need to wait until the beginning of March to check out the 4G WiMax bandwidth. Sprint (Boost Moible, Virgin Mobile) throttles down the speed once you are past your 2.0GB monthly limit. When say "throttle" I mean THROTTLED. I am currently downloading a large file (200MB) and my download speed ranges between 9.8KB/sec and has peaked up to 35KB/sec. It has mostly hovered around 18KB/sec to 25KB/sec during that past 2 hours of downloading. Ahh.. the things I do to test something...
Compared to Verizon Unlimited Data Plan which no longer exists for anyone existing or new customers, I was generally able to download between 35KB/sec all the way up to 175KB/sec. I think I even notice it peaking at 200KB/sec from time to time. Since this was with my Motorola Droid I was getting this using 3G. And I say "Unlimited" I mean UNLIMITED. I was "abusing" my data plan every now and then during the last year. I typically use less than 1GB of data per month, but there have been times where I used 8GB or 10GB per month. I peaked at just over 15GB in a single month. I noticed not even the tiniest bit of throttling. I guess Verizon is happy that i decided to switch carriers.
Anywaste, the reason why I switched from Verizon to Virgin Mobile is because my Motorola Droid basically flatlined recently at the beginning of February 2013. I had thoughts about switching over to Virgin Mobile basically due to the difference in the price plan. I bought my Droid back in January 2010 when Verizon still had the $30 per month mandatory unlimited plan. With my company's corporate discount the total bill was about $72.26 per month. That's with $40 voice plan (450 minutes) and $5 for text. As everyone knows Verizon changed their price since then and there is no more Unlimited Plan. The move to Virgin Mobile was just to cut down on my phone bill since I opted for the $35 plan ($38.07 with tax) which comes with 300 minutes. Yeah, yeah, I know for $45 I would get 1,200 minutes, but based on my usage with Verizon it's rare that I would use more than 200 minutes per month. That basically means I am saving $34.20 per month.
I was hoping to stick with Verizon just little while longer since Sprint is going to release new Android phones that supports 4G LTE rather than the abandoned 4G WiMAX which Sprint has stopped building any new WiMax towers. Also test reports have stated that LTE provides up to 22mbps while WiMax tops out at 16mbps. Unfortunately, the death of my Droid forced my hand. I ended up buying the HTC EVO V 4G phone for $150 + tax ($163.13). Since I am currently saving $34.20 per month, after 5 month I would breakeven on the phone compared to if I was still paying $72.26 for Verizon.
I won't say too much about the phone itself other than the 4.3" screen is bigger than the 3.7" screen on my Droid. It lacks a keyboard (which I kinda miss) but it is slightly lighter than Droid. The 3D camera is a gimmicky feature, yes it does take 3D pictures, but you can only look at it in 3D on this or any other "3D smartphone". You need to look at the screen at the proper angle in order to see the 3D effect without any distortion. The 3D camera basically takes two photos side-by-side (left eye / right eye) and they are merged together when you look at it on the screen. Interesting but not really useful. The screen is pretty sharp and clear. I viewed an e-book version of a textbook that I have. Like all textbooks the print is rather small to pack in a lot of text per page. I sized the page so that I so that I could read the textbook in portrait mode and zoomed out so that I could see all the text between the left and right margins. The text was really tiny and I was surprise I could actually read it, but I'm sure it puts a great strain on my eye.
Battery life seems to be okay but I have not truly tested it yet. However, most complaints about the phone was about the relatively short battery life. The good news is that the battery is replaceable. That means you can buy spare batteries from Amazon for this phone and swap out batteries when it is running low. I believe the HTC EVO has a 1800mah battery. There are also extended batteries for this phone which can be bought from Amazon with capacities that basically rounds up to 3000mah, 3500mah and 4000mah. These batteries are physically bigger so most of them come with an extended casing for the HTC.
The two things I don't like about the HTC EVO V 4G are the mushy buttons and the fact that the camera sticks out from the back of the phone. The mushy button means that some times when I try to turn on/off the phone nothing happens and I just need to try again. The same could be said about the volume buttons, but they are more responsive. Because the camera stick out a little further from the back of the phone it means it can be more easily scratched. Not really a big deal for me since I don't really take pictures. The mushy buttons are part of the HTC's casing so replacing the case should hopefully cure the mushy buttons (unless it is a poorly designed casing). However, that still leaves the camera exposed, but that can be fixed with an extended battery and casing which basically means the camera would be recessing in the case give it some protection again potential scratches.
Call quality is decent, but I only made a few short calls so far.
Lastly, there is the data plan. I have to admit that coming from Verizon's "truly" Unlimited Plan to this is quite a bit of a change. I will say that I did not really bother conserving my data plan usage. Therefore, it is not much of a surprise that I exhausted my 2.0GB data limit in less than 4 days, I actually did not even switch on 4G, I had the phone in 3G mode so I need to wait until the beginning of March to check out the 4G WiMax bandwidth. Sprint (Boost Moible, Virgin Mobile) throttles down the speed once you are past your 2.0GB monthly limit. When say "throttle" I mean THROTTLED. I am currently downloading a large file (200MB) and my download speed ranges between 9.8KB/sec and has peaked up to 35KB/sec. It has mostly hovered around 18KB/sec to 25KB/sec during that past 2 hours of downloading. Ahh.. the things I do to test something...
Compared to Verizon Unlimited Data Plan which no longer exists for anyone existing or new customers, I was generally able to download between 35KB/sec all the way up to 175KB/sec. I think I even notice it peaking at 200KB/sec from time to time. Since this was with my Motorola Droid I was getting this using 3G. And I say "Unlimited" I mean UNLIMITED. I was "abusing" my data plan every now and then during the last year. I typically use less than 1GB of data per month, but there have been times where I used 8GB or 10GB per month. I peaked at just over 15GB in a single month. I noticed not even the tiniest bit of throttling. I guess Verizon is happy that i decided to switch carriers.
Facebook
Twitter