Virgin Mobile cell phone questions

[kellia]

We are planning on getting dd a Virgin Mobile smart phone for her bday. We were going to use the $35/mo plan. Will the price each month be $35 or will there be fees or tax added on to that? Do you pay tax if you buy the top up cards?

I see that Target has the top up cards on sale this week. If I get a Target charge card, do I get 5% off on those, too? I didn't see cards for $35. If I get a $55 top up card, will the extra $20 just stay on her account to be applied next month?

For apps, do you get them through Google like I do on my cell or is there a Virgin Mobile site you get them through? Does the money come out of your "top up" account or do you need a credit card to pay for them? I'm not paying for those, so just want to make sure dd knows how they work and how she can pay for them.

Thanks!

 

[Muushka]

Wow, a bunch of great questions!
I am considering switching my phone to Virgin (my husband has it, but the $5 a month plan). But I can tell you what I know:

We are planning on getting dd a Virgin Mobile smart phone for her bday. We were going to use the $35/mo plan. Will the price each month be $35 or will there be fees or tax added on to that? Do you pay tax if you buy the top up cards?

With my Straight Talk through Walmart, we just pay sales tax, nothing else. Same with my husband's plan with Virgin.

I see that Target has the top up cards on sale this week. If I get a Target charge card, do I get 5% off on those, too? I didn't see cards for $35. If I get a $55 top up card, will the extra $20 just stay on her account to be applied next month?

Yes on the 5%, not sure about the $20.

For apps, do you get them through Google like I do on my cell or is there a Virgin Mobile site you get them through? Does the money come out of your "top up" account or do you need a credit card to pay for them? I'm not paying for those, so just want to make sure dd knows how they work and how she can pay for them.

No idea!

Thanks!

More of a bump/subscribe on my part! We need answers!

 

[BelleBeautyandtheBeast]

Will the price each month be $35 or will there be fees or tax added on to that?
You will pay $35 plus your local sales tax.

Do you pay tax if you buy the top up cards?
Yes, or at least around here we are charged local sales tax.

If I get a Target charge card, do I get 5% off on those, too?
Yes.

If I get a $55 top up card, will the extra $20 just stay on her account to be applied next month?
You load the money/top up cards on to the account and any balance remaining can be used for whatever you like, it stays there until you use it or the account closes. There is a maximum amount you can have on your account, I am not sure of the current amount but once upon a time it was $500.

For apps, do you get them through Google like I do on my cell or is there a Virgin Mobile site you get them through?
That depends on the phone you buy.

Does the money come out of your "top up" account or do you need a credit card to pay for them?
Either way works. You can buy top up cards and add them to your account or attach a credit card to your account for auto top ups.

 

[HeatherC]

Also thinking of switching to Virgin when our Sprint contract expires in August.

The $35 a month sounds great for unlimited text, web and talk.

I umderstand they run on Sprintnetwork. Wondering if anyone has Virgin and how their coverage is? Any info would be great!

 

[torinsmom]

Also thinking of switching to Virgin when our Sprint contract expires in August.

The $35 a month sounds great for unlimited text, web and talk.

I umderstand they run on Sprintnetwork. Wondering if anyone has Virgin and how their coverage is? Any info would be great!

Is the $35/plan unlimited minutes as well? I thought that it was 300 minutes, unlimited talk and text. That is what my son has, but his is $25, as we've used them for 2 years now.

Anyway, I have had great luck with coverage here in NC. I had AT&T before and had horrible service-- dropped calls, dead zones, etc. I have only found a few places that I didn't have service with VM, and all were places almost everyone else was in the same boat(and once it WAS on a boat) I have had great customer service and they saved me about $60/month!

 

[Kies99]

Myself, my wife and my daughter all have smart phones with VM. We use the $35 a month plan. We have no issues with it.

We've been longtime customers of VM and have never had any issues with the phones, service or customer service. We just switched up to smart phones (2 Optimus V and 1 Optimus Slider) about 2 months ago. So far they are great.

 

[Kies99]

Oh and for the $35/month, it is unlimited text and data but only 300 minutes. That's more than enough for us.

 

[kellia]

Yes, the $35/mo is for 300 minutes of talk, and unlimited text and data. $45/mo has 700 minutes of talk. My dd rarely talks, so the 300 will be great for her. I'm thinking of switching to it myself once we see if she has any problems! Verizon is getting way too expensive!

 

[Muushka]

I just saw the rest of the posts that answered my question.

Straight Talk has $45 a month for unlimited everything.

 

[pigletto]

Yes, the $35/mo is for 300 minutes of talk, and unlimited text and data. $45/mo has 700 minutes of talk. My dd rarely talks, so the 300 will be great for her. I'm thinking of switching to it myself once we see if she has any problems! Verizon is getting way too expensive!

Argh. Can I just whine a bit? We have Virgin Mobile in Canada. We have unlimited text, 1Gb of data and 300 minutes of talk. For 55 dollars a month I looked at dropping my plan down because I don't use nearly that much data and there is no plan for a smartphone under 50 dollars so there's no point.
I am so switiching to a talk and text phone only when our contract is up.

Sorry to make this about me.. I just envy your cell plans!

 

[kellia]

I just saw the rest of the posts that answered my question.

Straight Talk has $45 a month for unlimited everything.

Does straight talk use Sprint network, too? This might be a good option for dh if we drop our plan. He actually uses his phone to talk and currently uses most of our family share minutes!

 

[HM]

Argh. Can I just whine a bit? We have Virgin Mobile in Canada. We have unlimited text, 1Gb of data and 300 minutes of talk. For 55 dollars a month I looked at dropping my plan down because I don't use nearly that much data and there is no plan for a smartphone under 50 dollars so there's no point.
I am so switiching to a talk and text phone only when our contract is up.

Sorry to make this about me.. I just envy your cell plans!

Are you actually on a 'contract' with VM? Here VM is a pay as go or monthy fee with no contract. You can change your plan at any time.

 

[lukenick1]

Another happy VM customer here. We pay $25 a month for 300 mins and unlimited text/data. We have the Optimus V phones and love them!!!!

 

[Muushka]

Has anyone switched over their phone number to Virgin from another provider? Is it easy?

 

[lukenick1]

Has anyone switched over their phone number to Virgin from another provider? Is it easy?

Yes.... not an issue, took a day or so.

 

[NotUrsula]

I have several PayGo accounts and also a smartphone account. I'm still on $25/mo on my smartphone and will stay there as long as I don't change phones; my monthly debit against my CC is $27.35, including the taxes.

We use top-up cards on the PayGo phones, but since the smartphone is a monthly flat fee I have paid as a monthly auto-charge.

Apps come from the Google app store, same as with any other Android phone. HOWEVER, be aware that memory capacity on VM smartphones is more limited than the same phone unlocked, a fair amount of it is partitioned for VM use. The phones have around 430 mb of useable memory and will run low on internal memory fairly easily if you try to load a lot of apps. I've found that the memory starts getting tight once you get to around 30 apps, even with as many of them as possible stored on the SD card rather than internally. I get around this by loading apps temporarily when I need them, and deleting them entirely if I'm not going to be using them for awhile. (Oh, and plan on immediately buying a larger-capacity microSD card than the one that comes with the phone, that one is very small.)

 

[quikah]

Did you have an idea which phone you were going to get? All the current phones except the rumor2 are Android, so you would get apps through the Google store or the amazon appstore (requires installing amazon appstore).

If she does not care about a physical keyboard I would suggest getting the Optimus Elite. The Optimus V and Optimus Slider are severely restricted on the amount of memory they have so you cannot install many apps, though they are both solid phones in every other way. The Elite has greatly increased the memory size over these. If she absolutely needs a physical keyboard then the slider is really your only option.

The triumph has had a lot of problems with it, seems like it is pretty hit or miss whether you will get a good phone. I wouldn't recommend it, beside if you are going to spend that much, might as well get the new Evo V 4G (though no idea how that one is yet).

 

[JB2K]

Also thinking of switching to Virgin when our Sprint contract expires in August.

The $35 a month sounds great for unlimited text, web and talk.

I umderstand they run on Sprintnetwork. Wondering if anyone has Virgin and how their coverage is? Any info would be great!

Since you already have Sprint, the coverage from Virgin Mobile should be identical to what you already have, as Sprint/Virgin Mobile/Boost Mobile all use Sprint towers.

 

[torinsmom]

I have several PayGo accounts and also a smartphone account. I'm still on $25/mo on my smartphone and will stay there as long as I don't change phones; my monthly debit against my CC is $27.35, including the taxes.

Am I understanding that if I upgrade phones, I have to pay more? My son is on the $25 plan(which is now the $35 plan) and I am on the $40 plan($45 now). I'd hate our cost to go up just because we change phones. Neither one of us have or need a smartphone. Just basic text and talk for us.

 

[ryka]

Am I understanding that if I upgrade phones, I have to pay more? My son is on the $25 plan(which is now the $35 plan) and I am on the $40 plan($45 now). I'd hate our cost to go up just because we change phones. Neither one of us have or need a smartphone. Just basic text and talk for us.

I just switched phones 2 months ago and am still on the 25.00 plan so I don't think that is true unless they changed it in the last 2 months.