Virgin Mobile/Boost Smartphone Service Impressions?

[SteelerForLife]

I was just wondering if anyone had any real world impressions of Virgin Mobile or Boost Mobile prepaid cell service, particularly with their smartphone offerings? I'm about to finish up my 2-year contract with Verizon, where I currently have the old premium family plan with 1400 shared minutes and unlimited data and text for 2 lines. I'm definitely stepping up to smartphones for both lines, but with Verizon's new phone/data plans, the idea of even I slight increase to my $150/month bill has me investigating other options.

Virgin's Samsung Intercept deal intrigues me because I'm leaning towards Android. Paying upfront for two of those sucks when I'm due for the "New Every Two" offer from VZ, but if it means reducing my bill to $100 for comparable service, I have to at least consider it.

Finally the questions: how's the service with these providers? Dropped calls? Dead zones? Data performance? I've read all of the "love-it-or-hate-it" comments on the various cell review sites, but wanted to get opinions from some like-minded folks. So what's the verdict?

[Gotmadskillzson]

Virgin Mobile is Sprint. Their coverage is excellent everywhere I used them when I had Virgin Mobile.

Boost is under Nextel which is under Sprint. Boost didn't work that well for me. It was like the further away you got from a big city the worse the connect got.

Which is odd considering I had a Virgin mobile phone at the same time and that phone still had full bars. Far as availibilty, I would go with Virgin Mobile, their pre-paid cards are much easier to find in stores.

Boost cards however always seemed to be sold out or their truck was always delayed. Which is the main reason why I dropped Boost, their cards were always out of stock 98% of the time.

Hell I still have my 2 Virgin mobile phones. One is a LG flip and the other is a slide out Kyrocera. Kind of weird that phone looks exactly like the Droid, however their keyboard is better then the Droid IMO.

[djk1980]

I am bumping this because I am also considering switching from Sprint to Virgin Mobile. Sick of paying over 120 bucks a month for 1500 mins and unlimited text, espeically if i can get the same service plus unlimited data for 25-40 bucks. So if anyone else has Virgin Mobile and could fill me in on anymore pros and cons that would be great.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Sprint owns Virgin Mobile & Boost. The only difference is the quality of the phone. It has been my experience pre-paid phones don't handle being dropped on the floor too well. But as long as you don't handle the phone rough, it serves it's purpose.

I don't know how good the camera has gotten with pre-paids phones now, but when I had a couple of them a couple of years ago camera wasn't all that great. Worked well in bright light not well indoors, they weren't on the same level as contract phones, less megapixels and a lack of flash.

And why you paying over $120 a month on Sprint anyway ? Out here you get unlimited everything on Sprint for $75 a month.

Now with Verizon.........hell yeah you paying $140 a month for unlimited everything.

[djk1980]

I have my girlfriend on my plan so it's $99 for the plan a month and we have a third line for the kids cause there is about an hour gap or so between when they get home from school and when we get off work, so we can call and make sure they got in alright. It's another 10 bucks for that plus taxes $11 and sprint surcharges was $8 so it's about $130. We wanted to ditch the third line in August cause my girlfriend lost her job and therefore she would be here when the kids got here but we got the ole "sure you can cancel the line but it'll cost ya $160 bucks. We just want to make sure Virgin Mobile is alright and has decent coverage (I think i read they use Sprints towers) and they don't have any little suprises on their bills. Thanks for the help