Virgin Mobile Flare: not bad for 30 bucks

by Chris Ziegler, posted Mar 15th 2008 at 6:18PM

Virgin Mobile's slowly (and we do mean slowly) moving into the 21st century with its ultra-cheap prepaid offerings; in the past they've frequently foregone features most of us consider standard like Bluetooth and external displays in an effort to keep the sticker shock to a minimum, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Virgin's getting close to being able to offer a circa-2008 feature set in 2008. Here we have the Flare courtesy of LG, a glossy lil' flip that serves up a color screen out front, Bluetooth, speakerphone, and mobile web access for a penny shy of $30 -- contract-free. The FCC filing (it's the LX175) reveals a lack of EV-DO, but seriously, what do you expect for the price?

[Thanks, Eric C.]

Filed under: Handsets, LG, Virgin Mobile, MVNOs, CDMA

Tags: clamshell, flare, flip, lg, virgin, virgin mobile, VirginMobile

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lowest Ranked

Chris @ Mar 15th 2008 6:25PM

First post!

Neutral

srw985 @ Mar 16th 2008 11:31AM

clever boy

Neutral

Andrew @ Mar 16th 2008 12:19PM

Looks like something that not one person reading this would use.

However, it does look like something that would be wonderful for moms and dads and the rest of the non-techy, non-gadget loving population. (weirdos)

Neutral

Pamela @ Mar 16th 2008 3:51PM

Their best phones feature wise they have had over time are the slider sonic (only phone with a memory card slot and that one is old and not being sold anymore in stores online online), the cyclops, and the wildcard. I like the fact that you can just buy a new phone whenever you want for the price, but if they made a phone with more features and it was $99 like the wild card I would get it if it was good, that's still very cheap for a full priced phone.

Highest Ranked

Gregg @ Mar 17th 2008 12:17AM

I recently purchased the Flare originally for my wife to upgrade from her previous phone. After having used the Flare on a quick family call I came to love it. The Flare has great call quality, it looks great being all black and so damn shinny as well as having all of the standard things like bluetooth, external display, etc...I ended up purchasing a second Flare the next day to replace my phone, the Slice. We've been with Virgin Mobile for about 10 months now after having left Sprint. Our main reason was that we are not huge phone users and hated paying $90.00 - $110.00 a month for two phones giving us 3 - 4 times the amount of minutes that we actually need but never getting any kind of refund for unused minutes. I now love the fact that we are paying about $50.00 a month for two phones and still using Sprints network but not being molested by their charges. Granted, the Virgin Mobile phones could be of a better quality, having gone through about 5 different models myself, but overall we are very happy with the service. I would be willing to pay more for a phone, even up to $200 to get some of the bigger names in cell phones such as the razr, krzr, etc but Virgin has yet to bring them to the states even though Virgin Mobile does supply those top tier phones to other countries such as Canada and England.

Neutral

Charles King @ Apr 4th 2008 12:20PM

Did the stock market get it wrong or are these purchases 2 year contract free? Would I be actually BUYING the phone for less than 30 dollars, instead of LEASING TO BUY which is the norm these days?

Neutral

kristvitale1973 @ May 11th 2008 12:26AM

I want this phone

Neutral

kristvitale1973 @ May 11th 2008 12:30AM

I Like this

Neutral

Bob @ May 12th 2008 4:09PM

I bought this phone, it's a piece of crap.

Virgin Mobile has a serious lack of cool, affordable phones. They either have phones that are too expensive and do too much (like the Slider or the Wild Card) or they have cheap, ugly phones. I thought maybe the Flare was going to finally be what Virgin Mobile was missing. Turns out, it's not.

This is lightweight, cheap plastic. The buttons actually squeak when you press them because they are all plastic. Furthermore, that external display is only on when you press a button on the side of the phone or the phone is ringing. The rest of the time, the outside is dark. I don't know about you, but I like being able to use my phone to check time just by looking at it.

It is nice that the external display is in bold, large text and a color display. And the phone is sleek and black, unlike all those ugly-as-hell white and red phones Virgin Mobile keeps selling, but this thing just isn't priced right.

Wait a few months for this thing to drop down to $10 and it will be worth it. Paying $30 is completely unreasonable. In the meantime, here's hoping Virgin Mobile comes out with some nice study phones that look cool too and are functional. This Flare just looks way better on the website than it feels in your hand.

Neutral

Jim @ May 31st 2008 5:05PM

I don't know what's the big deal. All of VM phones are Bluetooth challenged meaning that they cripple the Object Push Profile for data transfer. So if you are looking for a phone that you can transfer ringtones and other stuff, look somewhere else.