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I'm looking for a phone at a great deal w/ no contracts. I really like Virgin's 25$ (or 35$ for blackberry) plan. I'm just really stuck on which phone is better. I am new to smartphones and don't know too much about them. Its a toss between the blackberry curve 8530 or Samsung's Intercept. The intercept looks really cool, has a better camera, and a bigger screen (plus 10$ a mo. cheaper!) but I hear that the Blackberry is more reliable, and the intercept freezes and lags and has alot of issues. Then I read that the blackberry has horrible battery time and was having problems receiving texts from at&t customers. Does anyone have any experience with either of these phones or opinions on which is better? I really don't want to have to buy another phone for a long time.
Thanks!
I just got the Intercept last week, after dealing with VM support for 3 days because they misplaced my initial $25 payment and wouldn't activate my phone, I paid them again, got the phone working, and called my bank and had them reverse the missing first payment. I was about 5 seconds away from returning the phone, getting my money back and going somewhere else, but $25 a month for full text & data was too good to not give them a second chance.
VM is owned by Sprint so you use the Sprint network, so far I've been happy with the phone, it does lag on occasion, but it seems to do it less the more I use it, and paying $25 a month vs. $80+ a month for full service seems to make me much more tolerant of minor phone quirks. Also take a look at android.com and check out all the available apps, you can't run those on a blackberry!
VM is owned by Sprint so you use the Sprint network, so far I've been happy with the phone, it does lag on occasion, but it seems to do it less the more I use it, and paying $25 a month vs. $80+ a month for full service seems to make me much more tolerant of minor phone quirks. Also take a look at android.com and check out all the available apps, you can't run those on a blackberry!
I also recently got the intercept. I had read about lag issues but for the low monthly price, decided it was worth a shot. Didn't have the issues getting started like NHDave, bought it at best buy if that matters and they had it up and running pretty quick.
The lag was annoying at first but I agree with NHDave, it's getting less bad the more I use it. I think you just have to get used to the sensitivity of those 4 touch sensitive buttons and learn how to "press them right". Haven't had any other issues, setting up wi-fi was a breeze, email/facebook/texting all connected without issues.
And as for android vs. blackberry, I think android is pretty nice and the apps are certainly a plus. I don't know what blackberry does as far as apps but I can't imagine it's worth an extra $10. Android all the way.
Re: the samsung intercept, it's not a top of the line phone that will compare spec-wise with the likes of droid2 or other high end phones that you get with verizon/att/sprint. But if you don't have to have the latest and greatest phone, the difference in monthly price (less than half) more than makes up for that. You will probably find that the lesser intercept will do 99% of what the droid2 would do for you.
Also, the intercept comes with android 2.1, with 2.2 upgrade coming soon. Some phones are still releasing with older versions of android.
One issue with a lot of android phones, is that the carrier adds it's junky interface on top of android, which users tend to find makes the phone worse, not better. The intercept doesn't have much of this at all, it's more of a "pure" android phone than most, which is a good thing.
When you get the android be sure to get launcher pro to enhance your home screen and surrounding functions, and add much configurability.
So swerver, I installed launcher pro to check it out, one thing I noticed is that I can no longer bring up the notifications page? Do you have that problem?
Is that the one you pull down from the top? Sorry still learning the lingo, it's my first smart phone. If so, no I haven't had that problem. I can tell you this tho, one of the features it brings is the ability to hide the status bar at the top of the screen (that contains time, battery, signal strength etc) and if that's hidden, then swiping the top of the screen will not bring up the notifications page. So maybe your status bar is hidden?
I found this forum that has a lot of helpful info. There is a board in there specifically for each android phone, as well as many other topics, probably several threads just for launcher pro.
I've tried out both to play around with them and the Samsung would be my choice if I had to pick, but the bigger issue for me is the actual service Virgin Mobile provides, which can be very poor in some areas.
I used one of their Blackberry phones for a while when I was selling on ebay, and texting was a mess. The whole thing would go down for 2-3 days at a time, and when it did work, many times it would take anywhere from 5 minutes to 4 HOURS for texts to come in from people. And sometimes they would never even be received when you sent them out. Virgin's Facebook page was FILLED with tons of similar complaints. They finally erased the posts but many have found their way back on there.
Best Buy offers the last time I checked a 30 day return policy on those phones (double check). If you decide to try Virgin, I'd suggest getting the phone off the shelf at one of those stores so you can easily take it back should there be service issues in your area. I know they have the Blackberry on the shelves - not sure about the Samsung yet.
So swerver, I installed launcher pro to check it out, one thing I noticed is that I can no longer bring up the notifications page? Do you have that problem?
this is a common issue with the notification swipe area getting frozen or whatever. the easiest way to fix is to hold down the home button until you get the last used app list then hit the back button. the notification bar swipe down should work then.
this is a common issue with the notification swipe area getting frozen or whatever. the easiest way to fix is to hold down the home button until you get the last used app list then hit the back button. the notification bar swipe down should work then.
Well, I finally gave up on launcher pro, along with the annoying notification bug, it would randomly crash. I switched to Zeam, seems to be even faster, all the features I use, and no crashes or notification issues.
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be sure to get launcher pro to enhance your home screen and surrounding functions, and add much configurability.
