Hacker News Reader

Comment by georgieporgie | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat off-topic: is there any reason not to get Virgin Mobile's $150 LG Optimus V for the purpose of exploring Android development? Aside from smaller memory and lower-res camera, it looks like I don't miss out on anything from top of the line models.

View on HN

The only reasons not to get one are (1) Not-great hardware, if you love top-of-the-line stuff, it'll fall short, (2) Sprint's network is pretty sucky, and you can't roam onto Verizon like I believe you can with regular Sprint, (3) Virgin Mobile doesn't allow VM forwarding so you can't easily use Google Voice for Voicemail.

On the other hand, it's a nearly-pure Froyo experience, the battery life and performance is great, the plans are dead cheap, it has awesome hardware buttons not crappy haptic capacitive ones, a Market install of "Quick Settings" opens up the Wifi Hotspot feature. Seriously, $25/mo?!

Anyway, I bought one, and coming off an old iPhone (and AT&T), I think it's great so far. Might have to reevaluate after I spend some time out of the metro area and away from Interstates.

I've played with one, it is a very acceptable phone and a fine dev platform. I think it's a good idea.

Thanks for the thumbs-up. I snagged the last one in town at Target for $109 (if you view the gift card as 'cash').

I've already connected it via Wifi and downloaded apps. Looks like can play with quite a lot of features without even activating.

Thats exactly what I got it for and it turns out that its a good little phone. The resistive touch works more accurately for me than other phones of the same size and the battery lasts me 3 days most of the time.

The LG Optimus screen is capacitive. You can get a stylus for it but it's a special capacitive one.

I just wish I could afford one. Can you still use the pay-as-you-go plans with this one?

More or less. Virgin Mobile is a no contract provider, you pre-pay for each month of service as you go. All the plans are unlimited (~5gigs) data/ unlimited texts - $60 gets you unlimited voice, $25 gets you 300 minutes, and there is something in the middle at $40/mo. The $25/mo is the best US deal for a capable android phone that I know of. You do need to pick from these plans though, you can't use their x cents a minute pay as you use it plan afaik.

EDIT: Link to the thread (thanks georgie) about it being $129 w/ $20 gift card at target. Damn good deal, note the one I played with worked fine over wifi before it was activated with VM. Sale started yesterday: http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=27...

As I understand it, the cheapest plan is $25/mo with unlimited data, 300 minutes voice, and no contract.

Edit: also, I saw on Slickdeals.net that Target is/was selling them for $129 and you get a $20 gift card.

The main problem, at least for me, is that it is on Sprint's CDMA network so it doesn't work if you travel out of the country. Another issue for some people is it doesn't have flash.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com