Virgin Mobile’s No Contract Samsung Intercept Rolls Out This Month

by Jason Norment Oct 4, 2010 10:16 AM – 2 Comments

Virgin Mobile announced today that it would begin offer their first Android handset for their no-contract nationwide plans starting this month. Remember a few weeks ago we reported that Virgin Mobile gave everyone a sneak peak on their Facebook page about offering the Intercept. This comes after earlier this summer Sprint also rolled out it’s first Android handset for it’s Boost Mobile service as well, the Motorola i1. It looks like Sprint is trying to reach it’s pre-paid no-contract Android-aspiring customer base and tap into that unexplored market. Most of the major carriers offer pre-paid services but many don’t offer Android devices to use on those plans.

Bob Strohrer, Vice-President for Marketing of Virgin Mobile USA stated in the official press release: ““As smartphone users come up for contract renewal and examine their monthly costs, they will start to wonder why they are paying more each month when they can get similar services from Virgin Mobile at a fraction of the price.” This brings up a good point. Even Sprint’s best rate plans can’t compete with Virgin Mobile’s options for the Samsung Intercept: $25, $40, and $60 plans.

The Samsung Intercept doesn’t seem to have any unchanged features from the Sprint Version. The Intercept will still sport a 3.0 inch display, 3.2 megapixel camera, support for up to 32bd (microSDHC), Bluetooth, full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and of course Android 2.1. Sprint’s version of the Intercept was reported to receive the 2.2 but will Virgin Mobile also receive the update?

Virgin Mobile will roll-out the new device throughout the month to major retailers and should be available online around mid-month October for $249.99.

Source [Virgin Mobile USA]

Tags: Android Phones, Samsung Intercept, Virgin Mobile

Categorised in: Android Phones, News

2 Comments

By Timothy on March 10, 2011 at 1:45 pm:

Worst phone I have ever owned in my life. Battery lasts about 2 hours max on a good day. That’s with normal use and wifi off. This is the 3rd Intercept I have exchanged and they are all terrible.

Very slow processor and very unresponsive. Locks up constantly and has to be rebooted. This phone shouldn’t even be considered a smart phone or in the category with other droids. It is pretty sad when you have to recharge your phone every 2 hours throughout the day just to use it.

I have owned $7.00 cell phones that worked better than the Intercept. Also I can’t count how many times this phone has just turned itself off in the middle of a call with a full battery. All 3 of my Intercepts have done that, so I know it’s a common problem with this phone and not just the one that I own.

Sometimes you have to push a button 3 or 4 times before it responds. When you slide or drag the window there is always a delay and it stops constantly. This phone has the worst internal storage and memory around. At least half of the apps from the Droid market malfunction on this phone. On a normal day this phone will freeze up on me anywhere from 5-15 times, to the point that I have to open the back to take the battery out before I can restart.

I really wanted to like this phone, but as it turns out, it’s by far the worst phone I’ve ever used. To say it is frustrating is an understatement. The problem is its poor response. Frequently during daily use it is unresponsive. Especially after a phone call. It might take up to twenty seconds for the controls to respond. This is not acceptable!

I am a certified computer technician. I work on and repair all makes and models of computers. I embrace technology and understand it. But I will never understand this phone! I have no interest in “rooting” it either. It should just work….but it does not. And please don’t tell me I have “too many programs installed.” I don’t have any. In fact, I’ve done a hard reset on this phone-twice-running only the factory installed programs and STILL it is totally unresponsive.

I also find no correlation between what is running in the background and how the phone behaves. Every time I use the device I clear out whatever programs I’m not using at the moment. But it seems this does not make a difference. The phone has a mind of its own and it will behave any way it wants to, RAM or no RAM

If you go to cnet reviews you will see that over 80% of all the genuine reviews for this phone have 1 star or less. Samsung should be sued and should be put out of business for passing off a phone as bad as this to the consumer. BUYER BEWARE: If you do buy this phone it only comes with a 30 day warranty and everything will work great until the second month you own it……..TOTAL DISAPPOINTMENT

I regret buying this phone. But I’ll keep it until my carrier comes out with another model that I like, then I’m gonna just trash the Intercept. I don’t have the heart to sell it to someone else.”

Pros: makes a good paperweight.

Reply
- By Jason Norment on March 10, 2011 at 2:28 pm:
  
  I had a colleague that had an Intercept. Had it about 2 weeks before she turned it in. I tried outI suggested she returned the device and get a different one. I have to admit, I’m a little spoiled with having an Evo, especially now that I’m running Cyanogenmod 7.
  
  Have you considered rooting the device and placing a custom ROM on it? It’s hard to determine whether it’s an hardware or software issue. You could easily back-up the stock ROM after rooting it and trying a new one out. XDA Developers has a lot of info on ROMS:
  
  UbuntDroid: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=925453
  Samsung Intercept Developer Forum: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=901
  
  Reply