This prepaid phones has a nice design and a couple surprising features, but why did it leave us disappointed in the end? Check out our in-depth Virgin Mobile Arc review.
Review summary of the Virgin Mobile Arc:
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 It's hard to bash a $50 prepaid phone because expectations for this device are probably low to begin with. So let's start with the good stuff. It has a slick design, better than some clamshells that are far more expensive. It has a good, accurate speaker-independent voice dialing app, tied to a dedicated button to make it easier to use. It also worked nicely with our Bluetooth devices. If that's all you need from this phone, you might not mind that the Web browser is woefully behind the times, or that the VGA camera produced low-quality images that were only useful as simple MMS messages. You might worry about reception issues, as we had trouble as we moved out of the strong signal umbrella of the city and into the wooded suburbs. If you're going to be doing a lot of texting, there are probably more comfortable phones to choose from, even on Virgin Mobile's prepaid network. This phone disappointed us even with some of its basic features, like call quality, but it had a few nice moments, so it isn't all bad. Release: August 2008. Price: $50.
Pros: Cool clamshell design. Speaker-independent voice dialing. Cheap price, without a contract.
Cons: Poor reception caused calling issues. Lousy camera. Sub-par Web browser. Cramped keys.
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Full Virgin Mobile Arc Review:
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Design - Good
The Virgin Mobile Arc, a clamshell phone from UTStarcom, is actually a nice-looking phone. As a prepaid phone, the Arc won't be the phone for feature-hunters, so the slick, curvy design and soft-touch paint finish will be a nice bonus for bargain hunters and the contract-averse on Virgin Mobile's prepaid network. In fact, the design is nice enough that we wish higher-end clamshells would borrow some of its aesthetic, especially the ribbed sides that made the clamshell very easy to snap open in a hurry one-handed.
Inside, we liked the wealth of dedicated buttons, including keys for SMS messaging, the speakerphone and the Web. We especially like the key that jumps right to the user's account page, showing how much cash is left on the current prepaid limit. Unfortunately, the numeric keypad was very tightly packed. At first it appears larger than it is, thanks to the large font. But once we started typing, we found the layout to be a bit narrow.
Calling - Mediocre
Under the best circumstances, calls on the Virgin Mobile Arc sounded okay, but as reception dipped to two bars or less, call quality took a serious hit. In New York City, this wasn't as much of a problem, but in suburban New Jersey, where we only had a single bar of service, calls were a complete mess. Sound occasionally dropped out, and we heard static and a digitized sound in callers' voices. Reception was a problem for the phone, and it always had fewer bars of service than our Sprint Treo 755p, even though Virgin Mobile phones use Sprint's network. Battery life was okay. We got about 4.5 hours of talk time out of a single call, which is more than the 3.5 Virgin Mobile promises.
For calling features, the phone uses a fairly simple address book, though if you're considering the Arc, you probably don't need a business-class contacts list. We were pleasantly surprised to find good speaker-independent voice dialing, with its own dedicated button on the side of the phone, no less. This worked perfectly in our tests. The phone also paired with all of our Bluetooth headsets without a problem. However, the speakerphone was another disappointment. Though the phone was capable of producing some piercing rings with the included ringtones, the speakerphone didn't come close to matching that volume and it sounded muddy to boot.
Messaging - Mediocre
The Virgin Mobile Arc is fine for SMS text messaging and picture messages using MMS, but anyone looking for more advanced messaging features should look elsewhere. The phone includes a rudimentary instant messaging client, but its presets are limited to AIM and Yahoo, no MSN and certainly no Google Talk. E-mail is about the same, with AOL and Yahoo plus a few budget ISPs, including NetZero. Again, there is no support for Microsoft's e-mail services, nor any presets for Google. The client itself was basic, and the phone was fairly sluggish over the network, so we're not sure it would be worth the messaging fees to use IM on this device.
For text messaging, we had some trouble with the keyboard, which was just a bit narrow for our hands. Otherwise, the phone uses T9 to help with typing, and we it worked just fine in our tests. We even liked the well-marked "Next" symbol on the "0" key, and the fact that T9 correctly guessed our next words a few times in our test message, before we had even typed a letter.
Camera - Mediocre
The Virgin Mobile Arc is packaged as a "Camera Flip Phone," so perhaps two out of three isn't bad, but it would be very hard for us to recommend this phone for its camera. It uses a VGA sensor, which is way behind the times. There is no memory card slot, and no Bluetooth file transfer, so the only way to get pictures off the device is to send them, either as MMS messages or as uploads to the Virgin Mobile MyPix site. This costs a quarter per picture to send, and judging by the poor quality of the images, it probably isn't worth it. Images were blocky and drab, even on the phone's small, 1.8-inch screen. We didn't have an account set up with MyPix, so we couldn't see them full size. The phone can use the external display as a self-portrait mirror of sorts, but this requires some menu digging, so it's easier to just look at yourself in the shiny reflecting on the glossy black strip. Either way, cameraphone is probably not the best title for this device.
Web browser - Poor
There are plenty of good reasons to skip the Web browser on the Virgin Mobile Arc, as well. Though it performed fine for basic searching within the Virgin Mobile WAP deck, once we tried to browser real Web pages, things got messy in a hurry. Our own home page partially loaded, but the results were scattershot. Some pictures were large and blocky, others were stretched and blocky, and others still were rendered so tiny we could hardly see the blockiness. Pages come through as a long, single column, and scrolling to the bottom of a long page required loads of clicking, as there was no smooth scrolling option. Perhaps in a pinch this would do, but better to save your prepaid dollars for calling and text messaging, and leave the Web browsing to the big boys.
Price and availability
The Virgin Mobile Arc is available from Virgin Mobile for $50.
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