Samsung Intercept on Virgin Mobile; the phone for me?

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cApNhOwDy

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Keep in mind; I'm a poor college student, and I've never had an Android phone before. Currently I use a flip phone through Verizon that my parents are paying for.

I've been shopping around, and I'm intrigued by the Samsung Intercept. It's got Android 2.2, and I'd be buying it through Virgin Mobile, which gives me access to a sweet no-contract deal; 300 minutes a month, unlimited text and data. It's got a multi-touch screen and a physical keyboard, has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and supports up to 32gb microSD cards. Having a device that I can play my .flac music collection on AND emulate awesome games AND make calls and surf the net, all for $25/month.

However, everywhere I go, I see mixed reviews regarding speed and reliability. If I were to get this phone, and "root" it, what problems would still exist that I would never be able to solve? Obviously, I expect Froyo 2.2 to be the end of the line, but I'm not a phone geek.
 
The intercept is a turd, at least get a optimus. I had a optimus for 3 months and its not a bad phone
 
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But the optimus doesn't have a physical keyboard, I imagine playing emulated games would be awkward with a touchscreen.
 
I'm telling you man you don't want a intercept, that phone sucks seriously. If you need a physical keyboard then get a different carrier like page plus, or boost mobile lol
 
learn to use a touch screen phone, gaming on a intercept is gonna be terrible, angry birds even lags on a optimus and its a lot better then a intercept
 
I work with two users of the Intercept...they both hate it. One's a tech geek and one's just a regular guy who usually doesn't give a $hit about phones. They both complain that it's slow and troublesome.

Optimus would be a good option, or simply pay the $40.00 a month a smartphone would cost on Verizon (on your parents plan). If you want a keyboard...I'm not sure that you'll like the Droid 2. I only know one person who actually likes that keyboard.
gl
 
Add another person who likes the keyboard on the droid 2, although i have the global version. I like my d2g in general.

but yeah, dont get the intercept, its a piece of junk. The optimus series is a really good line of phones for the price (each carrier has one) and i recommend it
 
Two of my coworkers and a friend have the intercept. Frend likes it alot. Two coworkers... not so much. both have issues with phone slowness and other buggy issues.
 
If you are on Verizon now cover the cost of your data plan $30, that's what I did. I sold my optimus for $100 got a Droid incredible for free. I got on my moms plan and I'm a lot happier now, virgin mobile 3g data is garbage, the intercept is a pos
 
My understanding is the Intercept is basically the Samsung Transform on Sprint, except even shittier than the Transform.

That's saying something, because I firmly believe the Transform's sole purpose is to sell the Epic 4G.
 
The optimus v is a good phone, And Virgin mobile runs off of sprint towers. If you have sprint signal you have virgin signal.
 
Honestly if u can pay the $30 difference for data on Verizon do it. You will be a much happier person believe me. Where I live sprints coverage is supposed to be good too. Just trust me I went from the optimus v to a HTC incredible and I am much happier now.

My phone was free, my phone is way better, it doesn't lag, my coverage is awesome now and 3g speeds are great.
 
Get the Optimus V. Great little phone. The intercept, everyone agrees...not very good. Older CPU tech, and a buggy experience from what I hear.

The Optimus tethers out of the box too - install quick settings from the marketplace and bam - easy tethering.

Get another gadget for your gaming-on-the-go fix. A hacked PSP or the like does the trick pretty well.


Virgin is a great deal. Data on VM can be a little fickle ever since all of the Optimus users started on Sprint...sometimes you need to toggle airplane mode on and off.

As far as speed...well, it depends on your area. My Optimus was about 4x faster than my coworker on an original Verizon Droid. He bailed out to Optimus on VM also ;)
 
The optimus ships with 2.2 it is very easy to root and install a Rom tho. I had cm7 on mine and a different Rom that I can't remember. I'd say off u know someone in your area with a optimus v run a speed test first and see what it gets. I was very disappointed with my signal and data speed
 
I tell you what, that Motorola Triumph looks pretty darn nice. Wish it had a physical keyboard though. I heard that some of the best Android emulators got pulled from the market, will there be a way in the future for me to be able to play emulated games on the Triumph? How does touchscreen compared to physical keyboard in terms on controlling the games accurately?

See any reason why I wouldn't be able to use this as my .flac and .avi on-the-go media player? For $25/month, that sounds like a hell of a deal.
 
The Triumph looks interesting, but yes, it's going to be ridiculous in terms of cost, especially since it's hard locked into Virgin Mobile. And apparently they're going to be altering that "unlimited" plan to a 5GB cap like everybody else at some point this summer so, there goes that idea too. BLEH.

Was hoping NET10 would come out with a proper Android phone at some point, they've been my carrier for 5+ years now and I'm not budging from them, but they sure could use some damned nice phones. I got the LG 900G recently and I like it, does what I require but, I'd still love to have a proper Android phone on this network. I never use the browser feature since it's insanely expensive (charge me $1.00 of airtime - that's 10 minutes - just to fire up the browser and when I first tested it I couldn't even connect to any decent websites, not even Google, but they still charged me the airtime).

Won't make that mistake again. There's some local resellers here in Vegas that claim to offer $60/month truly unlimited service and they'll work with the HTC HD2 I plan to replace when I get the chance, so that might be my only option in the long run. But, going from $15/month to $60/month is a huge change. I'll probably just stick with what I've got for years to come...
 
My girlfriend uses the Blackberry 8530 on Virgin Mobile and she seems to be content with it. I also go on it (I have a Blackberry 8330 on Sprint but no Data/texting..) occasionally and the web browser is pretty decent for a phone.

From what she told me, the Intercept sucks balls. She was looking into the Optimus V for the browser, but couldn't justify giving up her physical keyboard. Now that VM will release the Triumph, she's interested. What I would like to see is more selection like the Triumph, perhaps a lower-end Android, or BB, or HTC phone.
 
That phone has gotta be at least $250 the optimus dropped at $150 then sold like hotcakes so it went to $199 there's no way I see this phone being $199 or less
 
The intercept really does suck, both of my co-workers hate theirs. one with a short fuse gave his phone a face plant on the floor hard enough to pop the back cover and batt out of it. LOL!
Reason why is it kept freezing and force closing on him non stop.
 
I'm saying "No" to the Intercept, seems like a kinda shite phone from what I hear.

But DAMN I want a physical keyboard Android phone w/ Unlimited Text/Data =( Sucks about Virgin lowering the bar, that's a dick move and I won't stand for it.

Fuck it, I might just ahead and go all-out Skype phone. I'm usually near a computer anyways. I don't need to pay to stay in touch with my friends, and I don't WANT to be plugged into a grid all the time anyways. Sometimes I like my no-connections side.
 
If Virgin were to FAIL and implement the 5GB cap, who's the next cheapest Android provider for someone who doesn't talk much, but texts and uses the internet a bunch? I like the sounds of only $25/month, I don't have high phone standards aside from it needs to be Android, any competitors to Virgin?
 
Bman123 said:
learn to use a touch screen phone, gaming on a intercept is gonna be terrible, angry birds even lags on a optimus and its a lot better then a intercept
Click to expand...

Add to this the fact that the Intercept has a very non-standard screen resolution, and alot of games won't even work properly. I think the resolution is 240x400.

At least the Optimus has a standard 320x480 screen.
 
cApNhOwDy said:
If Virgin were to FAIL and implement the 5GB cap, who's the next cheapest Android provider for someone who doesn't talk much, but texts and uses the internet a bunch? I like the sounds of only $25/month, I don't have high phone standards aside from it needs to be Android, any competitors to Virgin?
Click to expand...

I dunno. Since they added the Optimus and inadvertently tethering, there's been a lot more data problems. Probably due to douchebags using it as their home internet - there's certainly been people defensive about using it for torrenting and such at howardforums.

Virgin's cap will likely be a soft cap with throttling of some sort. That's fine with me if it helps keep the service cheap and keeps people from using it as a home internet substitute.
 
I have the intercept with vm and it does suck. I too wanted a physical keyboard, but it's getting to be time to finally move on.

I'm jumping on the Triumph bandwagon the day it comes out, and it will be worth every penny.

Can't beat $25 a month, no matter how lousy it's been. The first few months with vm, it was very reliable. Then, the data outages started happening. But at the end of the day, $25.
 
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