Virgin Mobile Handset/Upgrade questions

RachVG

Hi,

I've got a number of questions, please bear with me, I thought asking them all at once would be preferable to cluttering up with loads of threads!

First a little info: I currently have a £22 per month tariff from Virgin Mobile which includes unlimited web & texts (subject to fair use bla bla bla) and 250 minutes per month. I've been with Virgin for 10 years and have always found their customer service excellent and their tariffs/handsets exactly fine for my needs.

I'm due an upgrade in January but I'm keeping an eye out early as I usually end up getting to the end of my contract and just picking something randomly instead of doing the proper research befrehand.

I don't really want to leave Virgin for various reasons, the main one being most of my family are also on Virgin but PAYG and I don't want to put their prices up by making them text/call me on a different network if it can be avoided.

1) Are the handsets available on the website the only handsets Virgin offer? For example the only Android phone available on their website is the Wildfire, would they have any other options if I called them or would I have to change networks to get something such as a Desire or Galaxy S?

2) Is there a good website for news on upcoming handsets to each network (press releases etc)? If I knew Virgin had something good coming up I could be happy to wait. It's something I've struggled to find much info about on Google.

3) Does anybody have any recent experiences with the V Mobile retentions dept?

4) My mum is on their PAYG and I want to get her a new handset for Christmas. She doesn't want anything fancy, the cheapest phone with a camera (any res, VGA is fine) and mp3 ringtones would be great. The one she has now is almost 8 years old. But the PAYG phones on the Virgin website don't really suit that purpose, they're all too fancy really - is it possible to buy phones that are network free and will work with any SIM?

Thanks in advance!

John_3:16

for new phones for your mum try

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Argos-Outlet/_i.html?LH_TitleDesc=1&submit=Search&_nkw=mobile+phone

virgin are ok but no better really than anyone else as you say limited a bit on handsets Have you got a tariff with free virgin to virgin calls?

RachVG

Thanks for the link, there are a couple on there that look like they could be goers!

My contract tariff is 250 cross network minutes, she's had her PAYG so long I'm not sure exactly what her costs are but at the time there was only one kind of PAYG tariff. I think it's 3p per text virgin to virgin and 10p per text cross network - not sure on the call costs. Will try and sneak off with her phone and find out later!

ETA: Logged into her Virgin Mobile account, it's 3p per text V2V, 10p x-net, for calls it's 15p per min V2V and 25p per min x-net. She doesn't use it anywhere near enough (tops up with £10 every three months) to be worth changing to any of the current tariffs they're offering.

JJ_Egan

I bought Android Smartphone from O2 shop as Virgin did not sell them . Currently using on Virgin PAYG sim with my old number . Lucky it came unlocked but was prepared to spend £20 to unlock .
You could check Carphone warehouse for actual phone as most of their phones are unlocked . Just a question of sticking your old sim in the new phone .

jje

zolablue25

You could buy a T-mobile handset for your mum. Virgin sims will work in those.

RachVG

zolablue25 wrote: »

You could buy a T-mobile handset for your mum. Virgin sims will work in those.

Thanks for that, I thought that might be the case after a bit more searching, but it's good to have the confirmation! Obviously I don't want to buy her a Christmas present that she can't use but I can't really run off with her phone to test it before then, either!

Seems like Mam's present will be easy to sort, the bigger problem is going to be satisfying myself on the upgrade issue!