News of Virgin Mobile starting to sell an Android phone is disruptive, to say the least.
Not because of the phone – it’s a dinky little Samsung Intercept – but because of the plans. They are all contract-free, and start at $25. The basic level only gives you 300 minutes to talk, but it includes unlimited data – no funny extra fees like the majors do. As our communication patterns change, many of us don’t need more than 300 minutes, just a good data connection.
$25 all-inclusive, without a 2-year plan commitment at a time when all other smartphone plans start at $69 and higher, with penalties if you leave or upgrade within two years sounds like a great deal – even if the phone is a compromise. Since I am within the 30-day period to evaluate both a Samsung Fascinate from Verizon and the HTC EVO from Sprint, I decided to get one. Buying was easy – pick it up from the local Target in 5 minutes – and so was activation online.
First impression: the phone works, call quality is decent, the screen is tiny but readable, and I was able to install / run apps from the Google Apps Market. As the phone has EVDO Rev0 vs. the current standard RevA, data conenction is supposedly slower – but here’s the gotcha: I live in an area so badly forgotten by all carriers, that I only get a poor signal anyway, so I won’t notice. (Virgin Mobile uses the Sprint 3G network.)
But the first surprise cam today, when I tried to install Google Voice. The App installs, but setting up your account fails at the step when your supposed to call *71yournumber to route voicemail to Google Voice. The message is rather rude: “You are not authorized to call this number”. Ouch. Virgin Mobile Customer Service confirmed: there is no way to fully setup Google Voice, since they don’t support call forwarding, which is the the way Google Voice VM needs to be set up.
So where does that leave us? For one, And Android phone without the full Google Voice experience is not really an Android phone. On the other hand, you can use most GV functions: outgoing calls and text messages via GV, integrated inbound messages, voicemail transcription – as long as you follow the discipline of not giving out your cellphone number, making outbound calls via GV..etc.
Compromise? It most certainly is. But then you save at least $1,000 over the lifetime of a typical contract. You get what you pay for. And that’s both good or bad.
That is suspicious. The service obviously includes voice mail, and that needs call forwarding. There must be some way to override the voice mail number – just not via the starcode. Try speed dial directory.
Can you buy a better Sprint-Android phone – say the Evo or the Samsung before the Evo on ebay or something and put it on the Virgin plan?
Virgin Mobile says they simply don’t offer call forwarding, it’s not a matter of which phone I use.
That said, buying a better phone at full price and combine it with their rates would be a great deal, but again, no such luck. They only allow you on their plan with their own phones.
When you say, “as long as you follow the discipline of making outbound calls via GV..etc.”
Do you mean that since they don’t do call forwarding on Virgin, that you have to call into GV to make the outbound call via GV? Or you have to just open the GV app to make a call from GV? I guess my question is, what’s the impact on the outbound call experience on this phone vs. other droid phones that can fully integrate with Google Voice.
Also, did you find any way around the $250 price to buy the phone? Sure, the plan is great, but the price of the phone is just ok.
Thanks for your help.
Outbound calls are the same as on any other Android phone. What I meant by discipline is if you always make calls via GV, few people will know your actual mobile number, which means they will call your GV number, so you won’t really have to worry about voicemail going to the Virgin box directly…
I jsut got this phone. $199 at radio shack even though online prices shows $249.
The Google Voice android application wants you to forward voicemail to Google Voice number by dialing *71xxxxxxxxxx where the x’s are your GV number. Virgin Mobile does not allow call forwarding, but you can still have GV receive voicemail and distribute notifications, then have GV handle all outgoing calls.
With this setup, you will use your GV number to make and receive calls. Your android number is not used. Incoming calls to your android number will always ring your android device and will not go to voicemail.
We begin by having customer service disable voicemail.
Run the Market application and search for Google Voice. Install the Google Voice application. Set GV to be used for all calls so that the GV number is used instead of the android’s number for outgoing calls from your android phone.
On the mobile desktop:
* install shortcut to the Voice application to get to the GV inbox
* Optionally install Google Voice Settings widget which has these buttons:
1. GV Inbox
2. New msg
3. when to use GV number for calls
4. Do not disturb toggle
On desktop computer change GV voice settings
* forward calls to one or more phones (one of them to your android)
* select send one or more email and/or sms notifications
If one of the GV forwarding phones does not answer within about five rings, then GV will take the voicemail call.
Voicemail can be checked by:
1. calling your GV number from any of your GV forwarding phones
2. opening the GV inbox on your android and clicking the play button
3. clicking on the play button in an email that you have set to receive voicemail notifications
I also installed a Missed Call application which can notify of new mail, sms, or missed call. It does not do voicemail notifications but will see your gmail and/or sms messages.
Give your GV number to your contacts.
A positive side effect is that your GV can receive voicemail even when your android is without service or is turned off and still get voicemail notifications when those gmail and/or sms messages sent by GV arrive shortly after starting your phone.
Go to donotcall.gov and submit your phone numbers to the national do not call list.
Just a quick question. I set up Google Voice on my new Virgin Mobile Android and I can make outgoing calls. Will I be charged against my minutes if I use Google Voice to forward incomming calls to my Virgin Mobile number? Or is there another way to receive Google Voice calls without using my cell minutes?
Install a plug-in in Gmail so that it can make calls and receive calls for free. See http://www.google.com/chat/voice/.
Keep gmail loaded in your browser and it can receive google voice calls if google chat has been set-up as a forwarding number for google voice.
Set both your cell phone and google chat as forwarding numbers for google voice and you can choose which device to answer calls. Have Virgin Mobile disable voicemail so that google voice will process voicemail after no answer from your cell or gmail.
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@John I just switched from AT&T to VM with and Intercept. The current price of $219 on VM site or $179 over at Best Buy is a great price for a no contract smartphone. Granted this isn’t a Nexus S; its a budget smartphone at worst. But you will be hard pressed to find a no contract Android 2.1 device for this price. And when you consider VM’s rate plans, it’s a real bargain.
That being said and to the topic of the article, I am very, very disappointed that VM does not support GV to the fullest. I went with Android over my beloved iOS just for that. But it’s not a mark on Android as this is a Virgin Mobile specific issue.
Disabling voice mail on Virgin won’t make any difference in this scenario. If you’re in a situation where your caller would’ve hit Virgin voice mail (such as rejecting a call too early for Google Voice to catch it) then your caller will simply hit a “mailbox not found” message instead. The message includes your Virgin number, thus confusing the issue and making your caller believe they dialed a wrong number.
Call Virgin and urge them to enable call forwarding.
You’re right leibezeit. One step that Gary M. forgot to mention is that you MUST enable call screening in GV. If you don’t have call screening enabled, then GV thinks you’ve answered the phone and sends the caller to your cell number where they hear the “mailbox not found” message.
Once you’ve turned on call screening, what disabling voicemail does is stops your voicemail from filling up with a bunch of voicemails from GV saying “press 1 to accept and 2 to send the caller to voicemail”
I’m thinking there might be a way around the forwarding thing after all… When I ported my tmobile number to virgin mobile, I accidentally entered the last digit of my phone number incorrectly (it was supposed to be an 8, I entered 0) in the MPN box. Surprisingly, I still received calls and was able to make calls on the phone. I didn’t realize I had put the wrong number in until I went to set up voicemail and ended up getting someone else’s voicemail (there is a big chance that the number was for an AT&T customer, since that is where my number originally came from). I quickly resolved the problem by reprogramming the phone again with the correct number… but now I’m wondering— if I reprogrammed my phone with the google voice number instead of my ported number, would it work? I’m afraid to try… don’t want any hassles this weekend~!