Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile Custom ZTE Emblem Prepaid Smartphone

$44.99
(3.6) 3.6 stars out of 10 reviews 10 reviews
$44.99
$44.99
Free overnigh delivery
FSA and HSA eligible
Virgin Mobile Custom ZTE Emblem Prepaid Smartphone

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Customer reviews & ratings

3.6 out of 5stars
(10 reviews)
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Most helpful positive review

5.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
12/28/2014
Outstanding affordable phone
I purchased two of these phones for my 15 and 16 year olds. I didn't expect much from it as I was not very familiar with Virgin Mobile and was just looking for something with a cheap monthly committment. The minimum plan for this phone is $6.97 per month for 20 talk minutes and 20 texts. The service is clear as a bell and we live way out in the country. The kids are able to get a lot of apps that they want and I especially love the ala-cart options to add texts, minutes, internet etc...The kids have the option to use their own money to add whatever they choose to add. A lot of the add-ons are only $2.50 or $5.00. So I pay for the basic service and they add on as they can afford to. It works out great. The phones seem to be durable, not cheaply made and again the service is outstanding. Easy to operate as well. Would highly recommend this to anyone.
TLC3kids

Most helpful negative review

1.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
09/13/2014
need to exchange
Bought this on walmart.com. the "custom" app needed to set up my account was not on it. I valled customer service...they tried to help, but werent able to get the app on there. They told me to return it. Hopefully I can exchange it at my local walmart.
jeng77
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    12/28/2014
    Outstanding affordable phone
    I purchased two of these phones for my 15 and 16 year olds. I didn't expect much from it as I was not very familiar with Virgin Mobile and was just looking for something with a cheap monthly committment. The minimum plan for this phone is $6.97 per month for 20 talk minutes and 20 texts. The service is clear as a bell and we live way out in the country. The kids are able to get a lot of apps that they want and I especially love the ala-cart options to add texts, minutes, internet etc...The kids have the option to use their own money to add whatever they choose to add. A lot of the add-ons are only $2.50 or $5.00. So I pay for the basic service and they add on as they can afford to. It works out great. The phones seem to be durable, not cheaply made and again the service is outstanding. Easy to operate as well. Would highly recommend this to anyone.
    TLC3kids
  • 3.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    11/27/2014
    Our first smart phone.
    I dropped my Virgin Mobile Slider phone which I had for over 14 years and went looking for a replacement at Walmart. Since I don't text I just wanted a cheap phone to stay in touch at work. I liked the monthly cost of the minimum plan, ($6.98 for 20 minutes and 20 texts) so I got I for my wife to replace her slider and one for me. Both phones activate by themselves when first turned on. For an extra $3.00 a month, you get an additional 250 minutes which are shared between the 2 phones. Great deal! My wife really liked the large numbers on the dialing screen compared to the old Slider phone, whose numbers were so tiny you needed a magnifying glass just to see the screen! So she's really happy and so am I, until an app popped up on my screen that said, "Unfortunitly, ItsOn, Service is Off" and my phone is useless. An online search showed the App to be a battery burner, requiring a manual shut down, interrupted by the continual presence of the on screen warning popping up.
    Marscott
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    11/08/2014
    Pretty good deal for a smart phone
    Got two of these for the kids. Set up was pretty easy on one but the instructions are vague and didn't match always. The other was a pain and had to call the 800 number and have it reset. Easier getting a new phone number, transferring the number on one phone was slow too. But, once everything was set up the seem to work fine and the kids are happy.
    MarkLC
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    10/26/2014
    Plenty of bang for the buck.
    I chose a plan approximately $28.00 per month. At first I thought this price was per user which would be slightly high for a supposedly budget phone. In reality, only the first user pays $28.00 and then each additional user is merely $7.00. Not bad. Given that my household doesn't use the cell phone much, this is probably the cheapest deal in town. (I signed up for 500 minutes talks, 500 MB data, and 250 texts). I'm not entirely sure why someone would pay $500.00 for a phone. This one only costs $59.00. Not a huge amount of battery life, admittedly, but otherwise works fairly well. I just tried the GPS navigation which worked fine, for example. No problems so far.
    NoPresumption
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    09/27/2014
    Great phone.
    Great phone for the price. I'm going to buy two more phones for my grand kids. I had the same phone with the reg. virgin mobile service, costing me over $37.00 a month. now i'm pay$ 13.58 a month because i do not need the 3G service , all i use is my wfi at home and the hot spots around town.
    flbob51
  • 2.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    09/25/2014
    Does Not Have The Custom App it needs!!!
    This phone did not have the custom app it needs to use it for Virgin Mobile custom plan. It's very disappointing. Other than that it's fine. It felt like my Alcatel One Touch Fierce. I spend so much time talking to VM associate to get the app in there but I could not, I had to return it and get another one. I ordered LG Pulse instead and hoping this one it gonna have it. Virgin Mobile should really work on it. They waste people's time and mess with their plans! I would give it at least 4 stars if not having the custom plan had not been a huge problem!
    Katiekartveli
  • 3.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    09/19/2014
    What you'd Expect for the Price
    The phone? Amazing. Walmart response and service? Above and beyond expectations. (Tim from Lufkin Walmart Assistant Manager stayed on the phone for nearly an hour trying to help me activate it.) Virgin Mobile Customer Support / Service? Absolutely abyssal. 5 Chat CSR attempts, 4 Tech support Attempts, and 2 Customer Care Attempts, and 3 Virgin Mobile Custom Care attempts with Zero attempt to address product information / aid. "Ask Walmart." or "Ask Not Us." was the only two answers I got as I spent 7 hours trying to activate the two phones I purchased. Thankfully the Customer Service at Walmart was able to patch me through to a Manager who patched me to Tim who was able to /at the very least/ troubleshoot to rule out DOA. The problem was eventually resolved by doing a factory reset -and- only turning on 1 device at a time until the Virgin Mobile Custom icon would appear on the phone. Again, very nice phone for a good price, and not that bad for phone calls / texts / interface, but reupping your plan or trying to contact support was akin to looking for a pebble in a lake.
    Sheamzilla
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    09/18/2014
    Preliminary Impressions and things you should know
    Got this phone for my tween daughter. Was interested in the parental controls and the low rate plans available. Setup was easy. Device walked me through everything step by step. First key point: There is no customer support for Virgin's Custom line of phones - none. You must go to the online help or "go to your local Walmart." This might work out OK, or maybe not. Second key point: A key parental control feature I was hoping for was the ability to disable wi-fi. YES! This is there. Can also set access times for the phone and which apps are available to use. Haven't played with all these settings yet. Third key point: Parental control settings take a while to synch to the phone. Made the setting on the web and kept checking the phone to see if the change took effect. After a couple hours, gave up and left it overnight. In the morning, the change was there. Soo, if your kid asks you to make a change, or if you have a reason to lock something down, don't expect to be able to make these updates immediately through the web interface. I have not tried the IOS app yet.
    OccamsRacer
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    09/17/2014
    One flaw: WiFi drops all the time
    Pros: * plenty of internal storage ( 1.2GB or so available initially), * some newly installed applications (not all) can be moved to external storage, * everything works as expected and no major unsolved problems so far, no surprises (bad or good), * VM custom plans are money savers for those who don't use internet too much with G3, no need to buy ahead more minutes/texts/MB then you really use, you can buy them at any time later, * VM custom app is pretty helpful to see what app consumes more web traffic over G3. * VM custom customer service over the phone is pretty responsive (no wait time) but not very knowledgeable yet. Cons: * WiFi connection drops regularly (can see that in my router) even though phone thinks it has WiFi connection. This might be related to http://www.net.princeton.edu/android/android-stops-renewing-lease-keeps-using-IP-address-11236.html but to me it looks drops happen too often to be explained. The best workaroud I found is app "WiFi Keep Alive" which keeps pinging the gateway in some time intervals but if no connection (after several failures, takes some time) then it reconnects again. It's not a huge problem to me since I don't use internet much. * Sound quality is not as great as regular VM phones that I and my wife had before but it's not too bad either. * No VM custom customer service through emails yet. You are going to be asked to call them. Other notes: * One of 3 phones I bought received no GPS signal, but the problem was solved with factory reset. * VM custom plans are not for those who use web with G3 a lot but talking and texting is pretty cheap and also you have an option to buy unlimited talking or texting. Note, there is no such unlimited option for web traffic. * A package for international calls is limited to a set of countries and I found no way to make a call some other country except using some VOIP app. * Expect to buy at least 250MB web plan if you are going to use web with G3 at all. Otherwise disable mobile web completely or disable mobile web for some apps (Setting/Data Usage/<tap on app>). * Currently I pay $34.44/month for 250 minutes, 250 messages, 250MB shared by 3 phones in my family. Possibly I will need to go up to 500 minutes, 500 messages, 500MB and pay about $45/month.
    shoppernine
  • 1.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    09/13/2014
    need to exchange
    Bought this on walmart.com. the "custom" app needed to set up my account was not on it. I valled customer service...they tried to help, but werent able to get the app on there. They told me to return it. Hopefully I can exchange it at my local walmart.
    jeng77
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