Virgin Mobile USA Opening Retail Stores in Chicago to Support iPhone Launch

[pyro008]

So if the 4s is a world phone, couldn't virgin or cricket or any other CDMA carrier let you use your factory unlocked 4s with them technically?
I understand them wanting to sell the hardware, but in my case I see no upside in buying a full price phone (that will be old in a few months when the 5 comes out) to have locked to virgin or cricket lowering the resell value. Straight talk sounds interesting thanks will look into that. If only tmobile would at least get to support 3G I'd jump over in a second.

They certainly can, technically. But they won't. Especially since Sprint needs to move tons of phones.

Well, it's more of an implied that the $650 you pay to secure a phone with Virgin Mobile is in a way a contract (or an investment so to speak). So, if you really think about it, if you go with ATT or Verizon with their $199 iPhone, then break the contract which is going to cost you ETF of around $350 (or less depending on where you are on your contract). That is still less than the Virgin Mobile iPhone cost. And on the plus side, if you early terminate with ATT and pay the fee, you can request it to be unlocked.

Not quite sure what the point is here, but I just thought about that.

Not a good idea. Cell companies don't like when you break contracts and it can get you blacklisted. And the whole pont of Virgin is the monthly cost, not phone cost.

 

[Pukey]

If anyone has an iPhone on Virgin Mobile, please post your thoughts about it! I'd like to hear how it operates, how snappy the internet is, how good the call connections are, how well Skype works on it, etc...
I've had Virgin Mobile for about a year and have only had issues with slow internet. My calls have been mostly fine though.

 

[thundersteele]

Did anyone find one of the stores in Chicago? I've asked Google and the Virgin website, but there is very little information about the actual locations of the stores.

The one I found is located in Andersonville, and judging from pictures, it's not clear whether that one is open yet.

 

[Mr Hill]

Seems kind of pointless to get one on Virgin for $650 when that's the same price as the factory unlocked iPhone 4S that you could buy and use Straight Talk which has better coverage and faster data speeds.

 

[Pukey]

Has anyone bought an iPhone with Sprint or another contract carrier then broke the contract the next day or soon after to join another network? If so, how did it go? I'd like to get the 64GB iPhone on Virgin Mobile since I'm already with them, but I'd rather pay $399 with Sprint then the early termination fee of $350 which would come to $100 less than $849 for the phone with Virgin.