Virgin Mobile Kyocera K9 Pay-As-You-Go Wireless Phone
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A local friend recommended the K9 as a replacement for our now relatively cumbersome Nokia phones, and I bought a couple of them. Like several other reviewers I very much wanted to like this phone. It's light, inexpensive, with very good coverage, and the pay-as-you-go deal is just right for us. <br /> <br />Famously, the bracingly loud \\"telephone\\" ringtone won't work as a default. It does work, though, if you assign it to a particular contact number, so if you receive calls from relatively few people this shouldn't cause a problem. You could also download a loud ringtone for a couple of bucks if that's the kind of thing you do. <br /> <br />Short battery time, however, really is a problem. True, we did better than some users below, but never more than 48 hours or so standby out of one charge. You can charge the phone every night, but only if you remember. Charging when the phone is turned off does seem to make a difference, but not a truly satisfactory difference. In fairness, I understand that Lithium batteries don't reach full capacity until they are fully charged and discharged several times so, although inconvenient, that might help too. We didn't try this, however, as on the third day of use one phone became unusable, displaying only nasty black lines and gibberish when it was turned on.  <br /> <br />At this point I got tired of making excuses for the wretched things and sent them back,  after being treated to Virgin's oddly bipolar customer support.  It's cheesily informal and friendly (\\"Hey Whadup, it's Virgin Mobile!) until they get wind that you're calling about a problem, at which their tone changes to that of a snarky adolescent addressing some unfortunate who's really, like, unpopular. <br /> <br />That said, our friend still loves her K9, boasting long battery life and trouble-free use, so you may be lucky.   <br />