Audiovox 8610 Vox Prepaid Phone (Virgin Mobile)

Design
The phone features a traditional clamshell design with a large 128 x 128 color display with 65,000 colors. A monochrome 96 x 64 pixel supplementary display on the outside of the cover displays incoming call information, battery life, signal strength, graphics and more. Most of the phone's features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button on the handset's backlit control pad. Meanwhile, the top right side of the unit houses an extendable antenna while the combined charging/USB data port is housed on the unit's bottom edge. The phone also features a standard jack to accept universal hands-free headsets. Up/down keys are located on the left side of the unit for quick volume control.

Calling Features
The 8610's built-in address book can store up to 300 entries for quick and easy management of your contacts. The phone comes with built-in Virgin Mobile "superphonic" ringtones plus a vibrating alert. Superphonic ringtones feature real music tracks and more are available via Virgin Mobile's VirginXtras service. Ringtones can be assigned to specific callers so you don't have to look at the phone to know who's calling. A built-in speakerphone lets you talk handsfree while you're on the go.

Messaging, Internet and Tools
The 8610 covers the messaging basics with support for sending and receiving text messages easily and quickly (Virgin Mobile text messaging charges apply). T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit-- a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.

The phone fully supports Virgin Mobile's wireless content service, VirginXtras. Use the pay-per-use service to download superphonic ringtones from Hip Hop songs to movie themes. Get content and vote in TV-based polls via the MTV area of your phone, or get jokes and updates from Comedy Central. Pick a celebrity voice to answer your voicemail, or get a Sponge Bob thought of the day. Need to jog your memory? Use Virgin's wacky song ID service. Press the Song ID command, point your 8610 towards a song that's playing in the room, and within minutes a text message appears identifying the song's title.

The 8610 ships with a number of handy tools including a calendar, a calculator and an alarm clock.

Imaging and Entertainment
The 8610 features custom Virgin Mobile graphics-- screen savers, wallpaper and menu icons-- that let you dress up your phone to suit your personality. Two pre-loaded games come with the phone, Blackjack and Magic Hexa.

Vital Statistics
The Audiovox 8610 weighs 3.4 ounces and measures 3.5 x 1.90 x .90 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 3.0 hours of digital talk time, and up to 168 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the CDMA 1900 frequency. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.

What's in the Box
Audiovox 8610 handset, AC charger, lithium-ion battery, user's manual.

The color screen is very nice. It's easy to read and has good brightness and contrast, except of course, outdoors, where all lcd screens are hard (and sometimes impossible) to read. The mini-screen on the outside of the phone is cool since it shows you the date, time, signal strength, ring mode (vibrate or ringtone), voice mail message indicator (if any) and battery strength. Also, when you get a call, if that person is in your phone's address book, their name also shows up on the screen (which is backlit if you hit a button on the outside of the phone.)

The address book is the best part for me. You store numbers by person, and each person can have a cell number, a home number, an office number, and an email address. Selecting which number to dial is easy since the numbers are all grouped under the person's name and you just click through that small list. (Unlike the Party Animal and my wife's 'Slider' where each different number has to be a seperate list entry which creates one long list you have to scroll through.)

Audio quality is fine. (It's a cell phone.) It has a microphone volume adjustment, but you'll have to ask your caller how effective it is. The rocker button that operates it isn't even labeled which way to make it louder or softer.

There are 5 polyphonic ringtones, 4 of which will appeal to Virgin's target demographic of teens and 20-somethings. For us older folks who like Virgin for the great deal it is, there's one very nice simple ring called "Jingle" (the one I use). However, all 8 of the color screen backgrounds are very youth oriented: a batmobile, a fist, a pineapple, a pattern of hearts, and 4 abstract graphic screens. The abstract ones are fine, but they should have included at least one plain, solid colored background. I decided on the batmobile. You can modify the top of the background with your own message. Since I can never remember my own number, I set mine to be my cell number.

Coming from the Party Animal phone, I didn't realize my favorite feature about a flip phone would be how you answer and hang up: you just open and close the phone! Very cool. This can be turned off in the menu system, though, if you prefer to press a button to answer/hang up. The phone's buttons are easy to press and not too small.

The included tools are 3 separate alarms (each can be one-time or daily) using any ringtone; Scheduler- same thing but using a calendar (great for top-up reminders); Calculator; Stopwatch; and lastly World Clock. Unfortunately, there's no convenient tip calculator. :-(

There are two games: BlackJack and Magic Hexa. Hopefully another reviewer can tell you about them. I don't use them.

In summary, it's a great phone with lots of good features, it's lightweight so it's very easy to carry with you, and add to that the great Virgin pricing for us infrequent talkers, and you've got a great deal. Highly recommended.


no "hidden" fees on by-the-minute plan   May 7, 2006
Music Fan Jeff (San Francisco, CA United States)
60 out of 64 found this review helpful

For anyone considering the purchase of this (or another) Virgin Mobile phone, do not be influenced by the identical negative reviews posted for several Virgin Mobile phones by someone calling himself "lookout guy." I cannot comment on the month to month plans, having only been a pay-as-you-go by-the-minute guy since I got my Virgin Mobile phone over two years ago. I can tell you that lookout guy is totally WRONG in terms of any "hidden fee" in terms of the by-the-minute service offered by Virgin Mobile. There is NO $1.50/day fee; if there was, no one would choose this option because it would end up costing more than a monthly plan. (Duh.) I can confirm that you only pay for the minutes you use. If you don't use your phone for days (even weeks) at a time, you pay nothing. The ONLY charge for having access to a Virgin Mobile phone on the by-the-minute plan is the minimum top-up charge (supposedly $20 every three months but after you become a customer you can get it down to $15 every three months if you choose auto top-up with a credit card). So if you NEVER use your phone, that's what it costs. Of course, you would simply end up accruing money in your account to be debited when you do finally use your phone. As long as you use your phone minimally (for emergencies and for very brief, occasional conversations only), you'll pay only $5-$6.66/month. I oughta know -- my balance keeps growing and growing because I rarely use my phone; if I were being charged a $1.50/day "access charge" I would know it.

Only you can decide if a pay-as-you-go plan such as this is suitable for you, but here's the quick math: if you know you will use your phone at least five minutes per day almost every day, then this plan isn't for you as it would cost you $37.50/month for only 150 minutes of use based on 25 cents/minute. If, like me, you are likely to have many days where you don't use the phone at all and other days where you use only a few minutes (with rare days that you use over 10 minutes), then this plan will be a bargain. (I used to be a Sprint PCS customer and ended up paying, on average, $1/minute for my calls because of my minimal phone use -- in other words, over four times as much as my Virgin Mobile minutes cost at their highest rate.)


Great Phone for people that don't use Cell Phones often!   December 7, 2005
KDMask (Rochester, Planet Fab, NY)
43 out of 46 found this review helpful

I got this pay as you go phone because I'm one of those people that use cell phones about 2x a week. For emergencies, to check on something at home, that type of thing. I don't need a ton of minutes, or a contract or Catherine Zeta Jones ads. I just need something reliable and cheap.
Virgin Mobile has served me well for about 5 years now. My 13 year old actually has my older Virgin phone. For $20 every 3 months we can have enough minutes/time saved up to carry over for anything we may need. I've never ran out of money. The "reminder" that comes to top up (buy a new card) is great as well. I didn't put it on my credit card as I'd rather buy the $20 card than have $30 be charged every 3 months.
This model has a nice screen, I'd personally like more ring tones (I finally bought Gorillaz "Feel Good" for $1.99 -not a bad investment!) and people are right about the volume. I put my phone on high and vibrate...that way, if I don't hear it, I'll feel it!
I've recommended this phone plan to many people, especially those with kids that are a bit young to use the phone 24-7 and just need a "check in" model. There are a few games on there as well. The charge lasts a decent amount of time.



Best buy among Virgin Mobile phones   July 4, 2004
Student
41 out of 43 found this review helpful

I only use 40 minutes per month on my cell phone, and my verizon plan was costing me $40 per month, that is about $1.00 per minute. After that plan expired, I decided to switch to a prepaid phone. I bought the Audiovox 8610 a week ago and I love it. Before buying it, I did tons of research on the net and in stores. I was looking for a good looking phone with a built-in speaker phone, and not too expensive.

I compared Rave K7, Vox 8500, Vox 8610 (this one), and Slider V5. I don't like Rave K7 because it is big and looks too cheap. I don't want to be embarrassed to be seen using this antique looking phone in public. Vox 8500 is small and I was really attempted to get it in the beginning, but later on I found tons of complaints on the internet about its reception. Reception is important to me, so Vox 8500 is out of the picture too. Then I had a hard time choosing between the $150 Slider V5 and the $120 Vox 8610. I finally decided on Vox 8610 for the following reasons.

1) 8610 has slightly better reception than the Slider, according to users to have both phones and compared them side by side.
2) Slider's sliding mechanism tends to become loose after a while. Also, when the slider mechanism becomes loose, the phone will open up in your pocket when you walk. 8610's time-proven clam-shell design is more reliable.
3) Slider and 8610 have almost identical features. Both have speaker phone, which is important to me. I don't want to put the phone against my ear that close and catch brain cancer. I don't bring the ear-bud with me often either, so I was specifically looking for a cell phone with a built-in two way speaker phone.
4) 8610 allows you to enter up to 3 phone numbers under one name. Slider only allows one number per name in its address book, which forces you to create a much longer list to scroll through.
5) Slider has some MTV features, 2 more games, and a few more wallpapers. 8610 has supersonic ringtones. All of these features are useless to me. I neither use nor care about these features.
6) I will put the phone in my pocket. Slider's convex screen can be easily scratched this way. On the other had, 8610 doesn't have this problem
7) From the aesthetic standpoint, 8610 is more elegant and looks good in a boardroom and on the street. Slider was new 6 months ago, but now it looks geeky and too teenage-looking. I am an adult and don't want to be seen carrying a teenager's toy.
8) 8610's color screen is sharper and better than the one on slider.
9) Slider's keypad is too small, and many people are complaining about it. 8610's keyboard has a good size and feel to it. It lights up too.
10) Audiovox and Kyocera are using the same Qualcomm CDMA chips and technologies. That is why these two phones have almost identical features. They even have the same data connector. People plugs Kyocera Slider's data cable onto 8610's data port, and can upload and download data from the phone.
11) Slider is a bit fragile, and some people have already broken it apart after a few months. 8610 looks and feels more sturdy and durable.
12) 8610 has longer battery life. It has 7 days standby time versus 4 days on the Slider.
13) There are tight-fitting cellphone leather/rubber cases that allow me to use 8610 with the case on. I currently cannot find any cases that allow me to use the Slider with the case on.
14) Finally, 8610 costs $120, which is $30 cheaper than Slider.

I also discovered that I can use this phone to send and receive short emails to any email boxes. I think this applies to all Virgin Mobile phones. The email address of your phone is your 10 digit phone number plus "@vmobl.com". For example: 7185551212@vmobl.com. All incoming text message are free, and it only costs $0.10 to send one.

I get good signal reception in Ithaca, NY. Voice and text communication works well whether I am on Cornell campus or in downtown. Virgin Mobile prepaid cell phone is great for people who don't want to pay $40 for 40 minutes of usage per month.


Best Little Cell Phone   April 1, 2006
M. Vanderhoef (Milwaukee, WI, USA)
37 out of 37 found this review helpful

This phone was given to me over 2 years ago. In that time, I've dropped it more times then I can count, its fallen into wet sand three times, its been bitten by humans, dogs, and rabbits, once, it was accidently drop kicked by a friend, its been sat on, stepped on, slept on, you name it. And the phone still works perfectly. After two years of all the abuse, and more, this phone has only a few, very minor, scratchs on it and I don't use a case at all. For durability I give this 7 out of 5 stars.

The services have been good too. I'm an infrequent caller and texter, but I've never had problems with either. I've gotten servie nationwide (Wisconsin, Illinois, Pensylvania, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and more). The only downside is that once you cross the Canadian boarder, your phone is useless. My calls are almost always clear and I've never had delayed text messages (unlike some friends of mine on normal cell plans). For service, I'd give this phone a good 4.5 out of 5.

As for the guy bitching about the plans- sure if you're a huge talker and you spend 60 hours a month talking this is certainly not the phone service for you. But for those of us who only use it as a back-up phone, or an emergency phone, or talk infrequently, the plans work out well. I'm on their month-2-month and I like the flexibility. Frankly, lack of flexibility like this in normal cell phone plans is why I shy away. Why pay $50 a month for 500 anytime minutes if I'm only using 150 a month? For service plans, I'd give them 4 out of 5. (They could make the day and night minutes even on all levels, rather then just level one.)