Virgin Mobile Jax Cell Phone: Product Review

Recently, my Virgin Mobile cell phone stopped working, and I needed a replacement cell phone while the one I had was being fixed. The man at the store suggested the super inexpensive Virgin Mobile Jax phone, and after a few minutes of talking, he agreed to give me the cell phone for free to make-up for my inconvenience. I knew it couldn't be a very high quality phone, since the selling price is less than ten dollars and because the salesperson so readily agreed to give it to me for free. But, in these tough economic times, I figured you have to take what you can get, so I happily took home the Jax cell phone to use until my repaired phone was returned to me.

The Jax phone by Virgin Mobile is a basic, black "candy bar" style phone. When you pick it up, the first thing you will notice is how small and lightweight it is. Weighing in at just ***, it is far and away the smallest cell phone I have ever owned. The front of the phone has a standard numeric keypad, along with a few "soft keys" to access on-screen menus, and a rocker switch which allows you to scroll through lists. The Virgin Mobile Jax cell phone is made by Kyocera, and the menus & layout of the phone will be familiar to those who have used other Kyocera phones in the past.

This super cheap cell phone does everything you'd expect a cell phone to do, including voice calls, text messaging, and very, very basic web browsing on mobile websites. As far as voice calls go, the Jax cell phone does good indoors (as long as you have decent reception). My callers could always hear me, and I could hear them without too many problems. Making calls from the Jax phone outdoors, however, is a different story. The microphone on the phone seemed to be much more sensitive to wind than other cell phones I had used in the past, and the speaker on the phone was also difficult to hear outside. Text messaging works as expected, although pecking away on a numeric keypad has definitely made me miss the QWERTY keyboard on my old phone. The Jax phone by Virgin Mobile only holds 100 messages in the inbox, so if you get a lot of text messages, be prepared to not to be able to save a whole lot of them.

One feature noticeably absent from the Jax phone is picture messaging, and I believe this is the only cell phone in the Virgin Mobile lineup that doesn't have MMS capabilities. On the bright side of things, this phone has excellent battery life, and despite regular usage I only need to charge the Jax about twice a week. Try that with a smartphone! Overall, the Jax cell phone reminds me of the phones everyone had 5-10 years ago--basic with limited functionality. As an adult, I wouldn't want the Virgin Mobile Jax phone to be my primary cell phone, but I could see this being a great "starter" phone for kids & teens, an "emergency phone" to keep in a car or on a boat, or a great "disposable" phone if you were away from home and needed a new phone in a pinch. The Jax cell phone currently sells for $9.88 at Wal-Mart, and you can start your service with Virgin Mobile for as little as $10. When it comes to cell phones, it just doesn't get much cheaper than that. For more information about the Jax cell phone, visit the Virgin Mobile website listed in the resources section of this article.