I upgraded to this phone from an HTC EVO 3D last month and I love it. One of the best, if not the best pre-paid phone on the market. The price (especially here on Amazon) certainly beats the $600 you would need to shell out for an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, and performance is very comparable. At 6.17" by 3.1", it took a while to get used the size of this phone. It is very close to small tablet territory, but still fits in my pocket comfortably. Below I have broken down this phone into 5 basic categories and included additional details for review of how I graded the phone.
Display, Audio and Camera: 5 stars
The screen on this phone is remarkable, and the camera is better than any I've ever owned (including stand alone digital cameras). The screen is 5.5" and only 720p, but do you really notice the difference between 720 and 1080 on a small device such as this. Images are crystal clear and colors are vibrant. The touch screen is super responsive and due to the larger size it is much easier to type on this phone compared to my old one. The 13 MP rear camera is capable of filming in 1080p which is nice in case you ever want to view your pictures/videos on a larger display like a computer or tv. I have not yet used the front facing 5 MP camera, but it's nice to know it's there in case I would ever want to use skype, facetime, etc. The speakers on this phone are really good. The Boomsound speakers on this phone are the same as the ones on the more expensive HTC One M8. They are not the best I've ever heard on a cell phone, but they are pretty close and are better than the speakers on some laptops. Music, audio for videos, and calls are loud and clear. I am very satisfied with the audio and video performance of this phone.
Operating System, Apps, and Storage: 4.5 stars
The phone comes pre-loaded with Android Kit Kat, HTC Sense 6, all the normal Virgin Mobile bloatware, and a few other useful third party apps. I've found the combination of Kit Kat and HTC Sense 6 to be quite user friendly and intuitive. I believe the phone will eventually be able to be upgraded to the Lollipop release of Android, as the specs are there for it, but whether Virgin and HTC allow it or not is another story. Either way the out of box OS and user interface is good and should be suitable for new users as well as experienced Android users. The Virgin bloatware is a pain and cannot be uninstalled. I guess this is a necessary evil in exchange for affordable, quality service as they insist on installing it on pretty much all of their phones. Some of the preloaded third party apps are quite nice. I particularly like the FM Radio receiver built into the phone combined with the Next Radio app which I now use more often than the iHeartRadio app. Also I was not a fan of HTC Blinkfeed at first, but now that I've had the phone for a while and taken the time to customize it,this feature it is actually quite useful. After all the pre-installed Software/Apps, you have about 6 of 8 GB of on-board storage left on the phone to add your own apps from the Android Play store which is by far the largest and most robust of all App stores in my opinion. It's a good thing the phone can take up to a 128 GB MicroSD card, and more and more developers are allowing their apps to be ported over to SD storage or otherwise I would have issue with only 8 GB of on-board storage. Another note regarding storage and a nice perk with this phone is a free upgrade to 100 GB of space on Google Drive.
Physical Design/Feel of Phone: 5 stars
The phone is big as I mentioned above, but at 5.82 oz it is surprisingly light, well balanced, and it fits comfortably in my hand. The outer shell is a smooth hard plastic very similar to the stuff they use for the Samsung Galaxy phones. The power and volume buttons are on the top, left side of the phone. I am left handed and love this as they are very easy for me to control with my left thumb while holding the phone in my left hand and talking. There is not a physical home/menu button on the phone, but there are digital buttons on the bottom touch screen that do the same thing. Some people have complained about this, but I actually don't mind it at all. The screen itself is Corning Gorilla Glass 2, and is supposed to be scratch proof. Overall I think this phone has a great design and feel. A lot of expert reviews I've read compare the design to an iPhone 5C but larger and running Android.
Battery: 4 stars
Speaking of the iPhone, one of the major issues that I do have with this phone is that like the iPhone, the battery is embedded and cannot be removed or replaced. This scares me, and almost stopped me from purchasing this phone. So far I am glad I was able to move past it, because I really do like this phone otherwise. Battery life so far has been great, and the battery charges back up pretty fast as well. So far there have been no issues here. Hopefully it stays that way since there is no way to replace the battery if it does become a problem. This is my lowest scoring category for the phone because of the lack of options if the battery ever does become a problem, but so far so good.
Service: 5 stars
$45/ month for unlimited talk, text and data. Need I say more? Coverage is very good everywhere I've been in the US. Virgin uses Sprint's network so you can pretty much get phone service and at least 3g data speeds anywhere. This is a 4g LTE phone and the speed of data on this band where available is impressively fast. My previous phone was 4g Wimax, which is also fast, and LTE is noticeably faster to me. Lastly the phone is on a CDMA network so it may not be ideal for international use. That being said it does have all the hardware needed to be used on a GSM network so with a little tinkering, and some determination I'm sure it could be unlocked if the need arose.
I hope anybody thinking about buying this phone finds my review helpful. I personally love this phone, but I understand all people are different so I tried to be as fair/unbiased as possible while writing this. Many thanks for reading!
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Update 12/30/17:After a little over 2 years, I've pretty much come to the end of the product's useful lifespan. I've been deleting apps for months, just to be able to keep the core functions updated. Now,however, I can't even do that. A couple of updates ago, Firefox was no longer able to move to the sd card & that was rely the beginning of the end. I'd not have loadedthat app, but about a year ago (I. guessing), HTC stopped supporting the browser the phone came with, so I had to go get anew one. Really stupid, IMHO.Anyway, the only other serious issue I found was that the camera is *terrible* in even moderately low light conditions. The video is even worse. Otherwise, I've found both to be pretty good, especially for the price.I'm actively looking for a replacement, but so far VM doesn't have much I'm interested in, without spending a boat-load of money. I don't intend to accept a downgrade of any of the features, but I can't afford $500 for a new phone. So the search continues...I've only had this phone for about a day & a half, so I may update this review as I learn more about the product. So far, I like it. I don't love it, but then, it's just a phone. I still miss one of my old flip phones from many, many years ago that, ironically, cost about the same as this one (roughly $150). It had the best reception of any cell I've ever used, bar none. The camera was excellent, considering how long ago it was. The phone was extremely durable as well, and had I not dropped it just one too many times & dislodged the camera lens, I'd likely still be using it.In any case, this HTC is my first personal smart phone. I've previously had an iPhone 4 & 5C for work. The 5C was an 8GB model, so I find this HTC phone to be fairly comparable, with one huge difference: the screen size.I've got small hands, but haven't had any issues with this monster yet. It has taken a bit of getting used to, but I find that to be the case with any new item, when you're used to something else. I've had more "trouble" getting used to the android way of doing things than with handling the phone itself. But again, that's just from being completely unfamiliar with the android product line. I do look forward to seeing what it can do. It's a bit less intuitive than Apple's OS, but I do have to say that when I first started using the iphone 4 for work, I wanted to throw it out a window at least once a day. We eventually reached a truce, however, and I'm hoping it will be the same with the HTC.First impressions:It's big. Not so big that it won't (mostly) fit into a pocket, but it's quite a jump up from a 4" screen. I'm attaching a pic of the two phones for size comparison. The HTC will definitely stick out lengthwise from a back pocket.The ringtone choices are limited & pretty sad, but you're able to record your own, so I likely will do so.As others have said, it's got 8GB of storage, and about half that is taken up by pre-loaded software. That seems pretty standard, however, and I'd already planned to pick up an SD card to increase space sooner rather than later. That's not an option with the 5C (or any iphone), so that's a point in this phone's favor.Call clarity is ok, but not nearly as good as either iphone. It's really only about as good as my current VM flip phone, which is at least 5 or 6 years old, maybe more (Starcom Arc Prepaid Phone (Virgin Mobile)). When using the HTC on speaker, however, it's terrible. I use the speaker more often than not when talking on the phone, as I'm usually busy doing things & need my hands, so that's one thing I'm hugely disappointed with.I haven't explored many apps yet, but have not been all that impressed so far with what's included. Most seem to require you to log into a google account in order to even see what they are, and I find that incredibly irritating. I'm not a big fan of google, and find them highly invasive in everything they do, which is why I avoided purchasing an android phone for so long. The app situation seems to be more of the same. I do read on my phone a lot, so at the very least I'm going to need an app for that. Plus, I listen to music fairly often, so I'll have to find something for that as well. Fingers crossed.
