Virgin Mobile Custom Review

Virgin Mobile Custom gives you extremely customizable mobile service plans, but forgets Rule Number One in the world of prepaid: Try to make it inexpensive. Custom only works on a small selection of phones and doesn't undercut its competition, so it's hard to recommend to most prepaid customers, unless they're seeking its excellent parental controls.

Network and Pricing
Like all Virgin products, Virgin Mobile Custom runs on the Sprint network. That gives it access to Sprint's slow CDMA and LTE networks, but it lacks two key elements critical to good Sprint customer experience: the faster Spark LTE system, and the ability to roam freely on Verizon when you're out of Sprint coverage.

The Custom system comes fromZact, which we reviewed last year. It's also similar to Ting, another virtual carrier running on Sprint. The idea is that instead of a small number of price buckets, you can perfectly tune your service plan to what you use. Nothing's wasted. If you go over your service plan, your plan gets adjusted up to match your use; you can adjust it back down the next month if you want.

Unfortunately, when we compared Virgin Mobile Custom with other prepaid services, it was typically more expensive for a single line. Duplicating every one of Virgin and Boost's plans, we found that the plan was more expensive when you constructed it with the Virgin Mobile Custom system. The same exercise worked with Consumer Cellular, Net10, and Simple Mobile plans; Virgin Mobile Custom was more expensive than those, as well.

Things get more interesting when you're activating multiple lines, because all of these minutes and data are shared, but it can still be hard to find the savings. Take a plan with 3 lines, 3,000 shared minutes, unlimited texting, and 3GB of data. That's $105.94 on Virgin Mobile Custom. On Sprint's Boost carrier, unlimited talk and text plus 1GB of data per line would be $105 for three lines. Cut those voice minutes way down (say, to 1,000 shared minutes) and you'll be saving $10.50 per month. But Boost offers a much wider range of available phones.

People who radically under-use their service plans might be better served by switching to a different carrier with lower-usage plans, such as Consumer Cellular. For example: Virgin's lowest-priced standard plan costs $35 per month for 300 minutes, unlimited texts, and 2.5GB of data. For the same amount, you get 300 minutes, 1,000 texts, and 500Mb of data on Virgin Custom.

Use a lot less? You can get 200 minutes, 1,000 texts, and 100MB of data with Consumer Cellular for $20. That same plan would cost $25.98 with Virgin Custom (and $23 with Ting, by the way).

维珍定制计划也有一些有趣的数据ns which give you unlimited access to specific apps for less than a large chunk of data would otherwise cost. For instance, you get unlimited Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram for $5 per month, or unlimited streaming music from Pandora and Spotify for $5. That $5 would count as about a 250MB chunk of general-purpose data on most Custom plans.

There's probably some complex math which could get you to save money here. But at this point, you're popping open Excel and running multiple scenarios. I don't think most Americans want to churn the level of math necessary for all of these permutations.

Virgin also makes the point that you can save money by checking your usage regularly and ratcheting your plan up and down to fit. That's true—you can change the plan as often as you want. But once again, that requires more constant attention to the details of your service plan than I think most Americans want. It isn't set it and forget it.

Phones and Parental Controls
So what do you get for your 98 cents extra? Really good parental controls.

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The granular controls on Virgin Mobile Custom make it a perfect plan for a tween's first phone, and the parent doesn't need to be on the same plan; the kid's phone can be managed from an Android or iOS app.

You can set restricted days and times, and whitelist or blacklist applications, callers, or all data uses. You can set up times or entire devices that can only be contacted by a short list of people. It doesn't replace trusting your kid—there's no software restriction that can defeat a truly determined teen. But it's a good reinforcement for kids who basically want to follow the rules.

I'm concerned those kids won't want these phones, though. Virgin Mobile Custom only runs on three phones, and you can't bring your own from anywhere else, because it requires custom firmware. Each model is flawed from a technical perspective, and they all look low-end. The LG Unify, a version of the earlierLG Optimus F3($129.99) has 4G LTE, but runs the obsolete Android 4.1.2. The LG Pulse, a version of Boost'sLG Realm($99.99) has the current Android 4.4, but no LTE. The ZTE Emblem ($79.99) has neither LTE nor a current version of Android. I see what Virgin is trying to do by keeping prices down here, but they need a sexier phone, like, say, Boost's $99HTC Desire 510or $79Moto G.

Conclusions
Virgin Mobile Custom is a cool idea, but the pricing and phone selection don't fulfill its promise. It's way too hard to build a plan that would actually save you money, and the available phones are lackluster at best. I know I gave Zact a slightly better rating than I did Virgin Mobile Custom, but at the time I was charmed by Zact's experimental nature. I'm docking Custom more heavily for its poor selection of phones than I did tiny Zact.

I think there's room for a carrier with great parental controls, though. Kajeet has been waving that flag on the Sprint network for a while, but with very little visibility. If Virgin Mobile Custom offered a much wider range of devices, it could be a good choice for families to keep an eye on tween and teen phone use, especially with multiple lines.