Cricket isn't exactly a household name in wireless aid providers. Compared to Verizon, At&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile they are small fry. But if you're like a lot of typical phone users and live in a shop they serve, Cricket might be a good selection for wireless phone and data services. Cricket has focused on providing much lower prices to customers who make and receive calls in their home region and to give them buckets of unlimited minutes.
Cricket might not be the top selection for those who do a lot of wide-ranging company travel. For them, a national carrier like Sprint, Verizon, and At&T would likely be better.
But it could be an excellent selection for a wide range of folks who don't travel a lot along with talk-crazed teenagers, college students, school teachers, nannies, stay-at-home parents, small company owners who don't travel (think of the thousands of mom-and-pop shops in your area), and many other typical mobile phone users.
 The Kyocera Wild Card opens up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard for easy emails, IM chats, and text messaging. See an overview of the phone's interior. |
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Virgin Mobile contributes 5 percent of profits from downloadable content to The RE*Generation, its pro-social initiative to help homeless teens, as well as provides postage-paid return envelopes in every new package for customers to recycle old phones.
Phone Features
The Wild Card's face features a large, 1.5-inch 65K-color screen with a 128 x 128-pixel resolution. You'll also find a dialpad here and a five-way center button that controls most of the phone's on-screen menus. Flip the phone open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard, another five-way center button, and call control buttons. The design allows for calling functions to be performed with the phone open or closed. A horizontally oriented 1.8-inch screen (with a 160 x 128-pixel resolution and 65K colors) is placed above the keyboard between the phone's dual speakers. It can hold up to 500 personal contacts, with six numbers as well as fields for email, street addresses, URL, and notes.
Because the Wild Card is Bluetooth enabled, wireless communication headsets can be configured with the phone. It also incorporates a jack for an earphone as well as a speakerphone for total hands-free operation.
Support for basic text messaging and multimedia messaging (MMS) are built into the Wild Card. When used in combination with the phone's built-in camera, MMS opens up a whole new world of messaging fun. Instant messaging chat is also supported, thanks to an embedded AOL Instant Messenger client. A built-in wireless web browser lets you surf Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) 2.0 sites via the Virgin Mobile Web service. eZiText 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.
A number of handy tools ship with the Wild Card, including an alarm, a calendar, and a calculator with a tip calculator. There's also a voice memo application for recording quick notes or numbers.
The built-in 1.3-megapixel camera captures great stills and comes equipped with an LED flash, multi-shot adjustment, and a self-timer. Because the Wild Card supports Java applications it is compatible with many Java-based games. Many games are available from Virgin Mobile's wireless download service. You can also customize the phone with custom graphics and wallpapers, many of which are also available from Virgin Mobile.
The phone fully supports Virgin Mobile's wireless content service, VirginXtras. Use the pay-per-use service to download ringtones, 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.
Vital Statistics
The Kyocera Wild Card weighs 4.1 ounces and measures 3.94 x 1.97 x 0.79 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 195 minutes of talk time, and up to 150 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the CDMA 1900 frequency.
If you're willing to strip off voicemail, you can get aid for as itsybitsy as per month for unlimited minutes in your local area. A more reasonable plan with long distance, text and photo messages, and voicemail runs per month.
Cricket doesn't have contract terms and early termination fees. The downside is that they don't do much to subsidize the cost of their phones.
Coverage outside of the home region (or "local coverage area" as Cricket calls it) in other Cricket markets can be added for per month. So even if you are a company traveler, if your travels take you mostly to markets served by Cricket and you live on the telephone, it could still be a very good choice. For instance, if you live and work mostly in Chicago but often take trips to Milwaukee, Madison, Rockford, and South Bend, Cricket can cover all of those areas inexpensively even if you talk a incorporate of hours per day (over 3000 minutes per month) on your cell phone.
Cricket Communications Local Coverage Areas
At the time of this writing, Cricket offers flat-rate unlimited wireless phone and broadband services in these metro areas outside much of the United States. Cricket refers to them as "local coverage areas" to differentiate between the flat-rate unlimited aid customers get while in those areas versus roaming charges that apply when completely off of Cricket's network. Local coverage areas also typically offer 3G wireless broadband services, too.
1. Alabama: Fort Mitchell, Phoenix City, Smiths Station
2. Alaska: no home regions
3. Arizona: Phoenix, Tucson
4. Arkansas: itsybitsy Rock, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Jonesboro
5. California: Fresno, Visalia, Modesto, Merced, San Diego
6. Colorado: Colorado Springs, Denver, Pueblo
7. Connecticutt: no home regions
8. Delaware: no home regions
9. District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.): no home regions yet, coming soon?
10. Florida: most of state covered by "Premium Extended Coverage" plan
11. Georgia: Columbus, Macon, Savannah
12. Hawaii: no home regions
13. Idaho: Boise
14. Illinois: Chicago and its suburbs, Rockford
15. Indiana: Gary, New Albany, South Bend, Indianapolis
16. Iowa: Council Bluffs
17. Kansas: Kansas City, Wichita
18. Kentucky: Lexington, Louisville
19. Louisiana: some of state covered by "Premium Extended Coverage" plan
20. Maine: no home regions
21. Maryland: no home regions
22. Massachusetts: no home regions
23. Michigan: Ann Arbor, Detroit, and some other areas covered by "Premium Extended Coverage" plan
24. Minnesota: no home regions
25. Mississippi: Olive Branch, Southaven, Tunica
26. Missouri: Kansas City, St. Louis
27. Montana: no home regions
28. Nebraska: Lincoln, Omaha
29. Nevada: Las Vegas, Reno, Sparks, Carson City
30. New Hampshire: no home regions
31. New Jersey: no home regions
32. New Mexico: Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Santa Fe
33. New York: Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse
34. North Carolina: Burlington, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem, Raleigh-Durham
35. North Dakota: no home regions
36. Ohio: Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Springfield, Toledo
37. Oklahoma: Tulsa, Oklahoma City
38. Oregon: Eugene, Salem, Portland
39. Pennsylvania: Philadelphia (coming soon), Pittsburgh
40. Rhode Island: no home regions
41. South Carolina: Beaufort, Charleston, Rock Hill
42. South Dakota: no home regions
43. Tennessee: Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville, Clarksville
44. Texas: Austin, Bryan, College Station, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, El Paso, Houston, Killeen, McAllen, San Antonio, Seguin, Temple
45. Utah: Salt Lake City, Provo, Ogden
46. Vermont: no home regions
47. Virginia: some of state covered by "Premium Extended Coverage" plan
48. Washington: Spokane, Vancouver
49. West Virginia: New Cumberland, Wellsburg
50. Wisconsin: Kenosha, Milwaukee, Madison
51. Wyoming: no home regions
The main areas missing from the flat-rate coverage are sparsely populated areas such as North and South Dakota and huge cities such as New York and Los Angeles. It's tough to make money in regions with few people, so Cricket has focused on bigger markets. Some big markets had too much competition as the Rf spectrum licenses for those cities were expensive and heavily bid upon, so Cricket skipped over them. Cricket isn't a good selection for high usage in those areas as you're roaming there, but you can still get service.
For more per month, many areas are covered under "Premium Extended Coverage" and move from roaming minutes to the flat-rate unlimited coverage.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, Cricket doesn't make much sense unless you live and work in either a local or prime extended coverage area. But if you do, it could be a bargain.
The Kyocera Wild Card opens up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard for easy emails, IM chats, and text messaging. See an overview of the phone's interior. |
|
Virgin Mobile contributes 5 percent of profits from downloadable content to The RE*Generation, its pro-social initiative to help homeless teens, as well as provides postage-paid return envelopes in every new package for customers to recycle old phones.
Phone Features
The Wild Card's face features a large, 1.5-inch 65K-color screen with a 128 x 128-pixel resolution. You'll also find a dialpad here and a five-way center button that controls most of the phone's on-screen menus. Flip the phone open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard, another five-way center button, and call control buttons. The design allows for calling functions to be performed with the phone open or closed. A horizontally oriented 1.8-inch screen (with a 160 x 128-pixel resolution and 65K colors) is placed above the keyboard between the phone's dual speakers. It can hold up to 500 personal contacts, with six numbers as well as fields for email, street addresses, URL, and notes.
Because the Wild Card is Bluetooth enabled, wireless communication headsets can be configured with the phone. It also incorporates a jack for an earphone as well as a speakerphone for total hands-free operation.
Support for basic text messaging and multimedia messaging (MMS) are built into the Wild Card. When used in combination with the phone's built-in camera, MMS opens up a whole new world of messaging fun. Instant messaging chat is also supported, thanks to an embedded AOL Instant Messenger client. A built-in wireless web browser lets you surf Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) 2.0 sites via the Virgin Mobile Web service. eZiText 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.
A number of handy tools ship with the Wild Card, including an alarm, a calendar, and a calculator with a tip calculator. There's also a voice memo application for recording quick notes or numbers.
The built-in 1.3-megapixel camera captures great stills and comes equipped with an LED flash, multi-shot adjustment, and a self-timer. Because the Wild Card supports Java applications it is compatible with many Java-based games. Many games are available from Virgin Mobile's wireless download service. You can also customize the phone with custom graphics and wallpapers, many of which are also available from Virgin Mobile.
The phone fully supports Virgin Mobile's wireless content service, VirginXtras. Use the pay-per-use service to download ringtones, 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.
Vital Statistics
The Kyocera Wild Card weighs 4.1 ounces and measures 3.94 x 1.97 x 0.79 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 195 minutes of talk time, and up to 150 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the CDMA 1900 frequency.
