Kyocera X-tc - G2Go (Virgin Mobile)
Manufacturer: Kyocera Part number: G2GOM2000BLK
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- The Kyocera X-tc brings a fresh update to Virgin Mobile's line of basic messaging cell phones, but there are some minor design and navigation issues.
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Where to buy
| store | customer rating | inventory | tax & shipping | price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon.com Marketplace |  | In stock | Enter zip code to get total price: Price +Tax +Shipping =Total price | as of 12/08/2009 |
| P.C. Richard & Son | Not yet rated | In stock | as of 12/08/2009 |
CNET editors' review
Kyocera X-tc - G2Go (Virgin Mobile) price range: $79.99 - $99.99
- Reviewed by: Bonnie Cha
- Reviewed on: 05/18/2009
The good: The Kyocera X-tc has a compact design and slide-out full QWERTY keyboard. The phone supports stereo Bluetooth and comes with e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking apps.
The bad: Some of the navigation controls are hard to use. Call volume was a bit problematic.
The bottom line: The Kyocera X-tc brings a fresh update to Virgin Mobile's line of basic messaging cell phones, but there are some minor design and navigation issues.
Editors' note: We incorrectly reported on how to bring up the onscreen dialpad in our original review, which has now been updated. We apologize for the error.
While the other carriers have completely embraced full QWERTY handsets, Virgin Mobile's been lacking in that department. Up until now, there have only been two choices: the Helio Ocean 2, which might be too fancy for some, and the outdated Kyocera Wild Card, which debuted back in 2007. Fortunately, there is now the Kyocera X-tc to bring a fresh face to the mix. The handset brings an updated design and better keyboard to complement its e-mail and instant messaging capabilities. The X-tc also now includes Facebook and MySpace mobile apps, which should please the carrier's younger audience. There are some issues with the phone's navigation and call volume, but overall, we'd have to say the X-tc is a good choice for Virgin America customers in need of a basic messaging phone. The Kyocera X-tc, aka the Kyocera G2Go, is available for $99.99.
Design
The Kyocera X-tc features a simple but attractive design with a standard black chassis and rounded edges; it is certainly a more stylish option than the older Kyocera Wild Card. The slider phone is fairly compact at 4.3 inches high by 2 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick and 4.8 ounces and has a solid construction. It's comfortable to hold while on a call or typing messages.
On front, there's a 2.4-inch QVGA display with a 262,000-color output and 240x320-pixel resolution. It's bright and sharp, though Virgin Mobile's interface is a little drab. You can customize the phone with different wallpapers, themes, graphics, screensavers, and more.
Below the screen, there's a standard navigation array of two soft keys, Talk and End buttons, a speakerphone on/off button, a back key, and a four-way navigation toggle with a center select button. With the exception of the latter, the navigation keys are a bit small and stiff to press so we didn't have the best user experience. On the plus side, we like the ability to activate the speakerphone with just a press of a button. Kyocera also includes dedicated music buttons above the display--play/pause, forward, back--which is nice and convenient.
The X-tc comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, which you can access by pushing the screen to the left. The sliding mechanism is smooth, and the screen orientation also automatically switches from portrait to landscape mode. The keyboard features rectangular buttons that are of pretty good size, but unfortunately, the layout feels a bit squashed, so it hampered us just a bit. That said, we like the fact that Kyocera did away with internal navigation toggle that was on the Kyocera Wild Card.
The number keys are highlighted in silver on the keyboard, but the numbers are printed vertically, unlike the rest of the letter keys, so you have to crane your neck or rotate the phone to input numbers. To bring up the onscreen dialpad when the phone is closed, you press the center select button, though our first inclination was to press the Talk key.
On the left spine, there's a camera activation/capture button and a volume rocker, while there's a Micro-USB port, a 2.5 millimeter headset jack, and a microSD expansion slot on the right side. Finally, the camera is located on the back.
The Kyocera X-tc only comes packaged with an AC adapter. For more add-ons, please check our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.
Features
The Kyocera X-tc comes with a 500-contact address book with room in each entry for six phone numbers, two e-mail addresses, two IM handles, two Web addresses, two street addresses, and notes. For caller ID purposes, you can assign a photo or select a custom ringtone for that contact. Additional phone features include a speakerphone, voice dialing, airplane and vibrate modes, and text and multimedia messaging. The X-tc also offers stereo Bluetooth support.
For personal organization, the handset includes a calendar, a memo pad, a calculator, an alarm clock, a voice recorder, a unit converter, and more. You also get a WAP 2.0 browser as well as MySpace and Facebook mobile apps preloaded on the phone.
Of course, with the full QWERTY keyboard, the X-tc better have some messaging options and it does. The handset offers a Mobile Email app that lets you connect to various accounts, including Yahoo, AOL, Comcast, and Earthlink. We were able to connect our Yahoo e-mail with the phone after simply inputting our login ID and password. The in-box view is pretty simple, but you can delete messages, turn on signatures, easily tab through your various e-mail folders, and more. The X-tc also comes preloaded two instant messaging clients: AIM and Yahoo.
The Kyocera X-tc comes with a 1.3-megapixel camera. It doesn't record video, but there's a multishot option as well as settings to change the image resolution, picture quality, white balance, color tone, brightness, and more. Once done with your pictures, you can do a number of things with them, including sharing with friends and family via e-mail or My Pix and viewing them as a slideshow. Though you could make out the images in the photo, picture quality was a little fuzzy and colors slightly washed out.
Finally, the X-tc comes with a basic music player and supports Virgin Mobile's Headliner music service. Unfortunately, the latter doesn't offer music downloads, so the best way to get music onto the phone is via microSD card. The X-tc's expansion slot can accommodate up to 8GB cards, and there's about 72MB of internal memory.
Performance
We tested the dual-band (CDMA 800/1900) Kyocera X-tc in San Francisco using Virgin Mobile service. Be aware that Virgin Mobile is an MVNO and doesn't operate its own network; instead it leases space on Sprint's network. Call quality was OK. While we could hear our callers, there was some slight background noise and voices could occasionally sound garbled. At midrange, the volume was also a bit low, and turning up the sound to high only made audio sound blown out.
On the other side, friends said they could tell we were on a cell phone and had some minor complaints of tinny voice quality and echoes, but not enough to prevent conversation. We didn't have any problems using an airline's voice automated system and we didn't experience any dropped calls during our testing period.
Speakerphone quality also wasn't the best, but more for the volume issues. In a quiet room, we could hear our callers with very little problem with the volume set at about midlevel, but out on the street, it was impossible to hear at midlevel and very difficult at even the highest volume. On the plus side, we had no problems pairing the X-tc with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.
The Kyocera X-tc comes with a 790 mAh lithium ion battery with a rated talk time of 3.25 hours and up to 8 days of standby time. We are still conducting our battery drain tests and will update this section as soon as we have final results. Our tests showed a talk time of 3 hours and 15 minutes.
User reviews
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Download Opera Mini for Improved Web Access
by SeeNETT on May 27, 2009
Pros: Pay as you go, no contract service for both voice and Web. Full keyboard. Nice appearance and form factor (fits in pocket well).
Cons: Keys are small but usable. Menu system is a bit slow although Opera browser is relatively quick. Included ringtones are very basic, and mostly annoying.
Summary: Virgin does not yet offer Opera Mini through its own site for the X-TC (they probably will soon), but you can use the included WAP browser to surf to mini....
Summary: Virgin does not yet offer Opera Mini through its own site for the X-TC (they probably will soon), but you can use the included WAP browser to surf to mini.opera.com, which will recognize the phone explicitly as the Kyocera M2000 X-tc, and will download the browser directly onto the phone. This free Opera browser is ten times better than the WAP browser included by Virgin.
This is a very reasonable phone for someone who wants to occasionally access the Web. I bought a 20MB one month data pack for $10 to get started but for my purposes after this month the $5/month 5MB data pack will be plenty, as the Opera browser is very parsimonious in its use of bandwidth. If you don't buy the data pack at all you pay $1.50 each day that you use the phone, for up to 1MB, which isn't bad for an occasional user. I was able to surf the NY Times and a blog site there (Paul Krugman's) and also explore what films are available at the local multiplex and that entire process consumed less than half a MB. So, if you just want to be able to check fiilms or restaurants once in a while, while away from your home PC, this is a very economical phone and service.
The keys are small, but usable with care. The volume is not very loud, but I would never use a cel without a headset - specifically, one with a hollow air tube to prevent the headset cord from becoming a waveguide for the cel radiation. And, you can always turn on the speakerphone for more volume. The menu system is a little slow.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with this phone and service as a package. This kind of cel service gets you off the treadmill of monthly payments so that you only use the phone as much as you need to, and only pay for what you use. That reduces both distraction and radiation exposure, freeing your mind for better things, like living in the real world.3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Good phone for a texter
by conap31 on August 23, 2009
Pros: Very solid construction. 1 touch access to facebook, im, myspace, ect. mp3 player. The volume on this is the loudest i've ever heard! fun camera functions. huge phonebook. MiniSD slot, Mini USB slotBeautiful color screen. Unique from other phones
Cons: Virgin mobile's interface is kinda bla. No video on the camera.. Keyboard takes some getting use to.
Summary: I just got this phone yesterday, and it is by far the best virgin mobile phone out there. Even though the camera is only 1.3 megapixels, there are features ...
Summary: I just got this phone yesterday, and it is by far the best virgin mobile phone out there. Even though the camera is only 1.3 megapixels, there are features that let you touch up all your pics, along with different frames, negatives, sepia, and it will let u save them right to your SD card for quick transfer to ur PC. I was suprised to see that when i loaded pictures taken with my 8 megapixel camera on to my phone, they still held their quality and it would let me set them as my backround even though i didnt take them with the phone. The 3 buttons on the top of the phone for your music is a nice touch, and the media player works fine. One touch access to facebook is a great feature (although you have to go into settings and set up where you want each button to take you). The phone itself is sexy looking. People with much more expensive phones are askin to play with mine when they see it. Unfortunately, virgin mobiles interface is still bland and boring =( it definately needs some updating (can anybody say icons?) or at least an option to rearrange the lil menues you have. So far, the battery has held pretty true. (ive been playing with it nonstop for hours, using the camera, listening to music, not giving the thing a rest, and not one bar is missing from the battery.) I really wish you could take videos from the camera, that feature probably would have made me give it a five star rating. Bottom line: If you like texting, and dont necessarily care to spend $90 a month on some data package that you really dont even use, than this is a good phone for you! Its durable, sleek, and gets the job done.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Not worth the money
by appleknifecake on July 22, 2009
Pros: Large screen
Cons: Slow, poor quality, poor battery life, tiny keypad
Summary: Three weeks after I purchased this phone, the earpiece stopped working. I didn't drop the phone, I'm an adult who rarely uses my phone; when I am using ...
Summary: Three weeks after I purchased this phone, the earpiece stopped working. I didn't drop the phone, I'm an adult who rarely uses my phone; when I am using it, it's for text messaging. Now to make calls or answer the phone I have to use the speakerphone, which I hate, or use a bluetooth headset, which I am not walking around wearing, not to mention the fact it drains the battery even MORE to use bluetooth. I don't even care that the keys are so small that I sometimes smash them all at once, even though I have ridiculously small fingers. My husband couldn't begin to text message on this phone. I don't care that I have to wait and count the seconds when I try to open my inbox or reply to a text or, heaven forbid, I accidentally press the directional pad side that opens the internet. I don't care that the numbers are smooshed into the keypad vertically so I have to spin the phone if I'm adding numbers to a text, or trying to use the calculator. I only care that the phone ceased to fully function after three weeks of gentle use.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Looks and feels great, but sadly awful
by mister_g60 on May 28, 2009
Pros: Apparent build quality
Feature set
Display size
QWERTY keyboard (it's a pro and a con because it's cramped)Cons: Unreliable in the end - locked up and had the reboot-when-you-close-it problem
Battery life
OS/menus (to an extent)
QWERTY keyboard (see above)Summary: I really wanted to like this phone, and I did - more or less - for the six weeks I had it. Once I heard it was coming I held ...
Summary: I really wanted to like this phone, and I did - more or less - for the six weeks I had it. Once I heard it was coming I held out and picked it up once a certain big yellow-signed electronics retailer, who I just returned it to yesterday.
No the battery wasn't the best, and yes, the keyboard is cramped, but I was willing to live with that. I'll admit that after only six weeks I had the itch to jump ship on Virgin because their phones really are just so basic and often lousy. Good value if you have basic needs and/or just like to text. But after a year, I needed a real man's phone - my one serious weakness, but I digress ...
You may have read that some people report that the phone will reboot itself if you close the keyboard too hard. I'd never experienced that until yesterday. I'm VERY good to my stuff, electronics especially, and I didn't drop or otherwise abuse my phone to the point where it may have had an excuse to freak out the way it did yesterday. Every time I closed the keyboard, almost regardless of how gently, it would reboot. Add to that the fact that the keys ALL froze up, and I was done. I had to leave all the data, phone numbers, whatever in the phone when I returned it, but at least I got my money back.
So, I do NOT recommend this phone. I really do hope that Kyocera works out the bugs, because I do think this could be a great phone, considering what it is. But as-is, I definitely cannot recommend it to anyone. Instead, I'd suggest buying the Virgin Arc, it's a really great phone! I had that one before the X-TC, and it was very solid.1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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This phone is good
by lma111589 on May 27, 2009
Pros: The REVIEWER IS WRONG. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO OPEN THE PHONE EVEN ONCE TO DIAL A NUMBER. All you have to do is press the center key and the screen's number selection menu pops up! It's the CENTER key, not the TALK button.
This phone NEVER freezes.Cons: The slider thing will break and make it slide unevenly if you slide it fast.
The screen will crack if u accidentally drop the phone even once and stupid kyocera doesnt sell face plates. idiots.Summary: This phone is good but even tho it is a 3g phone, stupid virgin mobile doesnt enable the 3g on this phone. idiots!
Summary: This phone is good but even tho it is a 3g phone, stupid virgin mobile doesnt enable the 3g on this phone. idiots!
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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love this phone
by stocktonmiller on November 18, 2009
Pros: the kebord is great the screen is big
Cons: the backplate is hard to get off
Summary: for a pay as you go phone its good texting is easy and fun get this phone this phone is beter then the rumor 2 or the wildcard
Summary: for a pay as you go phone its good texting is easy and fun get this phone this phone is beter then the rumor 2 or the wildcard
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Really great phone and totally worth it!
by ashleyzilla on November 15, 2009
Pros: It does so much more than I expected. It was my first phone and I was proud of it even next to my friend's touchscreen. I really like the backgrounds and screen savers. It also plays all your music, which I love.
Cons: The keyboard is weird, it's only 3 lines and the space is in between the v and the b.
Summary: It's not to big like the iphone and not too small like the Nokia .3710. I like the camera but which it had better quality for it. It's ...
Summary: It's not to big like the iphone and not too small like the Nokia .3710. I like the camera but which it had better quality for it. It's a bit too expensive. I would be satisfied if it were 80 or 90 dollars.
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Very Nice Phone! Few Things Could Be Changed
by klnco4 on November 10, 2009
Pros: Screen Size.
Media Player.
Call Quality.
Durability.Cons: Screen Doesnt Flip When Texting.
Keys Semi Small.
Camera Quality.Summary: Ive had this phone for about a week now and I love it so far.
However, there are a couple things that need to be modified before this phone is ...Summary: Ive had this phone for about a week now and I love it so far.
However, there are a couple things that need to be modified before this phone is ready to become something big.
When you are entering the number for a text message, and you have to tilt the phone sideways to see the number pad correctly (because its with the letters) the screen does not flip, so you cannot see what you are dialing. Your basicly dialing the number straight up, although most of us probably dont have a problem with seeing these things, it can be a bit frusterating at times.
Freezes at times when you enable the autmatic key lock.
You cant play the media player and do other things on the phone at the same time. Like when you are in the middle of a texting conversation and you want to listen to some music, it doesnt work. The phone says "Cannot Play Media Player While Calling".
All in all, I do realize I dogged a lot on the phone in this review, but it is actualy a good phone. Despite the screen flipping thing.
I dont think Kyocera did enough to really find out what phones like this are like before they made one. Could be a lot better, but I'm content with it.
If your able to get the LG rather than this one, I would go with the LG. -
Dissappointing
by kellykins_256 on November 2, 2009
Pros: Sleek, keys are a good size, menus easy to follow
Cons: Freezes, no separate numeric pad, slow to receive text messages, keys stick, short battery life, bad physical quality
Summary: This phone is nice, if you never plan on texting and have all of your numbers programmed into your contacts. But what's the point in a QWERTY phone if ...
Summary: This phone is nice, if you never plan on texting and have all of your numbers programmed into your contacts. But what's the point in a QWERTY phone if you don't text? So far I've had two replacements for this exact same phone, the first was scratched out of the box and froze frequently, this one is freezing nearly every time a text message comes through after only about 3 weeks. Both were brand new phones, via Virgin Mobile. Basically, I would not suggest anyone buy this phone. It's a waste of $100.
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Cumbersome Phone
by DirectorTodd on October 20, 2009
Pros: Liked the slimness of the phone.
Cons: QWERTY keyboard much too cramped. Pain in the rear to make a call most of the time.
Summary: Just found it too cumbersome for everyday use.
Summary: Just found it too cumbersome for everyday use.
Manufacturer info
- Kyocera
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Kyocera products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.kyocera.com/
- Address:
8611 Balboa Ave.
San Diego, CA 92123 - Phone: 858-576-2600
- Email: kiijobs@kyocera.com
- Fax: 858-492-1456
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