Virgin Mobile Shuttle - red
Manufacturer: UTStarcom Part number: CNETSHUTTLEREDVMB
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Accessories
- Bottom Line:
- The Virgin Mobile Shuttle is fast, sleek, and affordable, making it one of the most attractive handsets for Virgin Mobile customers.
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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 12/04/2009 |
CNET editors' review
Virgin Mobile Shuttle - red price range: $79.99 - $80.00
- Reviewed by: Nicole Lee
- Reviewed on: 09/19/2008
- Released on: 09/28/2008
The good: The Virgin Mobile Shuttle has EV-DO, support for location-based services, a music player, and a 1.3-megapixel camera. It also has excellent call quality.
The bad: The Virgin Mobile Shuttle has quirky touch-sensitive keys that are a little too sensitive for our liking. Also, we think the Shuttle's WAP browser and slim multimedia offerings don't take full advantage of the EV-DO.
The bottom line: The Virgin Mobile Shuttle is fast, sleek, and affordable, making it one of the most attractive handsets for Virgin Mobile customers.
While we were fans of Helio handsets like the Ocean and the Kickflip, we knew that Helio as a company was struggling. Indeed, Helio was shopping around for a buyer, and in late June, Virgin Mobile stepped up to buy the fledgling MVNO for $39 million. There were many questions as to the future of both companies--would the two exist in harmony? Would they find a way to combine both their brands?
As the new Virgin Mobile Shuttle indicates, the answer appears to be a resounding yes. The Shuttle is the first ever 3G handset from Virgin Mobile, which means it has EV-DO speeds. It is also capable of location-based services, and will utilize uLocate services such as Buddy Beacon and Where, both of which were mainstays on Helio handsets. And while its design is not nearly as stylish as that of most Helio devices, it's certainly the most attractive Virgin Mobile phone we've seen. Of course, since this is a Virgin Mobile phone, it is available for a very affordable price of $99.99 without a contract.
Design
Despite its high-end features, the Virgin Mobile still looks a lot like most other Virgin Mobile handsets. It is clad in the trademark red-and-black color scheme, and doesn't look too different from other handsets. However, we did think its slider form factor and curved tips toward the top and the bottom add a lot to its sleek design. Measuring 3.9 inches long by 1.9 inches wide by 0.7 inch thick, the Shuttle is slender and lightweight with smooth rounded curves.
Right on the front is its attractive 2.0-inch 262,000 color display, which results in vibrant colors and clear legible text. You can change the contrast, the backlight time, and the menu style, but not the font size. We're not too pleased with Virgin Mobile's rather plain menu interface, but it's simple and easy to use, so we're OK with it.
Underneath the display is the navigation array, which consists of two soft keys, a circular toggle with middle OK key, Send and End/Power keys, as well as a dedicated speakerphone key and a Back key. The two soft keys plus the speakerphone and Back keys are slightly recessed, and are actually touch-sensitive keys with haptic feedback. We found this a little annoying, since we often activated the keys without realizing it even after setting the sensitivity of the keys to low. While we appreciate the haptic feedback, since it lets us know when we've hit the buttons, we really would've preferred physical keys. The circular toggle doubles as shortcuts to the My Account page (lets you check how much money is left on your account), a new message menu, the Recent Calls list, and the VirginXL store.
To slide open the Shuttle, all you need to do is push the front face upward. You will reveal the Shuttle's 12-number keypad, which is surprisingly well spaced for a slider keypad. We also found them nicely raised above the surface so we could dial by feel. On the left of the Shuttle are a 2.5mm headset jack, a voice command button, plus the volume rocker. The microSD card slot is located on the left spine of the Shuttle's top layer. The right spine is home to the dedicated camera music player buttons plus the charger jack. On the back of the Shuttle is a 1.3-megapixel camera plus a self-portrait mirror.
Features
Even though the Shuttle's design didn't particularly wow us, we are thrilled that Virgin Mobile has finally stepped up its offerings to include high-end features such as EV-DO and location-based services. But first, we begin with the basics. The Virgin Mobile Shuttle comes with a 500-entry phone book, with room in each entry for five numbers, two e-mail addresses, two IM handles, and a Web site URL. Each contact can then be assigned to a group, and paired up with photo for caller ID. Each entry can also be assigned one of eight sounds for text tones or ringtones (Text tones are alert sounds for incoming messages).
Other basic features include text and multimedia messaging, a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, a calendar, an alarm clock, a tip calculator, a regular calculator, a world clock, and a stopwatch. More advanced users will like the voice command support, stereo Bluetooth, instant messaging, e-mail, as well as the wireless Web browser. The Shuttle also supports Virgin Mobile's Contact Vault, which acts as an online backup of your phone's personal contacts list.
Of course, the much-touted feature of the Shuttle is its EV-DO support. Indeed, we found surfing the Web quite fast on the Shuttle's browser. However, because the Shuttle uses a simple WAP browser without a lot of graphics or video, we didn't think the EV-DO added too much to the experience. Once Virgin Mobile starts supporting streaming video or streaming music content in its broadband offerings, we can see this being more useful. For now, it just makes loading pages faster.
Probably the feature with the most promise is the support for location-based services like Buddy Beacon and Where. Buddy Beacon is a friend-finder service previously associated with Helio handsets, while Where is a location service that partners up with sites like Yelp and GasBuddy to find the nearest restaurant or gas station. Other partners include Eventful for nearby events, Accuweather for the local weather, and Topix for local news. Where also has a built-in local search service plus maps and directions.
We weren't able to test the Buddy Beacon service, but we did try out the Where application. At the time of testing, these location-based applications were not able for download from the Virgin store, and could only be accessed via the Web browser. This might explain why the application thought we were about eight blocks away from our actual location, and we had to enter our location in manually. Once we did that though, we found the results of the search and the restaurants nearby quite accurate. Clearly, the location-based functionality isn't ironed out yet, and we hope to revisit this once native applications are available for the Shuttle.
The Virgin Mobile Shuttle comes with decent music player, with all the features we've come to expect from music phones. You get to create and edit playlists, plus there are repeat and shuffle modes. The player interface is plain, with an album art prominently displayed and player controls underneath. Since there's a microSD card slot, you're not limited to the Shuttle's internal memory of 64MB.
The 1.3-megapixel camera on the Shuttle isn't too bad. It can take pictures in six different resolutions (1280x960, 1024x768, 640x480, 320x240, 176x144, and 160x120), three quality settings, and with three shutter sounds (with no silent option). Other settings include white balance, color effects, fun frames, and a self-timer. Photo quality turned out to be decent but not great. Pictures appeared washed out and on the blurry side, though still better than a VGA camera. The Shuttle also has a built-in camcorder and can record in three quality settings with white balance, color effects, and a self-timer as options. You can also set a "cue sound" and mute the audio.
You can personalize the shuttle with a variety of wallpapers, graphics, and sounds. The Shuttle also comes with three games: Midnight Pool 2, a demo version of Tetris, and a Glu Combo Pack. If you're not satisfied with any of these, you can download more options from the VirginXL store.
Performance
We tested the Virgin Mobile Shuttle in San Francisco using Virgin Mobile's service. Call quality was admirable. Callers said our voice sounded natural without a lot of hiss, and is quite close to landline quality. Similarly, we heard them loud and clear without a lot of static. As for speakerphone quality, callers reported a tiny bit more echo on their end, while we thought the internal speakers sounded quite tinny and hollow. As for audio quality, we certainly wouldn't recommend the internal speakers for listening to music since the speakers do not offer the best sound. We would suggest using a stereo Bluetooth headset instead.
As we mentioned, the EV-DO speed was certainly noticeable. Loading pages took mere seconds, and downloading a game took around 30 seconds.
The Virgin Mobile Shuttle has a rated battery life of 3.91 hours talk time and 2 weeks of standby time. According to our tests, the Shuttle has a talk time of 4 hours and 10 minutes. According to the FCC radiation tests, the SAR rating is 1.26 watts per kilogram.
User reviews
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Though flawed, Shuttle is VM's best so far.
by TheDevilsPromDate on October 5, 2008
Pros: Resolution is high. 3G speeds are a welcome addition. Form factor is handsome. Micro SD card support. Good camera. Video recording capability. Solid price point and feature set for a no-contract phone.
Cons: Force feedback keys are sensitive, and overly exposed. T9 dictionary has 9th grade vocab & can't learn words. Text entry for WAP browser apps, AIM, and text messages are governed by 3 different, frustratingly fussy modes. Tends to self-reboot.
Summary: I, like presumably many other VM users, bought the Shuttle as an upgrade: hoping it would bridge the gap between the handset features I wanted and those for which I ...
Summary: I, like presumably many other VM users, bought the Shuttle as an upgrade: hoping it would bridge the gap between the handset features I wanted and those for which I previously had to settle. While the Shuttle comes very close to spanning that divide, it still manages to keep one foot firmly entrenched in VM's legacy: their inability to get one phone EXACTLY right. I'm not sure if this phone was rushed to market or if VM's manufacturers don't hold themselves to high standards of product testing or design. Whichever the case, this COULD'VE been a killer handset had there been more attention paid to details. While the form factor in aesthetically pleasing, its force feedback keys are far too exposed and sensitive, leading to unintentional triggers. The dedicated keys along either side of the spine are too flush. 3G on a phone that surfs with a WAP browser is like a NO booster on a Dodge Dart; a fast, desperately lackluster experience. Also, and here's the deal-breaker for me, whereas phones generally have ONE module providing T9 and ABC for entering text, the Shuttle has three (so far): one for your phone's general use and text messaging, another for AIM, and a third for the web. Each of these are different, having different menus, predictive vocabularies, and even rules for syntax (e.g. the web T9 insists upon capitalizing the first letter of EVERY WORD) As someone who does rather alot of surfing and messaging, this flaw is frustrating to the point where I must wonder if it's somehow intentional. To conclude, the Shuttle is not (as many VM customers hoped, myself included) the next generation of VM phones, but rather that generation's harbinger. It is a great phone for beginners who want a solid feature set, and a decent interim phone for someone who is waiting for VM to drop a real ace on us.
@ Aaroniuskgravies
Updated on Mar 18, 2009
I'm sorry if you found my review to be so terribly long. I assure you, it was so only in an effort to be comprehensive. Regarding the touch key portion of the review, I concede there is no mention of the owner's ability to turn down the Shuttle's sensitivity. Simply put, it's my experience that even on it's lowest setting it is still far too sensitive. Perhaps my handset is in some way defective. Perhaps your handset is somehow "magically better". Most likely, I imagine you're some nit-picky guy who would rather flame my review than provide a reasoned addendum.
And, on a more personal note, I would remind you: I'm a civilian. I don't work for VM or CNET. I'm a just VM customer who took the time to write a thorough reiview because he wanted other/prospective customers to have the benefit of an un-biased fairly knowledgeable opinion. If that means using all 1,000 characters of provided space, I guess you can either deal with it, or read a shorter review.
TDPD4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
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The best of what's around!
by bennyfitz on November 27, 2008
Pros: The screen is beautiful. The form factor is smooth, and it feels well-put together. The slider mechanism works well. It supports up to 4GB of external memory, which is great. The 3G works well for supported pages. It's plenty loud enough.
Cons: The web browsing on unsupported pages is buggy and frequently causes reboots, or freezes. The messaging is also occasionally unreliable. The camera works well if you take exactly the picture you want, but there are no editing features afterward.
Summary: I love the idea of this phone, and I wish it worked as well as it could. The text entry on the web is NOT easy, and doesn't learn ...
Summary: I love the idea of this phone, and I wish it worked as well as it could. The text entry on the web is NOT easy, and doesn't learn words, and capitalizes every word, so all your friends will know if you send a Myspace message from your phone. The bugs causing reboots and freezing are scary, because you never know when that freeze will be your last. I definitely recommend making sure you put all your videos and pictures on your external memory, just in case, but you can't send videos saved on the card. They keypad locking during calls is an inconvenience, as is the unlocking keypad in your pocket when you receive messages. The touch sensitive keys are too sensitive even on their least sensitive setting when bringing the phone out of your pocket, but then become slightly difficult to use during regular use, so you have to pick the lesser of two evils.
On the up side, regular messaging is a breeze, phone calls are simple and clear. You can access a multitude of functions with the phone closed, which is nice, though the menu system is much easier to use with the phone open. Sending picture messages and video messages is easy, as long as the video's not on your card. Playing videos and looking at pictures is great, because the screen is so big and pretty. The media player is basic and useful for personal spaces, but don't plan on entertaining friends unless they all like the same music you do, because it's not a very customizable player, and it's not all THAT loud. I would positively LOVE this phone if the resetting and freezing could stop. It goes for days and sometimes weeks just fine, but with as much as we all depend on our phones, it's just not reassuring that it continues to work again after hard resets (removing the battery with the phone still on, depending on your phone model you could lose some settings such as personalized ringtones or words added to the dictionary). I also have a hard time with the data plans offered. With the 3G speeds, which are great for checking Myspace and Facebook, you can actually burn through 20 or 50MB pretty easily if you do that a lot and hit some other, non-WAP pages. Some of those, which the browser will do it's best to load (it's best isn't good enough), are upwards of 1MB on their own, and hitting back doesn't always save you from burning through that data. This is the best phone Virgin Mobile offers, with the most features, but I'm seriously considering downgrading to the Samsung Slash just because Samsung is generally so much more reliable than UT Starcom.1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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A really great preapid phone from Virgin Mobile
by frankazoid on September 30, 2008
Pros: no contract, 3G web, sleek, video camcorder, mp3 player, slider, decent battery life
Cons: no qwerty keyboard, 1.3 camera, touch sensitive keys(although can be turned off), cant use mp3s as ringtones
Summary: By far this is the best vm phone to date. It has all the features a contract phone has except its not a contract. The screen is a decent 2 ...
Summary: By far this is the best vm phone to date. It has all the features a contract phone has except its not a contract. The screen is a decent 2 inches, the ringtones come in loud and clear, as does mp3 songs. The camcorder is pretty decent for a prepaid phone. I just wish the camera could have been a 2.0 megapixel. There are other prepaid phone carriers that i know that do that, plus vm's wildcard phone had a 1.3. You woulda thought vm would update the camera. Oh well. The camera is pretty decent anyway. The 3G web is good. I have no big coomplaints with the web, other than the fact Virgin's biggest plan for data is 50mb, which some people would blow in just 1 day. But by far, I think this is one of the nicest looking Virgin Mobile, let alone phones, that i have owned. Like i wrote earlier it feels like i have a contract phone in my hand minus the contract...............The only overall major complaint i have other than 50 MB data plan is the fact theres no keyboard.Other than that I would recommend this phone to anyone who wants a phone and wants all the perks of a contract phone minus the contract. I just LOVE this phone.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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very fast phone, cashes ALL the time
by cameronjmannn on November 28, 2009
Pros: good batery life. it has a loud ringer, bright screen, touch keys. fun to txt on
Cons: it crashes all the time. sonetimes like 10 times a day when i send a txt it says "no service area" even when i have 3g and full bars then crashes
Summary: overall it is an ok phone i would have got the xt-c when i got this but the 3g aka ev was very attractive. i think this phone is easy ...
Summary: overall it is an ok phone i would have got the xt-c when i got this but the 3g aka ev was very attractive. i think this phone is easy to txt with but after a days worth of hevy txting like manny people will do the battery is VERY low. If you buy this phone you will need patience.
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Great tech, but doesn't work well
by reviewer98765 on September 22, 2009
Pros: Has Bluetooth, Email, Opera browser, battery is ok.
Cons: Email prompts to check for msgs, Bad call quality with bluetooth in car (my pebble was fine). Impossible to get power cord or car adapter from Virgin customer service. Shipped with bad power cord. Touch sensitive buttons far too sensitive.
Summary: This phone has been driving me nuts since I got it. Shipped with a bad power cord, so it died on my first weekend with it. Virgin was out of ...
Summary: This phone has been driving me nuts since I got it. Shipped with a bad power cord, so it died on my first weekend with it. Virgin was out of power cords and had no solution. I found cords on my own, but then the troubles really began. After I set up email, the phone would bring up a question every half hour or so asking me if I wanted to check for new mail, and the prompt had to be dismissed before I could make a call. The touch sensitive buttons have repeatedly recordded phantom keystrokes, the mp3 player can only be used if you get a chip, a chip adapter for your pc and manually copy the tunes into the chip before plugging it into the side of the phone. I turned the touch sensitive buttons down to the lowest setting and they still go off when I don't want them too, to the point that it happens even when the phone is in my pocket. I'm ready to throw this thing out after missing three calls in the last 18 hours.
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Great phone
by hernandez10 on August 4, 2009
Pros: small, sleek.
Cons: headphone jack doesnt allow regular headphones to be plugged in.
Summary: Great Phone
Summary: Great Phone
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High Tech Low Satisfaction
by mdenton2 on June 26, 2009
Pros: Looks Cool. Does all kind of stuff. If you don't use your phone to make calls and actually speak on it, this may be the one for you.
Cons: Hard to open, Easy to accidentally lose a call due to hyper sensitive buttons, Menu is not intuitive or user friendly to access simple call functions IE retrieve messages, speaker phone, etc.
Summary: Bought this phone for $99 from Virgin a few months ago. Now it's $79 and there's a good reason for it. It's a PITA. She hates it. ...
Summary: Bought this phone for $99 from Virgin a few months ago. Now it's $79 and there's a good reason for it. It's a PITA. She hates it. It's difficult to use. After hearing her complaints for over a month, I told her to pick out any other phone she wanted on the Virgin website. She has the Cyclops now and seems happy with it. I have to agree with her on this one. I wasted a hundred bucks on this and hopefully this review will save you money. Having said that. We are in our 50s and don't use all the features of these phones. If you are a tween or twenty-something you might find this phone the greatest thing since the internet - but not for us!
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Excellent phone, but it has its up and downs.
by joshy16 on June 23, 2009
Pros: Great color screen, mp3 player, records videos, 3g, change your theme, and other customizing options,different resolutions on camera,and extra memory room with a mico SD card capability's,loud speaker,nice design,touch sensitive buttons are very nice
Cons: no flash on camera, dosent receive or send videos like it says, phone rarely reboots but occasionally does, problems when setting a low resolution picture as wallpaper (more detail in summery),have to buy a bunch of extras for music but its worth it.
Summary: I was really excited when i heard about a 3g phone from a pre-paid carrier like virgin mobile. When i got the phone everything worked great, it felt great and ...
Summary: I was really excited when i heard about a 3g phone from a pre-paid carrier like virgin mobile. When i got the phone everything worked great, it felt great and didnt scream virgin mobile. i love how the phone had a mp3 player and couldnt wait to get my music going on the phone, but i had to go buy a micro sd card, and i had to buy a usb adapter that would hold my sd card and plug into my usb port, i also had to buy headphones. i spent about 30 or 40 exta dollars to get everything going on the phone but its worth it in the long run. once music is on the phone their is no way to organizing the files, but you can add many playlist that hold your favorite tunes. I didnt really have to many complaints about the camera except that there was no flash, it would have been nice to have a flash on the phone to complement the other great features it carries. The 3g is great it downloads ringtones in mere seconds and browses the internet pretty quickly. Now comes my biggest complaint, i had taken a low resolution picture on my phone and attempted to apply it as my wallpaper. when i did this the phone shut off and began to reboot. it would come on and as soon as it came on it would reboot again. i thought that this was just a problem with the phone i had, but i sent it back and got a replacement, i had the first phone for two months before it happened. i had the replacement phone for about four months and the same thing happened again. i sent it back and i now have my third shuttle phone...so far no problems. I hope that this problem dosent happen again because the phone is really great and has excellent features. The camcorder only records 30 seconds of video but its a nice feature to have. when uploading photos onto a computer the transfer is very fast and is reliable, however when uploading video it takes forever, and unless you have a program that play cell phone video formats, then you are not able to watch your videos. when i tried to send a video or receive a video it would not work, im unsure of why but i am trying to figure out what is causing the problem. when watching videos on the phone you can make them full screen which is nice and the video are clear, the videos are also clear when you watch them on the phones browser. the ringtones are loud and soud great. some ringtones through virgin mobile are only 15 seconds, but once downloaded the phone makes them 25 seconds which really surprises you because you get more of the song as your ringtone. The touch sensitive keys are somewhat annoying at first. when on low sensitivity you have to hold your finger on the button for a second before it actually works. once you get accustomed to using the touch keys however, you find that they are really convenient and i set mine up on high sensitivity. i like the buttons because it makes accessing things on the phone a lot faster, and if you're lazy at pushing buttons them you will love them to. on the speaker phone touch key you have to hold your finger on it for a second no matter what your sensitivity level of the buttons is. Call quality was excellent with few dropped calls, everything was clear and the speaker phone worked fine also. Overall this is an excellent phone and i would recommended it to anyone, but beware of the few bugs it has after some use.
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End result... Smashed against pavement after 6 months.
by beavis83648 on June 7, 2009
Pros: Introduced me to Virgin Mobile. Not a bad service. At least the phone looked good (until last Friday). Cosmetics is the only pro of this phone. Worked sometimes.
Cons: Performed poorly. Constant dropped calls & dead areas. Touch keys made things impossible at times. Nothing beats entering text messages 2 or 3 times. Messages & voice-mails came days later. Camera sucked. 1/2 time it didn't ring at all (in hot are
Summary: For $100 it wasn't anywhere near 1/2 of what my $200 Sprint phone was. (& it was 2 + years newer!) Truthfully... I guess I expected (way...) too much. ...
Summary: For $100 it wasn't anywhere near 1/2 of what my $200 Sprint phone was. (& it was 2 + years newer!) Truthfully... I guess I expected (way...) too much. Would not purchase again. Do not recommend. 2 stars to be "fair"
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Nice features, poorly designed and POOR battery life
by ImaginaryKaos on May 9, 2009
Pros: Good service and good call quality. The camera is about average. The display is bright and clear. Messages can be read without opening the slider. Full length movies can be watched from the SD card as long as they are in MPEG 4 format
Cons: The touch keys are overly sensitive. The standby time is NOT as advertised. Three days without using the phone and the battery is DEAD. Replacement phones were the same. Messages get 'stuck' in the system and are resent up to 25 times.
Summary: Messages being resent to the phone over and over are annoying enough to turn the phone off. The SHORT standby time requires the phone to be recharged every two days. ...
Summary: Messages being resent to the phone over and over are annoying enough to turn the phone off. The SHORT standby time requires the phone to be recharged every two days. The phone locks-up when trying to answer a call, requiring you to remove the battery to get it to work again. If you can tolerate these shortcomings, then perhaps the phone is ok. The Kyocera X-TC probably would be a better choice.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: UTStarcom
- Part number: CNETSHUTTLEREDVMB
- Description: With the SHUTTLE, you can transport your music and videos. This sliding music and video phone features dual color screens, a 1.3-megapixel camera, Stereo Bluetooth Wireless, and much more.
General
- Product Type Cellular phone
- Service Provider Virgin Mobile
- Width 1.9 in
- Depth 0.7 in
- Height 3.9 in
- Weight 3.4 oz
Cellular
- Technology CDMA2000 1X
- Band CDMA 850/1900
- Phone Design Slider
- Antenna Internal
- Vibrating Alert Yes
- Polyphonic Ringer Yes
- Voice Dialing Yes
- Call Timer Yes
- Conference Call Capability Yes
- Speakerphone Yes
- Additional Features TTY compatible
Messaging & Data Services
- Mobile Email Yes
- Internet Browser Yes
Digital Camera
- Sensor Resolution 1.3 megapixels
Organizer
- Calculator Basic
Display
- Type LCD display
- Color Support Color
Power
- Type Power adapter
Battery
- Talk Time Up to 237 min
Accessories
- A-Data Speedy Series flash memory card - 2 GB - microSD (33795596)8.99
- ATP SD Trio Professional PLUS card adapter - flash: microSD - Hi-Speed USB (32128464)17.00
- ATP SD Trio Professional flash memory card - 1 GB - microSD (32733137)15.00
- Centon 2GBRSD3-1 - flash memory card - 2 GB - microSD (33503634)11.84 - 15.99
