Okay, so all the bad reviews for this phone almost made me not buy it. However, I needed a phone, and this one had nice features, and texting is cheap, so I went ahead and bought it, figuring I could return it if I didn't like it.So, the first thing I notieced is that it is a nice phone. It is a perfect weight, comfortable to hold. The white case has a pearl-sheen to it, and is solid feeling. It is a study and tight phone, very durable. The screen is 128 x 128, and it looks muay nice. I've seen $50 phones with screens of lesser quality. You can change the brightness and contrast. I lowered the contrast one level, and it looks nice and crisp.The phone is easy to navigate. It played with it for two minutes and figured out where everything was. It has the standard virgin mobile graphics [pig with wings, donkey, dragon, robot, etc.] and they aren't distracting or anything. The menu's are easy to navigate and see. The fonts are clear and easy to read, not cramped or odd colored. It comes with 4 backgrounds: swirls, diamond pattern, skulls & roses, and multi-colored eagles. On their site you can download more for $2. The phone comes with themes also, and you can download more.The ringtones are nice. They've now added a 'Euro ringer' because the older generation didn't like the superphonic [song] ringers. The Euro ringer sounds like a normal phone, but just a tiny bit more fancy so as to not be boring. You can download hundreds of ringers on their site. I currently have Super Mario Brothers theme. The sound quality of the ringer has improved, it sounds loud and clear. No more tin box or static sounding.The text imput is simple. You can disable auto-text and what not, and typing is fast. It is simple to navigate email, text, and inbox. Speed dialing, one touch, etc. can all be enabled, and they are simple to use. You can change sounds, including 'text recieved' alarms. You can add signatures to text messages, and graphics. The phone has both text AND picture messaging, even though the phone doesn't have a camera. Texts are cheap compared to most. A standard text is 5 cents both ways. However, even on the prepaid plan, you can sign up for a monthly texting plan [while keeping your prepaid plan]. You can get 1000 text messages a month for $9.99. Not a bad deal, best you will find for texting anywhere, especially for prepaid.Web browsing is simple and easy to navigate. With one press of a button, the phone will pull up the number of minutes you have remaining. You can do this 5 times a day for free. If you are low on minutes, you can register your credit or debit card or paypal account on your Account through their site. If you check your minutes and it is low, then you can simply enter a dollar amount to refill, hit OK, and you have added more minutes. Very simple and convient; very nice since you don't have to go to a store to buy a card. All minute plans are 18 cents a minute no matter what, and this includes tax.Oka, onto the matter everyone cares about: battery life. With the first Oystr's, battery life was terrible. Beyond terrible. Maybe 10 hours if you were lucky. Luckily, after so much complaing, VM has corrected this problem. With the older phones, the backlight stayed on constantly, even when the phone was closed, which drained the battery. Now, you have more options. You can go into Menu > Settings >Display > Duration. By default, the backlight will remain lit even when the phone is closed, though the screen goes off and the backlight dims. The purppose of this is so that if it is dark, you can see a faint blue glow coming from your closed phone, making it sylish and easy to find.If you wish to stop this, go into Duration and select disabled. This will disable the backlight WHEN THE PHONE IS CLOSED. When you open the phone, the keys will light up just like normal. The difference is, the backlight NEVER stays on when the phone is closed. Battery life goes back to the stated 7-8 days. The only thing is that when the phone is open, it takes a full two minutes for it to dim. So that is two minutes of talking when the phone will be using a little more juice. But it doesn't make a huge difference. If you purchase an Oystr, do what I said [disable the backlight] and the phone still stays lit or the battery doesn't work, you ahve been sold the older, not-thought-out-too-well model. You need to contact VM and get them to send you a new one.Reception on this phone is good. I'm yet to have a call dropped. The calls go through fast. Since you can pull up reports on your minutes, you don't have to listen to the robot tell you how many you have left. The sound quality is good. I can go into the very lower level of the school library, which is all stone, and I still get reception without a problem.Rates on this prepaid plan are very nice, especially when you take into consideration the reception quality. Pay by the minute is 18 cents always. Texts are 5 cents always, both to send and recieve, UNLESS you want to sign up for the monthly texting plan [1000 for $10]. You can sign up for the text plan WHILE remaining on the pay by minute plan; VM is the only one with this. Another thing I like about VM is that I can switch between monthly plans and prepaid plans as often as needed. With other prepaid plans, once you switch to a monthly plan, you can't go back to pay by minute. With VM you can.Overall, I really like this phone. It was dirt cheap, $20, and it is NICE. If it had a camera, it would be perfect. It is strong, crisp, has an Xcellent screen, nice downloads, good ringer, has song ringers which are also unheard of for a prepaid cell at this price, has excellent and strong reception, on-demand minute statitics, instant minute purchasing, etc. I hightly recommend this phone, as long as it is the newer model.