Crave

(Credit: Virgin Mobile)

The Samsung Mantra is just about what you'd expect from a Virgin Mobile phone. The compact flip handset sports a minimalist design with clean lines and a black and gray color scheme. Features include a VGA camera, Bluetooth, a speakerphone, voice dialing, text messaging, a wireless Web browser, a personal organizer, and support for gaming.

The Mantra is available now for $59.99 with free activation and shipping.

(Credit: Virgin Mobile)

Virgin Mobile announced a new $49.99 unlimited prepaid calling plan today, along with a special program to help customers who become unemployed. The program, called the "Pink Slip Protection plan," will waive up to three months of monthly charges if a customer becomes unemployed.

The Pink Slip Protection plan will only go into effect at least two months into a monthly plan, and once he or she becomes eligible for state unemployment benefits. There's currently an open enrollment period through June 30. You can enroll via Virgin Mobile's Web site starting April 15.

If you'd rather not go for the $49.99 unlimited route, Virgin Mobile also offers monthly prepaid plans with unlimited 7 p.m. nights and weekend minutes for $39.99, and all of them can be bundled with messaging or mobile Web for $5 each. You can add unlimited messaging for $10 a month. For those who prefer to text over making calls, Virgin Mobile also offers a "Texting Delight" plan, which offers 1,000 messages for $14.99 or unlimited text for $19.99. That way, frequent texters can choose to keep only a few minutes for occasional use.

The Pink Slip Protection plan applies to all of the monthly prepaid plans, including the Texter's Delight. Virgin Mobile is still keeping its pay-as-you-go plans for those who prefer not to go the monthly plan route.

Virgin Mobile

(Credit: Virgin Mobile)

Helio's influence on Virgin Mobile continues to grow, as Virgin Mobile just announced the availability of the "Connect" social-networking dashboard and Opera Mini 4.2 to its prepaid customers. These features were previously available on post-paid devices only, like the Helio handsets. They will launch later this month on devices like the Shuttle, the Jax, and the X-tc. Do note that you'll have to sign up for a monthly or prepaid data pack plan. The price ranges from $5 for 5MB of data on prepaid plans, to $10 for 50MB on a monthly plan.

The "Connect" social-networking dashboard is essentially a one-stop hub for many social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube. You log-in once and have access to all of these networks without needing to manage them separately. You can see things like status updates, new messages, new invitations, new photos and videos, and more. Virgin Mobile customers can also use Connect's integrated RSS reader to catch up on all their latest news feeds.

Opera Mini 4.2 might not be new to most of you, but it will be new for Virgin Mobile prepaid customers. It's a better browser than most standard proprietary ones, so we're glad to see this improvement. You can sync your bookmarks and view pages in landscape mode on certain devices.

The G2GO is a 3G messaging phone.

(Credit: Kyocera)

The Laylo offers simpler features.

(Credit: Kyocera)

Kyocera introduced two new cell phones Wednesday, as CTIA opened. Both offer slider designs but will appeal to different user groups. Check out our Kyocera CTIA photo gallery to see them in all their glory.

In keeping with the rush of messaging phones we've seen thus far in Las Vegas, the Kyocera G2GO M2000 hides a full alphabetic keyboard behind the 2.4-inch display. The overall design is a bit angular, and we're worried that the combined keypad and keyboard will be cramped, but the phone offers a fair number of features to compensate.

Inside, you'll find messaging and e-mail, a speakerphone, a 500-contact phone book, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a personal organizer, Bluetooth with stereo and object exchange profiles, a microSD card slot, 3G support, a music player, voice dialing, and a WAP browser. The G2GO will soon be coming to Virgin Mobile as the Kyocera X-tc. Our Kyocera G2GO hands-on video gives you a closer look.

Kyocera/Sanyo phones at CTIA--photos

The Kyocera Laylo M1400 is more geared toward making calls. It sports a 2.2-inch display and a standard numeric keypad behind the sliding face. Features include a VGA camera, text and multimedia messaging, Bluetooth, a 500-contact phone book, a speakerphone, a personal organizer, a voice memo recorder, speaker-independent voice recognition, instant messaging, and a WAP browser. Our Laylo video hands-on gives you a closer look.

Virgin Mobile's CEO said Tuesday that the Mobile Virtual Network Operator plans to introduce touch-screen handsets. Speaking at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovations conference, CEO Dan Schulman didn't give any specifics, but he said that the handsets would be part of a move to "smarter" phones.

As an MVNO carrier with a core prepaid business, Virgin Mobile focuses on low-end and basic models for making calls and sending messages. Over the past 18 months, and particularly after its acquisition of Helio, the operator has offered more multimedia handsets and messaging-centric devices with full keyboards. Yet, like many of its prepaid and MVNO competitions, the carrier has not picked up any smartphone or touch-screen models.

According to PC World, Schulman said the touch-screen phones would be targeted to low and middle-income youth on prepaid plans. MetroPCS, another prepaid carrier, introduced a version of the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 last week.

The Kyocera Jax comes to Virgin Mobile.

(Credit: Virgin Mobile)

Just a month after a new Kyocera messaging phone appeared on Virgin Mobile's Web site, another Kyocera handset greeted the world on Thursday.

The Kyocera Jax doesn't appear to be quite as exciting as the X-tc, but it should appeal to basic-phone users. The candy bar handset offers a color display, messaging, a speakerphone, voice dialing, and a wireless Web browser. The Jax isn't officially available yet so we don't have pricing, but we'll fill you in when we get more information.

Thanks Phonescoop.

Helio Ocean 2 photos

We reviewed the Helio Ocean 2 at the beginning of the month, but today is the day when you can finally go out and get your hands on one. Yes, the Helio Ocean 2 officially launched today on Helio's Web site (which is run by Virgin Mobile now). Just some of the goodies in the new Helio Ocean 2 include an optical touch sensor pad, an improved keyboard, a tabbed HTML browser, plenty of e-mail and messaging options, and support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. You can read about all that and more in our Helio Ocean 2 review, and if you like what you see, the Ocean 2 is available for $149 from Virgin Mobile. Note that the red Ocean 2 here is a limited edition; Virgin Mobile plans to go with a black version of the Ocean 2 later this year.

To go along with the launch, Virgin Mobile also announced that Helio customers now have unlimited 7 p.m. nights and weekend minutes.

Kyocera X-tc from Virgin Mobile

(Credit: Virgin Mobile)

Virgin Mobile is on a roll lately, with the Virgin Mobile Shuttle released late last year and most recently the Helio Ocean 2. Now it appears it will also be offering this Kyocera X-tc, a slider handset with a full QWERTY keyboard for messaging. Features include a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, a microSD card slot, a speakerphone, a Web browser, and a media player with external control keys. It also has access to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. The X-tc costs about $100.

(Via Phone Scoop)

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

Helio Ocean 2 photos

Remember that Helio Ocean 2 we mentioned last week? Well, we got our hands on it and reviewed it.

It has the same dual-slider form factor as the original and, of course, the same bulky shape, but it has a couple of improvements over the first Ocean. First, it now has a unique optical-sensor touch pad, which makes scrolling through menus and long Web pages a lot easier. Second, the keypad and keyboard buttons are improved: they're a lot more tactile and easier to press now.

But perhaps more interesting are its features: it has all of the EV-DO and GPS functionality we've come to love from Helio products, plus we can't say enough about the new tabbed HTML browser and the updated messaging dashboard. That said, is that sufficient enough for people to get over its hefty size? We let you be the judge. It's available today February 12 from Virgin Mobile for $149. Oh, and don't forget to read our full review of the Helio Ocean 2.