LG Volt Price/Carrier differences

Technically the Volt is 'on sale' for Boost and Sprint. As for why it's not on sale for VM, it could be as you said. Since they are all Sprint network so there should be no coverage differences.

Zabeus said:

. . .
I wonder if it's due to the fact that on VM you can get 2.5GB for $35/mo where Boost is $35 for only 1GB. (therefore not as popular?)
Also are the phones exactly the same, besides color? I'd prefer VM for the reason above.
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Hi Zabeus,

I just bought the VM LG Volt 2 weeks ago and the main reason I selected VM vs. Boost, or any other carrier, was for that exact reason. I really don't use my cell all that much and previously had a Moto Razr flip-phone with a T-Mobile pre-paid plan. But I wanted to get into the smartphone arena and figured that I wanted as much fast data as I could get while still within a reasonable plan. For me 300 minutes of calls per month is plenty, I don't do much texting and the 2.5 GB of fast data is the most I found for that price range.

As far as cost I was able to get it 2 weeks ago directly from VM for their sale price of $99.99. A week later it went to $130 or $140 and now its not on sale at $179. So its just a matter of timing. I just looked and the VM model is $125 at Amazon although the Boost and Sprint models are only $79. Go figure!!

As far as the phone I am quite pleased with it. Sure its not as good a display or has as many do-dads as say the Sammy Galaxy S5 but that would have been $400 or more than the Volt. For my usage its just fine. I went shopping today and the store I went to didn't have something I wanted and I knew they had another store near by. So I fired up the Volt, went to the store's web site, found the other location and pulled it up on Google maps. All worked quite well.

And lastly since they all use Sprint's network the coverage should be exactly the same.

Good luck,
Gerry

Other than cosmetic differences (color of case, packaging) all LG Volts (Sprint, BM, VM) are identical. However different sets of serial numbers are allocated to each carrier and the carriers will generally only activate phones which have been allocated to that carrier.

When you activate the phone the skin and additional apps (bloatware) for that carrier are added to your phone. (If you never activate the phone it'll list "LG" as the carrier.)

As far as the different prices for each carrier, that's pure marketing. On Black Friday Radio Shack had the Sprint and Boost Mobile phones on an incredible sale ($40) but not Virgin Mobile. It's just the wholesale price the carrier want to sell the phone for and how much markup the retailer adds.

Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile purchase airtime from Sprint so theoretically they should all have the same level of service. There are _rumors_ that if the network reaches peak capacity in any area that Sprint customers have higher priority. (If anybody has absolute HARD information - not rumors, please speak up).

There are variations on the pricing vs. what's included in each package (number of minutes, amount of data each month) for each carrier.

In my case I was a Virgin Mobile customers, but had billing problems with them in the past so I had no real reason to stay with VM. Since the BM phone was on sale but VM wasn't it made the choice easy. It was extremely easy and almost painless to port my phone number from VM to BM.

Phil42 said:

Other than cosmetic differences (color of case, packaging) all LG Volts (Sprint, BM, VM) are identical. However different sets of serial numbers are allocated to each carrier and the carriers will generally only activate phones which have been allocated to that carrier.

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Why I chose the Sprint Pre-Paid Version to use on Ting and R+, there seems to be little aversion to activating SPP devices on an MVNO compared to VM/Boost. Ting is activating the Boost version as well as the SPP version though. R+ will activate just about anything, but if they run across a Boost/VM device they have been known to deactivate them, usually only when you get C/S involved and they can see it identified as a VMU or Boost.

Phil42 said:

When you activate the phone the skin and additional apps (bloatware) for that carrier are added to your phone. (If you never activate the phone it'll list "LG" as the carrier.)

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This is true, my device is pretty much bloat free, the Hot Spot functionality is missing from the menu though. The device does show LG as the carrier, LTE Discovery app shows it as Chameleon as does the FCC speed test app, Signal Check Light app shows it as Sprint?

Activations ADDs software to the phone? where did you hear this? That stuff comes with the phone, hence people like the carrierless rom because the bloatware is not included.

jeffmd said:

Activations ADDs software to the phone? where did you hear this? That stuff comes with the phone, hence people like the carrierless rom because the bloatware is not included.

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It is my understanding that someone who activates a Boost Mobile Volt on Ting does not carry the same bloat as one activated on Boost? I have Sprint Pre-Paid Volt and no Sprint bloatware whatsoever, but then I can't say what I should have if I had activated it on SPP?

jeffmd said:

Activations ADDs software to the phone? where did you hear this? That stuff comes with the phone, hence people like the carrierless rom because the bloatware is not included.

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Not true. Each carrier customizes the system. Phones are distributed with the base system. Once the phone is activated, it downloads additional carrier specific software. This makes distribution much easier since they don't have to be careful to not send a Sprint phone to Boost, and so on.

When the volt is setup on Sprint / VM or Boost a program called Chameleon will setup the phone to work with the carrier it is activated on. So if the Volt is setup on Boost, Chameleon will setup and brand the phone to Boost. What adds more junk is the Mobile ID app which downloads more carrier recommended junk and wallpapers.

jeffmd said:

Activations ADDs software to the phone? where did you hear this?

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Didn't hear it - watched it as it happened to my phone.

When I purchased my phone the lock screen said the carrier was "LG". It has a red and black wallpaper and a limited number of preinstalled stuff. I used it (unactivated) as a WiFi only device for about three days. Google listed it as no carrier LG-740.

When I activated the phone with Boost Mobile it immediately started downloading several apps in a folder marked "Boost Mobile". It also changed the wallpaper and the lock screen changed to "Boost Mobile". Then Google listed the carrier as "Boost Mobile". The Boost Mobile apps (primarily encouragement to purchase various downloads) was not on my phone before it was activated.

I've got to assume that this is the same procedure for Sprint and VM versions of the Volt.

What's amusing is if you root your phone and install the ZV4 ROM almost all of the Boost Mobile customizations go away because the rooted ZV4 ROM is a generic LG ROM. So even though my phone works with Boost Mobile and I pay them each month, it looks more like a non-activated phone.

Phil42 said:

Didn't hear it - watched it as it happened to my phone.

When I purchased my phone the lock screen said the carrier was "LG". It has a red and black wallpaper and a limited number of preinstalled stuff. I used it (unactivated) as a WiFi only device for about three days. Google listed it as no carrier LG-740.

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Exactly how both my Volts appear activated on Ting and Ring Plus.