I've decided to go with something else myself. I did enjoy using my F3 for the few months I had it. Bought mine from amazon for $80 + shipping last April. I had it rooted about a week after I activated the phone on VM. Like you, I like phones that fit into a pants pocket without being too bulky.

The F3 began to develop some serious issues with overheating in the last two weeks. I tried removing some social media apps to combat the problem, but even that didn't help. Facebook is the worst offender. Even when set to not receive notifications, that app eats a lot of CPU in the background, which means it's a huge battery sucker. I did try using Greenify to help keep the phone cool while idle, but even that could only do so much.

I know I'm not the only one that's had overheating issues with the F3. One poster named Lovewerks has tried everything under the sun to fix his F3. In my case, at least I have some spare cash (and a couple of older backup VM Android phones), so why suffer if I don't have to? No to mention, the F3 fried so much that it put the SD card and the internal /data partition into read only mode permanently. I've never had a device do that before!

I've ordered a new LG Tribute from VM. It's currently going for $80 from them; other may have it for less. At least buying it from VM should guarantee me a free replacement in case I get a lemon. Should have the phone by early next week. There aren't any cases yet for it, but Skinomi and a few others have screen protectors for the phone. Amazon has one maker listed that will have cases for it available next month. I hope those release dates come sooner. If I succeed at installing the apps I want to use without taking up too much internal space, I probably won't root the phone.

Here's a review that I found informative regarding the LG Tribute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVj_cefn0to

 

I have no idea. At this point, I'm willing to not root the phone if I can get most of the apps I want on it with enough internal memory left. This phone does allow some apps to be moved to the external SD card. That would be a huge help for me.

I suppose if anyone wants to root this model, maybe try the Stump exploit that's on xclusive36's V8 rooting/unbricking thread.

 

If you're interested, you can still pick up an F3 at Best Buy for 39.99

 

I noticed the Samsung Galaxy Light is now $49 at Metro and I've been thinking about getting one to replace my F3 https://www.metropcs.com/phones/details/samsung-galaxy-light/610214637628.html

It seems the screen isn't as good as the F3 but the processor is better and the internal storage is much better. Also, it has, or can be upgraded to 4.4 - which it seems the F3 will never get.

Any experience or thoughts on this phone?

 

Read: [Root] Stump Root for LG Devices (2012 - 201… - Pg. 75 | LG G3 | XDA Forums

Short answer: not supported yet.

Not gonna stop me, though. I just want a device that works well out of the box (for now, at least), like my Samsung Galaxy Tab 4.

 

I purchased the LG Tribute last night, that's the phone that someone else mentioned. I paid $80 for mine at Best Buy. I had just found out about it the previous day, apparently it's been out less than a month.

So far I like it, although it's not as much of an upgrade over an F3 as a Volt would be, which is the phone I was going to go with as an upgrade, the Tribute was a compromise. The main thing is that the 4.5" screen isn't as much of an upgrade over the 4" of of the F3 as you would think, because the Tribute doesn't have its buttons off-screen as other phones do (like the F3). That is, it has "back, home, recent apps" in the screen area ITSELF as icons, as opposed to the F3's (and Volt, too, I, believe) design of a back "soft" button, a home "hard" button, and a menu "soft button" outside the screen area. This means that on the Tribute some of the screen's area is consumed by those "virtual" buttons. I believe the Volt has the F3's design of keeping the buttons out of the way of the screen area, so you're apt to have a better experience there (plus I dislike the absence of a dedicated menu key).

Even so, so far anyway it does feel like a slightly more "upscale" device than the F3, or at the very least it's definitely an updated "budget" class item vs the F3. The screen is still better in that, using Apex Launcher, I previously had a 5x4 grid layout of the icons on the home screen (rows, columns) with my F3. Now I can do a 5x5 grid layout yet it doesn't look "squashed," which means I can fit 5 more items on the home screen. So far, too, it does seem to be quicker, and when I tested out the GPS with GPS Status, it obtained a lock quickly.

If it runs more smoothly than my F3, then that will definitely make me glad I switched. My F3 has a tendency to "lag" quite a bit sometimes. I did install a "cache cleaner app" named App Cache Cleaner (Infolife) on my F3 which helped, and just in case I installed it on my Tribute as well, but so far it doesn't seem to need it. Occasional lag on my F3 was something I dealt with on occasion and it got on my nerves pretty badly.

I am told, too, that you can move apps to SD on the Tribute while you can't on the F3 without the usual rooting tricks. If that's so, that could also be a large advantage with the device working better.

That said, I will still keep my F3 as a spare. Often-times when I upgrade I sell the older phone, but in this case with the F3 going for $40 brand-new, what's the point of selling it? I like keeping at least one old phone around so if something happens to the current one I'm not SOL. Even if I don't lose my Tribute phone and never need to have the F3 sitting around to fall back on in that respect, I can always use it for "beater" tasks such as looking up recipes in the kitchen and thus keeping the newer one from being exposed to splattering grease and the like. The old F3 can be the "beater" for such things and also resume the role of primary phone if something happens to my Tribute.

 

The great thing about Virgin is that they give you 2.5gb of data. Metro throttles you after 1gb.

The Tribute looks good. I'm not a fan of on-screen buttons either, I would assume they could become unresponsive. It doesn't have a FFC (frontfacingcamera), even though I never use it.

 

Only if you have the cheapest Metro plan.
$40/mo- 1GB@4G
$50/mo- 3GB@4G
$60/mo- unlimited 4G

 

I see. I haven't tried them but I asked someone who had and he wasn't happy with the speed of the "4G" network here. That may have been before the T-Mobile buy out though.

I didn't even notice a difference when I was throttled, for $35 a month I think it's the best cheapest deal. I like that I can reload the CVS bought card instead of waiting in line and have some guy trying to sell me crappy headphones (store employee at cricket).

 

The on screen buttons on this phone would only fail if the entire screen itself becomes unresponsive. The Tribute has a front facing camera, like my fried F3.

In the newer plans, you can get up to 3 GB of high speed data. The 3 GB is available with the new $55 plan. I'm considering moving back to the $35 plan with 300 minutes of talk time, unlimited text and 2.5 GB of high speed data. Still on the grandfathered $55 one with unlimited everything (which might be cut off soon). The plans were updated at the beginning of October.

 

You can always get the Samsung galaxy light

8gb of storage
Same size screen
Way more features
Its $49 at metro right now.

 

I suppose so... if the system is unresponsive a hard button would react the same.

I'm on the $45 with 1200 minutes, but that has been changed also. I may go back to $35 as well since I am not making as many calls as I was when I first got the phone. Plus GrooveIP Lite (free, unlimited) works good for calls over data or wifi. There's a slight delay but it's not bad.

I didn't feel the throttle at all... I could still use YouTube and stream radio.