Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE (Virgin Mobile)

It sort of felt like Virgin Mobile was throwing users a bone when it started offering phones that tap into Sprint's abandoned WiMAX network. Sure, WiMAX is way better than 3G, but 4G LTE is the future. Sprint's 4G LTE coverage map may still be scarce, but Virgin is offering it up in unlimited quantities with the $249.99 Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE, the carrier's first device with LTE support. It's a pretty good smartphone, but 4G LTE gives it a leg up on the competition.

Editors' Note: The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE models on Sprint?and Virgin Mobile are physically identical, so we're sharing a lot of material between these two reviews. That said, we're testing each device separately, so read the review for your carrier of choice.

Design, Network, and Call Quality
The Galaxy Victory measures 4.8 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.9 ounces, which is bulky for a phone with a 4-inch screen and no keyboard. It's made entirely of slippery, shiny gray plastic that looks and feels a little flimsy. But it's a comfortable size and shape to hold, especially if you find larger phones too unwieldy.

The 4-inch, 800-by-480-pixel display looks perfectly adequate; there's just no wow factor. There are three capacitive touch keys that have been embossed onto the plastic chin beneath the display. I don't care for the look, and they don't work as reliably as on-display keys either. There is often a pronounced delay between pressing a key and the corresponding action taking place; I tapped twice on more than one occasion during my tests. The onscreen keyboard is a little cramped for typing, but you get used to it.

Virgin Mobile uses Sprint's network, and the Victory is its first phone to feature 4G LTE support?if you can get it, that is. Sprint LTE is only available in a limited number of cities right now, so chances are you'll be stuck with significantly slower speeds until it comes to your town. In last year's?Fastest Mobile Networks?tests we found Sprint's 3G network to be the slowest of the nationwide networks. We got a chance to?test Sprint's 4G LTE network?and found it to be a vast improvement. Unfortunately, Virgin LTE is not yet available where we test in New York City, so all of our tests were conducted over 3G.

That said, if you fall into the limited LTE coverage zone, Virgin offers some fantastic prices. You can get unlimited texts and data for just $35 per month with 300 voice minutes. The 1,200 minute plan costs $45, and unlimited voice calling brings the price to $55 per month. If you don't do much talking, that $35 plan is hard to beat?especially considering that a data plan alone will cost you $30 on a carrier like Verizon Wireless, and for that price you're limited to 2GB of data per month. There is a downside for heavy data users: After 2.5GB of full-speed data usage per month, your speeds will be throttled significantly until the end of your billing cycle.

Reception and call quality are average. Voices get loud but sound a bit fuzzy in the phone's earpiece. Transmissions through the mic sound very processed, and noise cancellation is average. The phone had no trouble pairing with my?Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset?and Samsung's S Voice assistant worked well. The speakerphone sounds fine and is loud enough to use outdoors. Talk time over 3G was very good at 10 hours and 1 minute.

Processor, Android, and Apps
The Victory is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8960 Lite processor. Benchmark scores were good, but not great. The phone performs much better than Virgin's lower-end smartphones, but you'll find similar performance on the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G?and HTC EVO V 4G. The Victory is still perfectly fine for gaming and running most of the 700,000+ apps or games available in the Google Play store.

(Next page: Multimedia and Conclusions)

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