Kyocera Hydro Vibe Black (Virgin Mobile)

I bought this phone to replace my LG Volt that died when I dropped it. This was the other phone I was considering when I bought my Volt, so I'll compare the two:CALL QUALITY -- There are more than a few reviews on Amazon about call quality with this phone. I will concede that it doesn't get as loud as I'd like it to, but in not-overly-noisy environments, I've been able to hear people well enough, and I've had nobody say anything about how my voice sounds to them (including my wife, whom I specifically asked regarding how I sounded). The external speaker on the back of the phone (weird placement) is about the same - adequate. I give the Volt the nod on this, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with making the Hydro Vibe waterproof. As far as reception goes, it picks up voice, data, and Wi-Fi as well as my Volt did. I don't drop any more calls (fewer, if anything), and data speed with 4G seems about the same or a little faster. Wi-Fi is the same as far as I can tell.SPEED -- This phone is faster than my Volt ever was. Apps open and operate fast and smooth, and I've seen no significant degradation after owning it for a while. It has an occasional glitch here and there, but very infrequently. My Volt started out fast, too, but started to decline fairly quickly to the point where it would close apps, freeze up, and reboot on a pretty regular basis. It was frustrating, and if I hadn't dropped it, I probably would have ended up throwing it.DISPLAY -- The Hydro Vibe beats the Volt here, too. The display is crisp and vibrant, and the touch screen is responsive (almost too sensitive sometimes). My only real complaint is that the touch screen seems inaccurate to me. When I'm typing, I make a lot of errors with this phone that I didn't notice making with the Volt. Now it may be the case I have it in getting in the way or the keyboard layout, but it just feels like it's a little off sometimes.BATTERY LIFE -- Volt is the hands-down winner. It had the best battery life of any phone I've ever had. The Hydro Vibe? Not so much. It's lucky to get through a day of light/moderate use. That is my biggest complaint with this phone, but with an easily removable rear cover, I guess an extra battery is an option.CAMERA -- The Volt had a pretty good camera. Video quality was good, even with reduced resolution formats. The Hydro Vibe has excellent video quality for a $70 phone as long as the resolution is all the way up to HD. If you reduce it to send MMS, forget it. It looks terrible. If you text a lot of video clips to friends, this might be a problem for you. There were a lot of reviews about how bad the camera was on this phone. I have to agree that it was terrible until I downloaded the latest Kyocera firmware. Now my camera and video quality has improved dramatically, most notably the front-facing camera, which was essentially useless.COOL FEATURES -- Both of these phones use a very similar format for screens and menus, but they each have one or two unique "cool" features. The Volt had an IR emitter with a built-in quick remote to allow you to control a number of devices. It worked on my TV, and it would be a fun feature to mess with your friends at their house or irritate people at the local sports bar. The Hydro Vibe's "cool" feature is being waterproof. I put that to the test yesterday while my kids were swimming. It takes crystal clear video under water!! It was really quite amazing for a phone at this price point. I don't know how far I'd push the boundaries, but the occasional splash or dunk seems to be no problem. That will make things a lot more relaxing on the boat or around the pool this summer.SUMMARY -- The Hydro Vibe isn't perfect, but it is an incredible value given it's features and performance. I can honestly say it's much faster and smoother than the Volt, but lacks the Volt's incredible battery life. Even with that drawback and the apparent inaccuracy of the touchscreen, I would grab the Hydro Vibe over the Volt all day long. A great phone at an amazing price.

After carefully reviewing the specs and prices for the best phones Virgin Mobile has to offer, I chose this one and that was a HUGE MISTAKE. I've owned the Kyocera Event and had minor problems with that phone, but that was nothing compared to this phone. Where to start? Oh, the front camera may "be" 2 MP, but in reality it is not. Without proper lighting, it may as well be useless, you can barely see anything taken with the front camera. The keyboard has so many glitches its ridiculous, sometimes it wont come up, but then you can still use it if you remember where the keys are. 99 percent of the time you will need to restart this phone to clear the glitches just to use the phone for ten minutes without problems. The charger that came with the phone doesn't charge the phone as fast as any other charger, and putting it in kinda feels like I'm breaking the port. The touchscreen sometimes wont register your finger and you have to turn off the screen and turn it on again to fix. As for the speed, at first the phone is really fast and smooth, but after a while it slows down and you're there waiting for it to catch up with you. As for durability, I've dropped this phone multiple times from differentiating heights and still have NO CRACKS on the screen so thats a plus. Kyocera is not good at making quality products, but ironically the s*** phones they make last a while. With all the problems with this phone I WILL NOT be buying from Kyocera EVER again. In fact, in the near future I will be RETURNING this phone, hopefully for a full refund. If you're looking at this phone, buy the LG Volt. It's very similar but made by a reputable company, but on the flipside their durability isn't that good, but overall the problems you wont have are worth it.

I've had this phone for about two years and after the initial period, it's quality just dropped off. I loved it at first, felt great and was really functional but now it hardly functions outside of calls, text and one or two apps. The phone can't handle anymore then that, I can't store any pictures on the device, I can't have anymore then a couple apps on the device. It frequently spazzes and locks up or the screen registers tapping when there is none. It shuts off randomly at times just to turn back on. I treat this phone very well, charge it every night, don't use it nonstop, but it is still breaking down. My friend has the same phone and hers is even worse. Do not recommend for a smart phone.

First impressions are that this is a very nice phone. It is heavy and seems very well made and durable. I'm not a huge phone gamer but I use some other astronomy apps and that so i use a bit of memory and this doesnt sputter when playing vids or running the apps. Keyboard pops up fine for me, and its nice that it allows for sd app storage.I will say that hearing people is tougher than my old phones, i assume because it is water resistant. It can sould like they are talking through a thin wall, and turning up the volume amplifies the distortion. Not phone breaking tho and I rarely talk on my phone anyway.I have owned many other of the cheap virgin compatible smartphones and this is by far the best.