Virgin Mobile's pre-paid MIFI spotted, purchased, unboxed, and photographed
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted June 25th 2010 4:35PM
posted June 25th 2010 4:35PM
Sure, Virgin Mobile's MIFI isn't due out until Monday -- but that hasn't stopped one lucky shopper from finding one on the shelves of his local Best Buy yesterday. The enigmatic reader (only identified by the initials "NS") even went so far as to include some unboxing pictures for our (and your) pleasure. Between this, and Sprint's recent Beyond Talk announcement, it looks like 2010 is shaping up to be a good year for pre-paid wireless.
[Thanks, NS]
[Thanks, NS]
Cool but Virgin branding really bothers me. New name pleeeasee!
@TheJuando
Really? Cause it says virgin? And what should we refer to the virgin Mary as?
@TheJuando
I however, love this name
@TheJuando
Yeah; I much prefer my Slut Telecom branded Nexus One.
@TheJuando Grow up, Virgin is one of the biggest names around, ever heard of that little Airline Virgin Atlantic or the soon to Virgin Galactic, and it's English, yeah baby!
@techee44
Dry spell Mary.
@techee44
"I didn't touch her. I swear. She said she was 18 so I asked to check her ID and she was reluctant so I didn't touch her." Mary.
@TheJuando i love the irony of this post.
go canada go
@ericrrr
I don't trust Canada anymore. Between Nickleback and Justin Bieber, they have cursed us one too many times.
@ericrrr This looks like Virgin Mobile USA, the Virgin Canada (a Bell property now) prepaid data sticks are uselessly expensive, while the USA pricing plans are actually desirable.
Stupid Bell.
@techee44
plus they say "aboot", watch curling, and use monopoly money
@techee44 dont forget about drake too, that dude is trash
@benjgvps Virgin Mobile in the US is much better now because it's a property of Sprint.
@benjgvps I don't see the mifi routers as a option on the Bell site anymore. Maybe they will move them over to their virgin line too. Their prices sucks though.
When is Beyond Talk happening? I could live with a Blackberry for $35 a month. I have a Droid on Verizon and even with a discount it's about $90/month. It's a little silly and I often wish I could just go cheaper.
@JONNNathannn
Drop your voice plan and text package and use Google Voice. It's really that easy.
@LiqwidZero Is it that easy? GV, I thought, calls you via your own phone number, then connects you to the chosen number. Without a voice plan, I'm not entirely sure GV will work at all. Am I mistaken?
@JONNNathannn - Uh, the plans are live now, and have been for a while.
@MRCUR Really? I called Sprint and they had no idea what I was talking about and googling it brings up stories about the announcement.
@JONNNathannn Try going to Virgin Mobile USA's website. Sprint owns the brand but their CS will not help you with it, VM has their own.
@JONNNathannn
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-plans.html
Where are the pictures? I'm not getting them?
I saw this yesterday in best buy in the upper east side. Was curious about it.
@lmbebo
I would totally get this if the allowance rolled-over, $60 for 5GB, I should be allowed to use it as slow as I want
I saw this today at BestBuy.
haha if the rates are tight, im all in. the US phone and data market is shifting for the better. me likey a lot. ~_^
@Alexandertron - Here they are: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/mobile-broadband
@Alexandertron what are you talking about? Unlimited data is about to be gone
how fast is this network?
@frohawk17 I think this is EVDO Rev A since it's a 3G mifi router. I'm guessing that if Sprint keeps building out it's 4G network it'll have lots of spare 3G capacity that it's gonna roll to the prepaid side.
@frohawk17 they cap their network at 1.4meg down and around 650k up. I have used it as a backup service for a while now... only down side to virgin mobile broadband is that they wont report any tower issues to sprint... if the tower you are on has problems it will remain broken until a contract user reports the problem (a sprint datacard user for example).
This is not unique to sprint... most of the us based cell providers ignore any network problem reports from pre-paid customers... if you want them to fix the service when its broken you'll will need to sign a 2 year contract with the sprint branded mifi.
I want one but I've read a lot of complaints about battery life. Is it really bad?
Why is this MIFI thing so popular just right now? It has been launched in countries like Mexico since months ago. Do not understand the excitement about it.(I know what this thing is for)
Pre-paid MiFi - touched for the very first time.
Err, this has been at the BestBuy on 5th Ave since last week, and i mean on the shelves/pegs for all to buy. Even the $299 Virgin Mobile BlackBerry 8530 as well. $35/month 300 mins unltd text/mms/web/BIS data..not bad.
@merovingian
I work for a known retailer that has issues with selling things too early. The problem is, the card comes in a box that isn't marked, "Street date: Sunday, June 27th. We put it out as soon as we got them, and it's only because I hadn't heard anything about it on Engadget that I realized it probably wasn't released yet. Oh well.
I like the MiFi and it's great to be able to hook up multiple devices, but now that I can get unlimited tethering from my phone for $20, the MiFi doesn't seem like such a great deal.
@weatherman Whats the point of this post? Did you just want to brag about your phone?
I picked one up last night from Best Buy. Wishing that my iPhone could have solved the problem for me but 1) it doesn't allow the iPad and 2) to add tethering, you must give up your unlimited plan and go with the 2G data plan (huh? Use more data but forced to very limited plan - ruined it for me).
The Virgin MiFi provided the universal access needed for all my devices. I will only use periodically when I travel so don't want to be stuck with monthly charge.
Downside for me? Don't like my hard earned money to expire. Each chunk of data purchased expires in 10 to 30 days. This will make me think twice about how bad I need to be online.
do these 'to go' internet have expiration date just like prepaid mobiles?
It's progress for the pre-paid market here in the U.S., I guess, but I still won't consider pre-paid until the get rid of the stupid expiring minutes every month issue.
If I buy minutes, I want them to last as long as I please, at the very least for a full year. Buying minutes with cold hard cash, that expire at the end of each month whether you use them or not, is kind of bull shit.
I don't understand this pre-paid data, and why everyone said it was such a good deal in that post a few days ago.
It isn't.
What is the point of paying $10 if it expires in a week? Most of the other amounts expire in 30 days, which means you'd have to pay that $30-$40 monthly anyway. And if that's the case, why not just get a monthly plan for a carrier? Sure, the $15/2 GB ATT plan sucks, but it's actually a steal compared to what you'd have to pay every month with Virgin.
The fatal flaw is that your time expires. I don't see why it should. If I paid for data, I already paid for it. It shouldn't matter when I use it. It's not a food product - data doesn't "go bad." The whole concept of expiration dates for prepaid products is just really stupid.
Way too expensive for a sub par service provider.....its exactly the same price as Verizon and AT&T...but its virgin prepaid!!
I purchased the Mifi this afternoon from Bestbuy today. They only had a limited supply in stock and from what the sales rep told me, I was the first to buy it in that store. He never mentioned it was not forsale till monday at all. So if your looking for one head over to Bestbuy. I am in Baton Rouge LA. and went to the local store to purchase it. I can say it was easy to setup and it has a good connection and speed.