Lumia 635 (Windows) White (Virgin Mobile)

In my opinion the Lumina 635 is the best quality phone you can get for under $200. Yes, I meant it when I said $200. I purchased mine for $65 and I can not be more pleased. I was skeptical at first, since I've always owned android/ios products (Galaxy S2/S3 and iPhone 4S/iPad Mini). I own a Surface Pro and was in the market for another phone but didn't want to spend $300+ (no contract). After reading the reviews and saw that this phone was fairly positive I gave it a shot. I've had it for 3 weeks now and am more than pleased. The style, feel, and weight of the Lumina 635 is top notch. I admit, I've never owned a Galaxy S5/S6 or iPhone 5/6 so I cannot compare and am sure those phones are much better, but I can say confidently that this phone is of equal (and better in some categories) than Galaxy S3 and iPhone 4S, which are much more expensive on Virgin Mobile than this phone. The processor speed is more than sufficient. Phone turns off and on in around 5-10 seconds and tiles/contacts/messages are all available immediately (doesn't seem to need additional loading time). The best part is the battery. Once again, my opinion may not be the norm because my most recent phones battery literally only lasted 2-3 hours of little to no use before it died. The Lumina 635 batter lasts 1 1/2 - 2 days of moderate use. That is excellent in my book. Since this is a review - I will try to find some cons. There are some and I will list them, but I want to point out that I still rate this phone at 5 stars because I am willing to overlook these cons because of the price point. Windows Store - this is Microsoft's version of Google Play or Apple's App Store. Windows Store is basically a joke. I am not much of a gamer but I will make this comparison. Microsoft's Windows Store is to Apple's App Store as Microsoft's "original" Xbox is to Sony's PlayStation 4. Windows Store is saturated with goodwill quality app/games. Everything you can find on the Windows Store was released on the App Store months/years prior. Camera - unfortunately the camera is essentially useless in my book. 5 MP these days is low quality. My biggest reasons for not using the camera is the shutter speed. If you've used an iPhone's camera before then I am sure you too have come to love the quality and speed at which the iPhone can take a picture. You open the camera app and take 10 pictures in under 8 seconds on the iPhone, whereas it will take at least 10-15 seconds for the camera to load on the Lumina 635, and another 2-3 seconds for the camera to focus, and then another 3 seconds to snap the picture, then more time for it to generate the image on your screen. I take pictures when I see something unique and in order to capture it, I literally need to be able to snap a high quality picture in under 5-10 seconds. This phone does not make that possible. Lastly, there is also no front camera so selfies, facetime, Skype is not possible. When all is said and done, if you are even considering purchasing this phone, you should buy it, hands down. In order to find something of better quality, you will need to pay at least $200 on a no contract phone plan.

I have wanted to try a Windows phone for a while so when this was on sale for $50 I had to try it. So far I like the phone a lot, but there are negatives. This phone has a lot of volume, more than any phone I have ever had. The sound on calls is good too. The screen is bright and clear, and you can rearrange the tiles to your liking. The camera does not have a flash (hard to believe), but it does add light to a nighttime photo. The camera is okay, but what would you expect in a $50 phone. Cortana seems very interesting, but I didn't set it up as it seems really nosy, and wants to accumulate a lot of your personal info. The swipe keyboard is very good, much better than my old android. Swype had been driving my crazy on my old phone, it seemed to be getting worse. I tried Swiftkey, but wasn't crazy about that either. Microsoft Word Flow is much better, and a big plus for me with this phone. The Here app (GPS) seems to work fine. When you are connected to bluetooth in the car the phone reads your texts to you and will allow you to use voice recognition to answer the text. My android did not do this so this is a big plus. The real negative on windows phone is the lack of apps. For years they have been saying that this was going to improve, but they are seriously lacking. There is no Target Cartwheel, no Kohls app, no banking apps (not the ones I use) no real BBC app. This lack of apps is a big negative. Update 5/27: Last week I decided to buy the Samsung Galaxy SIII for Virgin Mobile. I've been interested for the past year and got a somewhat deal (although compared to the Lumia 635 the "deal" cannot compare). I noticed that after a few days of setting up and reading on the Galaxy I was having a lot of eyestrain. The screen is bigger than the Lumia and the resolution is supposedly better, but I didn't have the eyestrain with the Lumia. I compared the phones side by side, both phones to max brightness, with the same file from One Note, on both screens. I also tried it with the same webpage on both screens. The Lumia seems clearer than the Galaxy. I don't know why, but it does. The font seems identical, but for some reason it is clearer. The Galaxy has a grayish look to the screen, the Lumia a yellowish, don't know it that is the difference. On the Galaxy it is nice to have the Google search widget (which does so much more that search) back again. It doesn't require location be turned on and you don't have to set anything up. In fact comparing voice activated Google search with the SVoice that is the Samsung voice recognition product included with the Galaxy I would say Google wins hands down. Trying to use SVoice with the suggested questions it was confused some of the time and couldn't follow directions. The Google voice is much more natural that Samsung's which sounds computer generated. I would say that google is even better than Cortana which I finally enabled. Cortana insists you turn on location, even for things that don't need it like a search, or to set a timer, which is ridiculous. In fact Cortana has trouble setting a timer, maybe I'm not saying the right words. I love that Google search widget, and didn't realize how much I missed it! Altho at least Cortana sounds good, unlike Samsung Voice (maybe newer variations sound better). I really liked that the Lumia reads my texts to me in the car, and allows me to answer them using voice, and this does not require Cortana. Again the voice sounds decent. With the Samsung when a text comes in, when I'm on Bluetooth in the car, a message on the dashboard screen comes on, which is very distracting while driving. Then you have to look at the screen on the dashboard to press a button for it to be read to you. The voice is very computer sounding. There doesn't seem to be a way to reply using voice, so it's not much good to me. The Lumia is much better. The Samsung looks sleeker (of course!) It is only one tenth of an ounce lighter. And of course I can get the android apps that I have been missing while using Windows phone. But there are definitely things I like better on the Lumia. I'm hoping that with Windows 10 some of the issues will improve because I would definitely consider going back to Windows phone again.

(Edit: I am upgrading this from 4 stars to 5 stars due to an incident this morning. I accidentally dropped this phone from ~5 feet onto a tiled concrete floor. It made a stupendous CRACK! noise and then skid on its face [it's equipped with Mr. Shield's Screen Protector]. When I picked it up it was not only still on and functioning 100%, it was still firmly seated in its battery cover and there was not a single scratch on it. There are absolutely no signs that it had taken such a tumble.) (Original Post) This is a great phone and I find it interesting as I am the only Virgin Mobile user to review this so far. I was looking forward to switching to a Windows Phone and the Lumia 635 did not disappoint! Yes, there is no flash, forward facing camera, or notification light, but that does little to detract from the rest of the phone. The price tag as great for what you get with this phone. Win 8.1 runs smoothly and Cortana is amusing. The one thing I love is that this phone has almost nothing running in the background unlike the Android phone where I had to end processes every other minute because turning off background would crash 75% of the apps. The battery life on this phone is also about 2x when compared to my Android and I do more on this phone! It was easy enough to also delete any of the bloatware apps this phone came with and add a decent non-bing web browser (unfortunately no FireFox yet *tear*). I added a 128GB microSD card with no issues and the thing runs like a dream. If you want to try out the Windows Phone with a pay as you go plan this is the perfect phone to start with. It is slim, light weight, sturdy, and the touch screen is pleasant. It's a hell of a phone. I also believe it comes ready to up to Win10 when that rolls out, but not 100%. Get this phone!

I had all my previous phones on Android. This Is Windows 8.1 OS. It has its own store to download apps. It has a realy fast response to everything I through at it, use of office 365 is better than Android kit Kat because it even let me open documents that are locked on my desktop with a password something the android version does not . But it lacks on applications, for example I deal with three banks and the apps for Chase bank, Bank of America, Bmo Harris are nowhere to be found. I had to download the Mint app from Intuit to check on my accounts, but there is a delay of an hour to get real updates. For the credit cards none, no Capital one, nothing. AT&T simple Life app was there, regarding mobile home security but Comcast Xfinity Home was nowhere to be found. Xfinty Tv App also not. I found only The xffinity remote app. This is an item sold in United States, so when I look up on the store for JP Morgan Chase bank app, bank of Jakarta was coming up, same thing with games, some silly games where coming up. Also if you bought the game on android, you have to pay here again because they will sell you there windows version of the game. No integration what so ever. No front facing camera no flash. I will give this to my nice to play with

It is a $40 smartphone. I think that pretty clearly ranks it against those costing hundreds of dollars. CON: Very quirky. Screen rotation is unpredictable, occasionally at random, or poor manual response. The 'back arrow' can take up to over a dozen attempts. Reception on my VM network is weaker than my previous little cellphone, sitting in my home or roaming (1-2 bars, rarely 3, now vs. 4-5 previous). Can't use 'internet radio/music' without earbuds attached - the wire is the antenna (I hate earbuds; iphones play music for hours without earbuds). Terrible battery life, but recharge time is not bad. PRO: Beautiful graphics. Good audio - volume & clarity. Phone calls are clear on both ends, volume adjustment is good, low & high. Texting is simple, comparable to any I know. 5MP camera is very good, very nice JPGs. Cortana is terrific - clear distinct evenly-paced speaking & pronunciation is accurately spelled over 95% of the time (I used to train discrete speech but accurate continuous speech recognition still requires evenness & clarity of pronunciation). Maps/GPS is adequately functional & accurate. OVERALL: A nice little mobile internet device (even if not used as a phone). Very convenient camera. Good cellphone when reception is available. It's worth $40. Currently comes with Windows Phone 8.0 (the upgrade to 8.1 is automatic, smooth & correct). I have great hope that Windows 10 Mobile will truly upgrade the performance, but I recognize that the Nokia hardware is not Apple. I am a Windows guy & this is a disappointment. NOTE: Amazon service was perfect.

This is a great and fast phone... If you have internet..i actually hate this phone s it won't let me download my favorite apps ....no Instagram...no Pinterest. I can send video in a text and I can receiveimages... But if I want to send a picture 📷 it won't let me. I hate this phone. If you don't care about those things then get the phone.

This is my first Windows phone, and I love it! Have used Android in the past, but have never wanted to shell out the money for an iPhone. Decided to give the Windows phone a try, and I couldn't beat the price! First off, I don't really take pictures with my phone a lot because I find that pictures taken with phones are usually sub-par. This phone only has one camera on the back, so no front selfies although it comes with an app that does a pretty good job and helps you to take selfies with the back camera. Not a big deal for me, but I know some will be put off my this. Mainly use the phone for just being a phone: calling and texting. Have had great results with Virgin Mobile and this phone. Rarely drops calls and always sends out texts. I hook this phone up to my cars audio via bluetooth and it will talk to me through my speakers when I have incoming texts or calls while I'm driving. It allows me to listen and respond to texts simply with my voice, hands free is always a plus while driving. The music and video apps that come pre-installed with this phone are great as well. I believe they are the same or similar to the apps on the Xbox. Sound is good on the phone, and pretty loud for the size. The volume levels destroyed my girlfriends iPhone 5 volume. All in all, I would recommend this phone to anyone looking for a simple, budget friendly phone. I would not recommend upgrading this to Windows 10 yet, had some troubles sending and receiving texts and pictures when I tried the tech preview.

It's a great phone, very responsive unlike my old IPhone. Still learning the features but my biggest issue is lack of apps. I'm not a big app person but most games are not available with this phone. I don't like the setup of the email and you can't change the view. Voicemail does not provide the time message was left. Perhaps it will get better with time. Battery life is pretty good and the graphics when watching videos is amazing.