| | |  | iPhone Accessories | Home » » Motorola Triumph Prepaid Android Phone (Virgin Mobile) | | | | | | | Description: | | Motorola TRIUMPH allows users to rev up their smartphone experience with a superfast 1GHz processor, 4.1-inch touchscreen, 5MP camera and, front-facing VGA camera for video chat, 720p HD camcorder with HDMI output, to allow for playback on HDTVs (requires HDMI cable sold separately). | | | Features: | |
• 3G-enabled, Android-powered smartphone with 4.1-inch multi-touch display and access to wide range of Google mobile services
• No monthly contracts with Virgin Mobile's Beyond Talk unlimited data, text and voice plan (or by-the-minute PayLo plans)
• 1 GHz processor; 5-MP camera/camcorder; Wi-Fi networking; Bluetooth stereo music; access to personal and corporate e-mail; GPS navigation and location services
• Up to 4 hours of talk time, up to 72 hours (3 days) of standby time
• What's in the Box: handset, rechargeable battery, charger, 2 GB microSD card; quick start guide
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 4.8 inches | | Product Width:
| 2.6 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.39 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.32 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.6 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.8 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.95 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 295 reviews |
| |
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| | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 295 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
402 of 409 found the following review helpful:
 Great value on Virgin Mobile and an excellent phone.Jul 28, 2011
By S. Power
If this phone came out a year ago, it would be among the top performing phones from any carrier on the market. Its very fast Snapdragon processor, vivid 4.1" touch screen, and rock-solid Android 2.2 performance were cutting edge 12 months ago. I don't say that in a disparaging way, but rather want to show where this phone fits into the spectrum of available devices. If you want the newest, best, phone, you'll still have to go to the contract carriers.
That said, this phone does everything I need very well, and at $300 upfront and $25 a month for service, can't be beat. It works even better than the Samsung Intercept that I replaced with it, and is reasonably priced. $25 a month, compared to what plans cost on the contract carriers, and you'll make up the $300 upfront cost in about 6 months. Brand new customers, may have to pay the $35 a month that they are changing their bottom plan to, but that is still a great deal ($35 a month for 300 minutes, unlimited web/text; $45 a month for 1200 minutes unlimited web/text; or $55 a month for unlimited everything).
This is my second phone on Virgin Mobile, and it made me realize that a lot of the problems that I was attributing to the network were actually the fault of my Samsung Intercept. This phone is more stable in every way. Wifi, GPS, 3G, Voice, the touch screen, applications, everything about this phone works better and is more stable than they did on the Samsung.
Beyond this comparison to my previous Virgin Mobile phone, here are a few comments about the phone:
+ very thin and lightweight. I miss the physical keyboard of my Intercept, but only slightly. The thinness makes up for it.
+ durable design. There aren't many cases available yet for this phone, but even without a case it seems durable. I already dropped it once, on concrete, and other than having to replace the back cover, there were no issues. The battery didn't even come out.
+ vibrant screen. The screen looks great on this phone. I almost say that it looks as good as the display on my wife's iPod Touch. The only concern with the screen is that it is 4.1 inches instead of 4.3, which has kind of become the new standard for Android phones, but I don't really think that .2 of an inch makes much difference.
+ very good touch screen. The touch screen on the Intercept had issues, compared to this phone. We are finally able to play games on it, and type quickly on the touch screen. Again, I think it is safe to compare it to the iPod Touch's performance. Very good.
+ fast processor. Cutting edge Android phones are now starting to have dual-core chips. The Snapdragon chip in this phone is single core, but that hasn't stopped it from doing everything that I've asked it to instantaneously. Very snappy.
+ Cameras. The main camera on this phone is awesome. Probably not as good as in an iPhone 4 or a real camera, but every bit as good as the stellar one in the iPod Touch. The pictures and video it takes are amazing. I don't think I'll ever be taking my real camera or my video recorder with me again. Even the flash works well and doubles nicely as a flashlight.
+ battery life. The battery life on this phone is very good. With any Android phone you can expect to have to recharge it daily, but this one at least uses its battery consistently and gradually. That might not seem like a lot to ask for, but even with Android 2.2 many phones have battery management issues. This one does not.
+ GPS. The GPS gets its signal pretty quickly and does a good job. Not perfect in that sometimes you have a wait a few seconds, but none of them are.
+ Vanilla Android. I really like the fact that Virgin Mobile doesn't "Skin" their phones or put a bunch of bloatware on them. This phone is pretty much stock Android 2.2 with a couple extra applications pre-installed. Much better than the experience with other carriers that fill the phone up with their own software and interface.
A few comments on Virgin Mobile:
+ Network. Network performance always depends on your location. In some cities Verizon is great and AT&T is terrible. In others they both work great. Virgin Mobile's phones operate on their parent company, Sprint's network. Sprint and T-Mobile's networks as a whole, are not as good as Verizon's, but that does not mean they are terrible. In my experience, this phone works very well in metropolitan areas, and pretty well in rural areas. If your cell phone is your life-line and you spend time in rural areas, you may want to check the coverage for your area on Sprint's website. Otherwise, I really having had any problems with the network.
+ International. Sprint and therefore Virgin Mobile only have network coverage in the US. That means you can't roam internationally, which is both good and bad. International roaming on any phone is very expensive. When I travel outside the US with this phone, and want to make calls, I connect to Wifi in my hotel or at a shop, and use Skype. It works perfectly and is much cheaper than international roaming, and is often free.
I very strongly recommend that you ditch your contract phone and consider this phone or other Contract Free carriers. AT&T especially, and Verizon to some extent, are trampling all over their customers, and people are letting them. The way to fix this situation is not archaic government regulation or laws, but rather consumers showing that they won't stand for it. Get a contract free phone because it is the best thing for your wallet and works very well, but also know that if enough people do it the big carriers will have to improve the way they do business.
/// Update after 3 months of use. ///
I don't have much new to report on this phone, but wanted to provide an update after 3 months of use. They are still working great. Both my wife and I have had one from the beginning. Neither of us have it in a case, and it is holding up very well both to purse life and hip life. No scratches or anything despite normal drops and use. A few points:
+ Service continues to be great on this phone. Virgin works much better on this than it did on the Intercept.
+ I have had about 5 unexpected restarts in the three months of having the phone. That isn't bad for an Android phone that gets a lot of use. I think that some of those might have been caused by putting the phone 'power button side down' in the case, and inadvertently keeping it pressed. Either way, I don't think that 5 is bad, especially if 3 of them were caused by the case. My wife has never had an unexpected restart on her Triumph, though she doesn't use hers as much as I do.
+ Screen. The screen on this phone is great. You do have to push a little harder on this phone than on some others, but you get used to it very quickly, and in the long-run, it is better.
+ The camera is great (for a phone).
I continue to be very happy with this phone, especially after its first three months of real life use.
//// Updates after well over a year. ////
I haven been using this phone since the day it came out, over a year ago. Although I'm disappointed that they haven't updated the OS to Gingerbread, I am overall still very happy with it. I am especially happy with Virgin Mobile who seems to be improving every day. They have always been acceptable, considering how cheap their plans are, but every aspect of their service just keeps getting better and better. The 3G network is definitely getting faster, although possibly because they implemented a 2.5GB per billing cycle 'soft cap'. Compared to what the contract carriers do when you use a lot of data, I think their soft cap approach is fair and benefits everyone on the network. Their voice quality, network coverage, and availability also have improved dramatically over the past few years. Also, their technical and customer service have gone from mediocre to excellent.
I recommend Virgin Mobile more then ever. I also recommend this phone, until they come out with better 'premium' phone offering to replace it with.
By the way, Amazon's current price of $209 for this phone is a steal.
80 of 82 found the following review helpful:
Too many 1 stars and I think I can clear up this negative rating!!Nov 17, 2011
By Danny K
First I've been an Amazon reviewer reader and writer for many years! I use Amazon because I know the reviews are from real people like myself and I can tell from these reviews if a product is a problem. Now as a Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept owner I wanted to upgrade and this large thin screen with a 1ghz processor seemed like a no brainer, so I read the reviews and what? There are many 5 star and many 1 star reviews....this confused me, but knowing that that is most always a 30 day money-back guarantee with the Virgin mobile phones I took my Amazon discounted Motorola Triumph page to my local Bestbuy electronics store and they matched the price! So if I may I would like to go into a quick past with my old Virgin mobile Samsung intercept for a second....I purchased the Samsung Intercept and had all sorts of problems, I upgraded the system operating system and with the correct apps made the Samsung a very stable smart phone but slow. I was pleased, but after a year and seeing that Virgin Mobile has a new DROID X phone called the Motorola Triumph I had to go for it. The Motorola phone size is thin, sturdy, beautiful screen and fast, in fact compared to the Samsung, super fast. The memory to run programs is about 1gb. This is just for programs!!! Everything works perfectly, Blue-tooth on my car, wifi, mp3 player,(I'm using power amp app which is fantastic)for videos I added the MX player app which is a must to play HD videos, speaking of HD videos/pictures the camera has a flash and takes perfect pictures and the camcorder can take 1280x 720 videos! 2x free app is a must for saving the battery draw. The 3G speed is about 3 times the Samsung Intercept, the screen is larger than an Iphone and super thin and the detail on the screen is just like my friends HTC fancy large android phone. I checked and my phone software ends in .39 Maybe if you check the one stars on this phone you will their software ends in .38 I don't know the difference and I don't care. I love this phone and I can tell you the reason people are complaining about the battery life is because this phone is so fast, so bright, so detailed and holds so many apps its hard to put it down and shut the screen off!!!! In conclusion, I would like to point out that I did have a problem with the GPS starting time, so I did much reading and loaded the free GPS tester app on the phone (free on the market) and now I can run the tester if there is a problem and see the satellite signal etc and when I switch to the navigator GPS on the phone it shines!! This is the best Virgin Mobile Phone on the market! I'm one still on the #25 dollar plan. BTW use superbox app, it does everything you need.
PROS:
Fast,runs every app I can throw at it
Very bright screen and very detailed
Memory for holding and running apps is 1gb (great)
Memory for running the processor is 200mb or more
Processor speed is 1gb (fast)
Pictures and Videos are fantastic taking and playing (set to high)
Camera flash works well
Case is well designed with a rubber none slip feel and very thin
Cons:
Battery life drains faster than I would like
1. because the phone can not be put down!!!!
2. Use the battery saver apps like 2x battery or others.
IF you have a problem with the GPS starting,
try running the free GPS tester app first.
UPDATE:
Everything above still stands. I also found the black Empire kit that Amazon sells with the pouch, car charger and AC charger to be a must. Also the phone comes with the side power button programmed to drop cellphone calls. You can unprogram this in settings. This is a must for me because I was cancelling my calls while taking the phone out of the pouch. I also downloaded the super keyboard app and it works better for emailing /texting on the screen. This phone is now my emailer, texter, mp3 player, camcorder, camera, flashlight, gaming device, newspaper reader, weather monitor, GPS (better than a garmin) my calculator, VM Minutes monitor, barcode reader,google voice search and much more anyone who gives this phone a one star is crazy, this is the best VM smartphone to date!
UPDATE: April 2012 all above stands, except this phone does take a while to connect to the GPS signal and I now found that the fastest way to connect to GPS is to run the App GPS Status and toolbox. It is better than GPS tester and seems to help the phone connect to the GPS signal faster also I'm now using the GPS app Waze...wow Great GPS to Traveling...Try it!
79 of 82 found the following review helpful:
Triumph Means a Win for UsersAug 01, 2011
By Patrick Justus
"Patrick Justus"
The Motorola Triumph is a thing of beauty and comes closest to the handheld device I've been dreaming of. Ever since the days of the Palm T/X I've longed for a versatile PDA that could also make phone calls in a pinch. Using Wi-Fi to communicate makes so much more sense to me. Since then, I've watched communication devices increasingly become locked down money makers. (I get that you love your idroid, or whatever, but for me, I just don't see the value of paying a hundred bucks a month for what I always had for practically free.)
So for me, the biggest advantage of the Triumph is the very reasonable cost of ownership thanks to Virgin Mobile. VM has cut their service to the bone, but like other savvy tech providers, has set up a mechanized operation that works on its own. If you need help from Virgin, as a general rule for tech, stay away from the phone line and go to the forums, or use email. Virgin Mobile Facebook is all you need to get over the hump of confusion caused by new adoption.
I have had no problems with the Triumph once I got dialed in. The signal matches my LG Optimus V and both data and calls are clear even indoors in my suburb digs. The Triumph has a larger screen, easier to use data entry, longer battery life, and a front facing camera for those "free" video chat calls. All of that makes it worth the initial cost to me. Once the setup (rather challenging at times) is over, it all works like a champ.
Thanks to Motorola, Google, and Virgin, my dream of a handheld device that doesn't make me feel like I'm being gouged by the big providers has been comfortably sublimated. Every time I pick up the Triumph, I feel like I'm sending another kind of message: a wake-up call to the big providers. Triumph indeed.
23 of 23 found the following review helpful:
excellent, inexpensive phoneAug 24, 2011
By Tom
I have owned a lot of Android phones. The Triumph has a good screen, good build quality, good touch screen response, good processor, good reception, good voice quality, and good battery life. The camera is decent (5 MPixel) but lacks a dedicated camera button. The battery door is easy to open without being loose; however, you do need to remove the battery in order to change the MicroSD card. The phone uses soft buttons that light up in the dark (I prefer physical buttons, but fewer and fewer phones have them). It is refreshing and nice to see that the Triumph runs almost unmodified Android 2.2.2 (note that this is not the latest version, but it is compatible with most apps).
For comparison, the Galaxy S II (which I also have, for use in Europe) is slightly better in all of those areas, but at more than twice the price; I find that none of the Galaxy S II's improvements over the Triumph in these areas are practically important. The Triumph is an inexpensive and powerful workhorse, the Galaxy S II is a nice luxury.
Some other reviews have noted poor battery life, crashes, poor responsiveness; I have not observed any of those on my Triumph. With Android, it is easy to provoke such problems by installing badly behaved applications; if you are having such problems, check which applications are using the CPU and battery (there are built-in tools under Settings for that) and uninstall them. The one software problem I have had is that Twitdroyd crashes on startup, but it does that on the LG Optimus as well. Reception is perhaps slightly worse than the LG Optimus (based on the number of bars), but I have had no problems with it.
Some words about the plan (as of August 2011): at the increased price of $35/month, Virgin Mobile's service is still a good deal. There didn't used to be alternatives, but now AT&T also offers a prepaid plan with $25 for 500M/30 days plus voice; Verizon's prepaid plan on an Android phone will currently set you back $75/month at a minimum, and you end up using the truly awful Motorola Citrus. Coverage on VirginMobile is more limited than Verizon or AT&T, but it is still excellent in many parts of the US, including most urban areas I have been to. Unlike the Optimus, where the WiFi tethering setting was accessible using a standard third party widget, however, you can't fool the Triumph into WiFi tethering anymore.
In terms of apps, I like to use SlideIt as a keyboard (it's similar to Swype), and there is a Virgin Mobile minutes checker in the market that keeps track of plan minutes.
Given its excellent price/performance ratio, I think the phone clearly deserves five stars.
Added 2011-09-05: I noticed in forums that people had some problems. First, there were complaints about slow GPS location acquistiion; the Triumph is slower than the Galaxy S II, but I haven't found it to be a practical problem. Also, people were complaining about instability; I can't confirm that, my Triumph has been rock solid, despite tons of applications installed on it.
146 of 170 found the following review helpful:
 A few key facts - UPDATED with ProblemsAug 02, 2011
By Gabe W
[UPDATE: My initial review was posted after using the phone for 2 or 3 days. I've now used it for one or two more weeks, and numerous problems have been revealed, leading to me downgrading my review from 5 stars to 2. See my new comments further down.
UPDATE 2: I've had the phone for nearly a month now and it is getting returned. The final update is at the bottom.]
I won't do a comprehensive review of this phone because they're already out there. In general, I will just say that this phone is far faster and smoother than the LG Optimus V I was using. Download speeds are also greatly increased - apparently this has as much or more to do with the phone itself as it does with the network. It's easiest to see the difference in download speeds over your Wifi at home, where the speed should be the same as it was with a different phone yet in fact it's now much, much faster.
A few key facts then, both pros and cons:
Swype: The phone does not ship with the Swype keyboard pre-installed. Nevertheless, it is possible to get Swype for the phone easily, and without rooting the phone. Just go to Swype's official website and click on the "join" link to get access to Swype "beta" (I'm not sure what's beta about it, it's unbelievable and vastly improved over the version of Swype I was using on the Optimus V). Swype will then send you an e-mail with a link in it. Open that e-mail *on your phone*, click on the link, and the rest just happens.
Screen Protection: I'm 99% sure this phone ships with a screen protector already on it. I know this because 1) I saw a video somewhere (I think Howard Forums) of a guy who claimed that his came with a screen protector on it, and who then removed that protector on the video (he didn't like screen protectors), and 2) now that I have the phone myself, I can see that at the *very* edge of the screen, there is a line that can be seen that seems to divide between a layer underneath and something that's on top of it but doesn't *quite* perfectly cover every millimeter of the surface - though that's probably on purpose, so that you can remove it if you want to or it becomes necessary. With the factory screen protector on, the screen nevertheless looks vibrant and clear, and feels quite smooth. I'd think it was just glass if I didn't know better. It's pretty glossy and picks up a fair amount of glare, and is prone to lots of smudges and fingerprints. FYI, the guy on Howard Forums claimed that after removing the screen protector the screen was somewhat more vibrant but also had more glare. However, he was most impressed by how much more responsive the screen felt now that there was no separation between his finger and the actual glass. If you don't want a screen protector, or want to swap out the factory one for a different one (perhaps at a later time if the one from the factory gets scratched up), you can remove the factory one. The video guy pulled up the edge with a thumbtack.
Internal Memory: Initial reports indicated that this phone had only 512MB of internal memory, and as of now the Virgin Mobile site also indicates that. That appears to be incorrect. According to the App2SD app, I have 1.05GB of internal memory. By contrast, the Optimus V had only 140MB of internal memory, and for me that ran out VERY quickly. With Android Version 2.2 and above, many apps can now be "moved" from the phone's internal memory to an SD card. Nevertheless, how much usable *internal* memory you have is critical, because 1) many apps are not movable to the SD card, regardless of what version of Android you're running, 2) many apps only have full functionality if you're keeping them on the phone's internal memory (this most commonly comes up for apps that have widget functionality - the widgets cannot be used if the app is on the SD card), and 3) EVEN when you move an app to the SD card, all apps *still* leave portions of themselves on the internal memory. You can see how much internal memory an app is using by going to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications and looking up the particular app (if you want to see how much memory an app is taking up on an SD card, use App2SD). On the Optimus V, I had a number of apps that, even though officially "on the SD card", still left 2, 4, even 10 MBs on internal memory. Thus, having 7 1/2 times the internal memory of the Optimus V is huge.
Conclusion: I give the phone 5 stars because it not only does everything I expected of it but is also snappier and has more internal memory than reported. The addition of a factory-installed screen protector (without air bubbles!) is also, to me, a plus. The only negatives are that the screen is prone to smudges, and that the phone ships without Swype - but, as I explained, that's easily rectified.
UPDATE: After using the phone for another one or two weeks, numerous problems have cropped up. First, two additional positive points:
LED light - The Triumph has an LED light that is located behind the earpiece grille. It glows red when charging (green to et you know it's done), and pulsates when you have a new notification message. This is a handy feature that the LG Optimus didn't have.
Netflix - The free Netflix app is now available for the Triumph in the Android marketplace. Streaming to the Triumph over a Wifi connection works nicely. Last I saw the Optimus didn't have this app available, and maybe it couldn't because the phone needs more processing power to handle the streaming.
And now for the problems that have cropped up:
Restarts - The phone randomly restarts itself every so often. It was not dropped on the floor nor did it get wet.
Battery life/Reception - The battery life of this phone is decidedly worse than that of the Optimus. I can only say this anecdotally as I haven't done "testing" per se - the phone just dies way too fast, and this is with options like Wifi, GPS< and Bluetooth turned off. As further evidence, I have a widget from the "Juiceplotter" app. On a full charge for the Optimus, it would say I had something like 17 hours of battery life (presumably in standby conditions, not if you talked on the phone for 17 hours straight, obviously). On the Triumph, the same widget gives me a maximum of 10 hours on a full charge, but in practice the phone doesn't come close to matching that. The reception is also definitely worse than the Optimus was, but again I can only comment on that anecdotally.
Non-responsiveness - Sometimes the "back" button on the phone simply won't work for a while. I'll be using an app and won't be able to get out of it except by using the "home" button. The fact that the "home" button works indicates that the phone's CPU isn't just completely choked on something. The app and phone are working, it's just that the back button checks out every so often. The "menu" button does the same thing, but a bit less often.
Build quality - In the lower left corner of the phone, where the glass screen meets the outer hard plastic border of the phone, there is light leakage whenever the phone's screen is on. It's only in this one spot. I find it distracting and annoying and wonder what it says about the build quality of the phone.
NEW Conclusion: It's always possible that the problems I've had are isolated to my particular phone, but all I can do is report on my own experiences. If other people have the same experiences, then I think this phone's problems seriously outweigh its advantages, and you're better off going back to the more humble but more reliable Optimus.
FINAL UPDATE: I've had the phone now for almost a month. Its habit of restarting itself randomly has only increased, and the touch screen and touch-sensitive buttons remain unresponsive at times. In addition, the battery life has been revealed to be absolutely abysmal. In standby mode, the phone can lose up to 10% of its charge per hour, and of course loses it far more rapidly if it is actually being used. I've decided that even if a phone wipe could somehow clear the first two problems, it certainly wouldn't improve the battery life or poor signal strength, so the phone is being returned. Back to the Optimus V.
See all 295 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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