STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I'll weigh in. I've used Virgin Mobile for years now. I first purchased their plan after my son was born and we needed a phone to travel with. My hand was somewhat forced (my ex had financially destroyed us and my credit) so I couldn't go with a regular cell service. I purchased a pack of minutes at the time and received a free phone with service, which is the one I've used for the past 8 years. Recently I upgraded and bought the Android offered by Virgin.
So for the past 8 years I've never had any really complaints. The original phone was just talk/text and incredibly reliable. Good battery life. No dead zones. Took it everywhere.
The new phone has given me all sorts of problems. I think it's the phone itself. Though...I've read several claims that VM didn't purchase enough data support to begin with...so it's customers are all having difficulty with web/data. Essentially you either are waiting for 'a spot' to open up in the service or getting error signals. So basically I bought this expensive fancy new phone that is capable of all sorts of wonderful things, but never actually does them.