Virgin Mobile announced today it will sell the LG Aloha Phone in it stores starting this month. This will be the first LG phone Virgin has made available to its customers.

Virgin plans to market the phone heavily and hopes to promote the Aloha phone in stores of all of its major partners such as Target.

With its polished, modern look and array of features, the Aloha wraps a great deal into a sleek and affordable package.  It sports a metallic front and a durable, matte back finish, with an internal 65K-color display.  The phone has capabilities to play real music and animated ringtones, and comes equipped with key basics such as a speakerphone and voice-activated dialing.
Customers will love Aloha’s preloaded games, which include ZooZoo Club and Battle Reversi, and can choose from a wide array of other games, ringtones, screensavers and more.  The Aloha will also feature Virgin Mobile’s new dynamic and intuitive graphic user interface.

Virgin Mobile’s Aloha by LG is 3.5-inches long by 1.9-inches wide, with a thickness of 0.9-inches, and weighs in at 2.7-ounces.  It can hold up to 199 personal contacts, with five numbers, three email addresses and one URL slot available for each.  It also features up to 180 minutes of talk time and 150 hours of standby time.  The Aloha will be appearing on shelves and on the Web in September at a retail price point of $34.99.

“Adding LG Mobile Phones to our handset line-up is a win for consumers, given the company’s track record of developing affordable phones with great performance, striking looks and features our customers love,” said Dan Schulman, CEO of Virgin Mobile USA.  “The Aloha has all of that.  And we are impressed and gratified with LG’s dedication in joining our efforts to raise awareness about the national crisis surrounding youth homelessness.”

“Virgin Mobile USA is an innovative wireless provider that really understands its market,” said Ehtisham Rabbani, vice president, Product Strategy and Marketing for LG Electronics MobileComm, USA, Inc.  “It’s ideal to kick off our relationship with a handset that has the features and style Virgin Mobile customers demand at a price point that’s accessible to everyone. We’re equally excited to use the launch of Aloha as a way to further the good work Virgin Mobile and its charitable partners are doing through The RE*Generation to help young people at-risk and alone on the streets.”

Virgin Mobile offers no-annual-contract wireless phone services in the US and mainly targets teens.

Today I recieved a press release in my inbox, and like always I read them and decided whether they warrant a post or not. Today I received one from a company called Yoober, and in the press release they promise free texting etc.

So I read the press release and visit their website to see what the catch is, and while there really is no catch you do need a data plan to use their supposed free text technology.

Basically you download their software and send messages to friends who are also using their software. They send the messages over the Internet. But you do not incur any texting charges. WOW Free texting!!! Yeah right.

The Yoober software uses your data plan to send the messages and data plans tend to cost just as much if not more than text plans.

The CEO of Yoober claims to be a texting addict who wants to make the Telco’s suffer by offering a free Texting alternative, but I think his software would just bring in more money to telco’s because it uses the more expensive data plans they offer.

Yoober does not offer free Texting, it just piggy backs on a more expensive service. 

Virgin Mobile today launched “Headliner” an interactive magazine.

Headliner gives Virgin Mobile customers on demand access to a full range of music-related content including up-to-date artist news, charts, concert dates and interactive search and community features. Virgin Mobile customers can test drive the new service for 14 days before having to pay a subscription fee.

“Virgin Mobile’s ‘Headliner’ application is a unique, centralized way to give fans VIP access to their favorite artist’s music-based mobile content,” said Perry Bashkoff, Vice President, Digital Sales and Marketing, Warner Music Group.  “With ‘Headliner,’ Virgin Mobile is expanding the ways consumers can discover new artist content, tour information and more in a single application, personalizing their phones like they do when they purchase ringtones and screensavers.”

Customers can download Headliner to their handsets on the VirginXL Menu under Music.  Following a free 14-day trial, customers can continue to use Headliner for $2.49/month. Standard messaging rates apply.

More information is available at our website http://www.virginmobileusa.com/stuff/music/headliner.do