Kyocera’s Slider V5 from Virgin MobileI Want My MTV Phone!

I Want My MTV Phone!

By Natalie Hope McDonald

Truth be told, I want a phone that can provide me with many wasted hours of Tetris, in addition to being able to download 50 Cent’s “In the Club” ring tone. I’ve found that phone in the Slider V5 from Virgin Mobile. Known for their categorical penchant for hipness, Virgin has stepped up with a cell phone made to meet the approval of America’s wireless teens.

Branded with MTV, the phone has one-touch access to music news and daily polls via OpenWave, as well as text message voting à la American Idol. The phone also features a unique body with a top half that, as opposed to flipping open, slides up (hence its name). When closed, users can choose from several funky screen savers to make fashion-statements.

Its pay-as-you-go plan is definitely designed for the younger user. Teens will drool over this handset without parents having to worry that Chatty Cathy will exceed her talk time minutes. Instead, call time is purchased in advance for a set number of minutes at a set price with additional fees for text messaging and Web browsing tagged on. When minutes run out, you can renew them using the phone’s menu plan. A Top-Up command, which comes in the form of a bling, will remind you to add more bling bling to your balance.

You can also customize the LCD screen to its full potential. And while this model doesn’t have a built-in digital camera, it’s nevertheless graphics-friendly. Besides great stripes and skater boy motifs, wallpaper and screen saver options even include MTV’s trademark moon man.

The phone also features a scheduler that keeps you on top of events by the hour, day or month with a built-in alarm. This is a great feature when you’re embarking on a blind date. You can pre-program a rescue ring that you, should the date turn into a disaster, can pawn off as an emergency. The user’s manual even touts this passive-aggressive feature as a bonus.

Other features include audio postcards from MTV shows like The Osbournes and Sorority Life that can be sent to friends. And then there’s Video Clash where users can vote for favorite music videos to be aired on the show of the same name. The artist access enhances the experience with downloadable interviews and streaming video clips of popular VH1 performers.

With an in-depth explanation about text messaging, the Slider’s user manual is marketed to a teen audience. Accordingly, the phone let’s users chat with friends without making a call, as the manual suggests, “at a party, in a boring class or on a long bus ride.”

The person whose life-long dream is to be on MTV’s Real World will like this phone. The twenty-something who fondly remembers that vintage MTV theme song and who can’t quite bring himself to buy the handset his dad uses, will also like this phone. It’s small. It’s name branded. And it’s tapped into entertainment features. You can even log on to get movie schedules and pre-order tickets.

But if you’ve been groomed on a Blackberry rather than a Danger Sidekick, forget about the V5. Using this phone would be like borrowing your kid’s MP3 player only to painfully realize you don’t know the lyrics to even one of Dashboard Confessional’s songs and you’ve never heard of MTV VJs such as Suchin Pak or Sway.

If all else fails and you become numb to Tetris or forget to vote for Britney, you can always hand the V5 to your Dad and be entertained watching him unsuccessfully try to flip it open.

Kyocera Slider V5

$159

Slider-top phone

Color LCD

Innovative text messaging

Pay-as-you-go plan

www.virginmobileusa.com