Virgin Mobile review: A solid network for the data-hungry

Virgin Mobile pitches itself as the UK’s best-value network, and it frequently offers the latest phones with no upfront charge. There’s a catch, though: Virgin’s cheapest monthly contracts run for 36 months rather than the usual 24. Still, this helps spread the cost of a high-end phone, and some of the SIM-only deals are pretty good too.

Service-wise, Virgin is a virtual network operator, piggybacking on EE, which means you can expect the same coverage as you’d get from BT Mobile and EE itself – although the data rate is capped at 50Mbits/sec, so your top speeds won’t be quite as fast as if you went with EE directly.

What do you get?

Virgin promises the UK’s lowest monthly price on many phones – and its headline deals certainly look tempting, including an iPhone 8 for £29 a month at no up-front cost, or a Samsung Galaxy S9 for £31 a month.

As we’ve mentioned, though, these prices are based on a 36-month contract. So while £31 a month sounds like a great deal, over 36 months you’ll be paying £1,116 – plus any price rise that Virgin might throw in over that period.

What’s more, that price only includes 1GB of data. For a more realistic 10GB you’re looking at £37 per month for a grand total of £1,332. That’s still competitive for three years of service, but not quite such an amazing deal. If you go for a 24-month contract, Virgin may still undercut its rivals, but only by a quid or two.

Virgin’s SIM-only plans are better value. Here you can get 2GB, 1500 minutes and unlimited texts for less than some networks charge for 1GB – or 3GB at prices that undercut BT Mobile and Tesco Mobile. There are some tempting high-data deals too, such as £23 a month for 40GB, and this was further reduced to just £18 in a recent cut-price flash sale.

Virgin also offers extra-value tariffs to its TV and broadband customers, which currently include a rare all-you-can-eat option for £25. And its flexible approach to 4G plans allows you to shift between tiers each month to cut your costs or get some more data.

A final advantage of Virgin is that unused data gets added to your next month’s allowance. You can’t bank unused data indefinitely at a time as you can with Sky Mobile – it’s strictly a one-month rollover – but it can still be a big help if your usage is variable. 

Coverage and connection speeds

Virgin relies on EE’s network for connection speeds and coverage – and that’s no bad thing. EE topped RootMetrics’ UK-wide performance tables for the second half of 2017 for speed, reliability, data connectivity, texts and calls.

Coverage is good too, with “Fast” or “Faster” ratings in most areas of the UK; only a few areas in Wales, Scotland and the southwest and east coasts of England are afflicted with slow speeds. EE’s 4G coverage is also more widespread than any other service’s, with Virgin claiming that 99% of the UK population is covered. In short, you should get a decent data connection even when you’re outside the UK’s major conurbations.

That said, Virgin doesn’t quite match EE on performance, for the simple reason that it caps its 4G connections at 50Mbits/sec. That’s 20Mbits/sec faster than BT Mobile’s top speed, but less than the 60Mbits/sec that EE’s own customers can enjoy. Don’t get too hung up on this, though: these are maximum speeds, and won’t really be available on all handsets in all areas, no matter which network you’re with.

Roaming

Virgin Mobile’s “Roam like Home” service lets you use your UK allowance of calls, texts and data in the EU just as you would in the UK, subject to the normal fair-use policies and a data cap, above which you pay a surcharge.

It has to be said that Virgin doesn’t make it at all clear what this cap is – you have to work out it out for yourself, based on your monthly charge divided by the current EU data wholesale capped rate. It’s worth doing the calculations, though, because if you go over you’ll be paying a whacking £6 per gigabyte.

Outside the EU, things can get expensive. In the US it’s £1.80 per minute to make a call; in Kenya, it’s a shocking £4.80 per minute. You’ll pay £1.20 per minute to receive calls too. Data outside the EU costs £5 per megabyte, although you can pay £5, £10 or £20 for a seven-day 10MB, 25MB or 50MB add-on. It’s fair to say that if you spend a lot of time travelling outside Europe, you’ll do better elsewhere.

Other services and spending caps

Unlike EE, Virgin doesn’t offer Wi-Fi calling, so if you can’t get a signal you might need to fall back on a VoIP app like WhatsApp, Facetime or Viber. You do get a free subscription to F-Secure SAFE Internet Security for your phone, but it’s an open question whether this is any better than other free security apps.

Note too that Virgin doesn’t really do spending caps. You can request a credit limit on your account, but the minimum is £50 per month. You’ll get an alert as you reach the threshold, but if you want stricter controls on spending then look to EE, Tesco Mobile or Vodafone instead.

Conclusions

Virgin has some enticing offers on the latest phones, and its SIM-only tariffs have a lot to offer data-hungry users. You’ll need to watch the roaming costs though, and make sure you don’t burst through your allowance on the cheaper plans. Bear in mind too that EE offers faster speeds with the same network coverage. Still, Virgin is a solid network that will suit many people very nicely – as long as you find the right deal.