Kyocera Oystr KX9d / KX9e
Average Ratings
Nice phone, runied by miserable battery life.
I got the Oystr as a step up from the Kyocera K10 Royale. I really wanted to like this phone, but the short battery life is intolerable. I'm lucky if I get 24 hours on standby, and it burns down at a frightening rate when talking. With the speaker phone on, I get about 15 minutes from a fully charged battery!
I tried using the battery from the K10 (uses the same type), but it's not the battery. Same problem with that battery. Sorry, it's the phone. It seems everyone is having this problem. I think it is more than a firmware bug, I think it is a basic design flaw. Yes, I've also seen the screen light up at odd times as others have pointed out, but it mostly operates correctly.
Pros:
Nice looking
Comfortable feel
Excellent sound quality
Decent screen
Has never dropped a call
Great basic flip phone
Cheap!!!
Cons:
Unacceptable battery life
Slow menu response
Firmware bugs???
Rather than get Virgin Mobile to send me another Oystr with the same basic problem, I'm throwing caution to the wind and trying the Slice phone. VM makes swapping phones very easy, and the Slice is charging up now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
What a shame!
Battery life is a problem
Standby battery life for my phone, bought two weeks ago, is less than 24 hours. Very disappointing. The key backlight and display seem to go on and off at random, even when the phone is closed. I will probably avoid Kyocera phones in the future. Otherwise, I have been satisfied with the Virgin Mobile prepaid service.
Good Job Virgin Mobile
So I am a loyal Next el customer, but the only thing i don't like about them is the way that the text messaging is set up. So being the optimistic person i am, I looked for a prepaid phone so i could text...the first place i looked toward was virgin mobile, not to flashy but gets the job done. i looked at their phones and didnt find one that i liked until the switch_back came out...unfortunatly i didn't have $150 to spend at the time so about 2 weeks later i went into radio shack and saw the oystr. It caught my eye almost instantly because of the price, only 30 bucks. so i jumped on that opportunity. I've had it for about a week now and i love it...for these reasons
pros
-looks sporty
-good pocket phone
-great exiting
-charges pretty quickly
and a few other minor things. the only bad thing that it has is the fact that it has that T9 crap but i can get passed that.
So this phone is great for all of you who just want a texting phone, but since the switch_back dropped its price, i'd look into that to
Ok phone
this is an okay phone EXCEPT one thing..... the curse yes the dreaded battery life i will list the pros and cons
Pros: nice looking,great call quality,good reception,VXL is a pretty cool feature.
Cons:the WORST battery life i have ever seen in a phone,could use a few more ring tones and wallpapers to start with,screen res is not that great and an external screen wouldn't have hurt.
overall its a good phone for making calls and txting but not much more no bells no whistles just a good'ol basic flip phone.
hide detailed ratings
Better than nothing, I guess?
Carrier: Virgin Mobile
I had this phone back in 2006, I think. I needed an emergency holdover phone after my Audivox Snapper (loved that phone) had a run-in with the bathroom sink.
I saw it on Virgin Mobil's website for $10. It was literally the cheapest thing I could get, so I ordered it. I was NOT expecting the entire thing to be made out of flimsy white plastic! Obviously the phone was $10, so I can't really complain, but the thing looked and felt like a happy-meal toy. It was super light, and the plastic buttons made this irritating clicky-clacky sound when pressed. Also, the pre-loaded wall papers were embarrassingly bad, and there was no option to have just a plain black or white background. Annoying.
Overall the phone really wasn't terrible, it worked as a phone, and it was dirt cheap. My main issue with it was that since the thing was so light, it never felt right in my hands. The lightness made texting difficult, because I had to hold the phone down/steady with one hand and type with the other, because otherwise the phone moved around too much. I would drop this thing all the time because I would try and push the call button one-handed and accidentally send it flying.
I eventually gave the phone to my mom, and switched to Verizon so I could get my hands on the LG EnV, which will forever be one of my favorite phones.
Broke when kept motionless in drawer
Had this phone in my desk drawer, waiting for when my Kyocera K9 broke. Finally had a chance to (try to) switch svc to the Oystr this week. BUT... found the keypad on the Oystr is messed up! Hit one number and all down the row it dials all #'s. Phone was not even used. It was a freebie -- glad did not pay any $$ for it. Took the battery out of it & into my old phone, switched svc back and I'm back in business with a phone at least 3 yrs older than this thing. Urgh!
good features flimsy phone
Ok, so I got this phone in 2008 or around there. I got it on Virgin Mobile service and had no problems with the service. The phone is good for texting and pretty tough, like i even got it wet once and it survived. however, the hardware is basically flimsy. a phone when closed should not reboot. it gets a 4.5 because it has bad firmware, and lag-ness when storing things, or inputting a text.
Pros:
Easy to text on, if you don't have the lag (it would appear just little at times), so it probably isn't something needed to worry about. Ringtones and preloaded walpapers were good as well. As i can recall I don't think this phone had games, but the ability to get them (it's been awhile that I haven't had the phone (but i suggest you still get it if u happen to stumble across it) it is a good phone. i think it had a browser if i remember correctly the cons:
there is no camera, so forget multimedia msgs, however you can send like the chimes high text ringtones with graphics. I also enjoyed the recent text message list, so that you didn't have to input the digits of the number or e-mail address just go into recent texted numbers feature and you would see like 20 of the recent numbers you wrote a message to. I loved this phone.
Great Value for Money
I got this Oystr for my son as his 1st cell phone & he likes it a lot. It does everything a 14 year-old needs:
It fits in his pocket
It rings when someone calls
He can talk to the person calling; they can can hear him & he can hear them
It's a clamshell, so it doesn't turn on by mistake & the screen doesn't get all scratched.
Another advantage is that he has to pay for minutes, so if he's gabbing to his friends all the time it costs him money! The deal from VirginMobile was tremendous: a free phone when you buy minutes for $20.
The battery life is outstanding; this was one of my concerns before I got this but they must have fixed this issue some of you thought was a problem. I have a Razr & his battery life is better than mine.
The only thing he's complained about is the poor speaker, so ring tones don't sound too good. But that's why he has an mp3 player. White wouldn't be my choice for a phone, but he's OK with it. And for the price if he falls on it while he's skiing & it breaks he can buy himself another one!
The Oystr.... gets no pearl
I used to the Virgin Mobile Oystr. It was an OK phone, considering I bought it for only $20, and it was my first Virgin phone.
PROS:
(+) strong clamshell
(+) downloadable graphics (fits well)
(+) downloadable ringtones
(+) LOUD speaker
(+) voice-dialing
CONS: OVERFLOW!!!
(-) cheap looking like a child's toy
(-) menu-structure is designed for a child
(-) UGLY preinstalled graphics, and SAD ringtones
(-) HORRIBLE BATTERY LIFE, the backlighting always stays on even when flip is closed
(-) No external screen
(-) SLOW SLOW SLOW, needs a new OS
(-) texting is not worth it considering you only have one line to type on
(-) Horrible reception, can't talk in hardly any buildings
(-) Keypad is ugly, and the back-lighting does not come on when silent
Please go with another phone!!!
Personal experience
