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

January 2004

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