Morning,
I am unclear what you do with your phone.
If you were getting a new one every couple of years then Virgin probably
weren't giving you the cheapest and nastiest and slightly out of date phone that was available at the time.
Cutting costs in the camera and the battery is often one of the easiest ways of making a cheaper phone.
You can find some obscure test to prove that your battery lasts 15 years without needing charging rather than the 20 minutes it really does. And yes the camera is 6m pixels but there are all white when it is sunny and all black when it is cloudy.
Currently I am still using an iPhone 5, battery life is almost useless unless you leave it connected to charger all the time but the camera is good enough for me. It cost me about £100 as it was NoS that nobody else wanted, with a full Apple warranty, which was useful as it failed and was replaced foc.
I also have a bottom of the range Sony Experia that must be about 4 years old, battery life is better than the iPhone but the camera is much worse and it is noticeably slower when browsing.
I can also hear the difference when playing music and to me it is noticeable.
As to the monthly call/data/text cost, personally I wouldn't even bother looking around, recently we have seen a number of companies in the retail electricity supply business go broke. In many way these were the same sort of business as some mobile providers, they are just an accounting front with all the real service provided by someone else.
As such there is little downside to selling at an unsustainable price as long as you can collect lots of bonuses in year one, naughty cynical me.
Virgin at least have a brand to protect and Giff Gaff have been around for quite a while, but if you find someone obscure offering a great deal that is unsustainable you could be in for some hassle getting your account moved if they go under.
Bye
Ian
ps even if you know how to, providers don't like you sending texts from your computer via your phone to use up all your free 5,000 texts per month.