UTStarcom Arc CDM-8074

I'm looking at Virgin Mobile phones again, my current is the Kyocera K127 or Marbl and it types text slow particularly in email mode on the browser, my typing is faster than it and I have to wait for it to catch up.

Right now, I'm wondering would it be a good investment to 'move up' to a newer or faster VM phone, such as the LG Flare for about $30 or the Arc for about $50.

The Arc has a camera, that's about the only feature I see that would recommend that one to me over the LG Flare.

I do a lot of texting and I like to do the mobile browser, email too, so I'd need a phone that had a fast text type pad.

I'm not ready yet to go all the way to the Wildcard QWERTY.

Is there anyone who has had the Kyocera Marbl and who has or had the LG Flare, and/or the Arc with Virgin Mobile's service, who could tell me if those two phones perform much better on the keypad for texting than the Marbl?

I read in one review elsewhere that the Flare has a sort of cheap feeling keypad for people who do a lot of texting, theirs squeaked or took a little more pressure to press the buttons and it annoyed them. Was that an exception?

I like the feel of the Marbl's soft rubbery widely spaced keys but it just doesn't respond that fast when typing. Not TOO bad in ordinary text mode, but real slow on the browser doing email.

And how is web browser page scrolling speed on the Arc or Flare compared to the Marbl? I found that the Marbl browser scrolling speed was delayed or jerky, sometimes accidentally click or choose the wrong thing due to delayed reaction time when scrolling.

Plus, I have a hard time, to impossible time, deleting unwanted emails out of my hotmail box with the Marbl, have to wait to delete those til I'm online on my computer again because the phone command for that glitches.

But the Kyocera Marbl is pretty reliable, I don't 'lose' text messages, get error messages when sending, it doesn't crash often, and I like the texting look/layout/operation if not the typing speed.

Can anyone clue me in on any of these details?

Not sure if I'll buy either of these, really would rather have the Wildcard due to the QWERTY, but before I invest that much in a VM phone would have to know if I get better texting/browser-email response with a more expensive phone than the Marbl.

If not, then it wouldn't be worth paying more to get another VM based phone.

Thanks if you can offer any insights!