My Favorite Phone Yet!
Written: Aug 14 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Tough, Great Quality, Great Features, Awesome!
Cons: Verizon's replacement user interface.
The Bottom Line: Get one, you won't be disappointed!
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| rexkerr's Full Review: LG VX8300 V Cast Music Phone |
This is my third LG phone. I have been consistently happy with their phones, they have withstood my abuse (and a LOT of it!) and continue working perfectly!
When it was time to renew my plan recently the Samsung phone on another line of the family share plan had a broken hinge, even though it was babied and treated very well. We decided to go ahead and reup and get new phones. This time all three are LG phones, two are VX8300s. BTW... speaking of that LG durability... shortly after buying this one I forgot that it was in the back pocket of my cycling jersey. I removed the jersey while riding along at about 15 MPH and it fell out of the pocket from above my head to the ground. It bounced around onto the asphalt and just kept on working with only a few minor scratches to show for it!
I did a lot of reviews. This time I wanted a phone with an integrated MP3 player since I don't have a regular one, and don't want to carry a separate device. I briefly considered the RAZR phones because they seemed (based on my early research) to have a better ability to add music without buying it from Verizon. I'm glad that I didn't.
OK... let's run down what I like and don't like on the phone.
Interface
My phone has the V3 software installed...
Verizon has decided to reduce their support costs. To do this, they replaced the software built into all of their phones with the EXACT SAME USER INTERFACE. This is a tragedy in my opinion. The original reason that I chose LG way back when was because they had the best user interface. Once you learned the shortcuts you could navigate it quickly without even looking. Most functions could be reached with few keystrokes, and they seemed well thought out. Not so with the Verizon interface. You must navigate the submenus using the arrow keys, and many functions require far more button presses than they should. I wish I could have the stock LG interface back! This isn't a deciding factor if you decide to stay with Verizon though since they've equally crippled all of their phones.
The phone is a nice size considering how much functionality it has. I like the color, and overall it has a nice appearance. It doesn't look like a toy phone and is fairly modern in appearance.
The front display is color, which I guess is nice, but I'd much rather have the B&W front display of my old phone because it was always on. This one goes off to save on battery life, so I have to press a button on the side to see if I have missed calls, or to check the time (I also use it as a pocket watch). It has a few minor scratches, but it still easy to read.
Calls
Sound quality and reception are very good. No complaints here. It does not have analog mode, but I finally gave up on that feature since I never could make a call when in analog areas anyhow. I spend a lot of time hiking, kayaking, and cycling in remote areas, and still find that I have decent coverage.
I usually use my bluetooth headset when I want hands free operation, but I sometimes use it with the earphone adaptor from Verizon. More on that later, but when using that adaptor to make calls the answer/end call button is very handy. There is one serious drawback though. On my bluetooth headset, pressing that button takes me to the voice command menu so that I can initiate a call with a single button press. With the headphones adaptor it takes you to the redial list and redials the last number, which isn't very useful, so you have to initiate the call using the phone.
I also wish that the clock was still available while you were on a call. I've often wondered what time it was, but cannot look while I'm talking.
Voice Commands
Very good accuracy, even in noisy environments. Understands friends who have accents. Very convenient. The "call..." command is improved over my previous phone in that it determines whether you said a name or phone number, no need to say something different, like "digit dial". There is no voice command to redial, which seems like a sore oversight, though my bluetooth headset allows for redial using two presses of the call button.
Bluetooth
I LOVE bluetooth! It's so much better than being tangled in wires!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never used a headset before, it was too much trouble, but with bluetooth I use the headset a LOT! It has good range -- better than I think the standard calls for. I've often gotten out of my car and started walking quite some distance before I realize that I forgot the phone (hearing static) and return to get it without losing my call. I sometimes do hear some crackling, not sure if it's the phone, headset, interference, or what?
Battery Life
Wow!
Camera
Impressive picture quality in good light, for a phone. I'm very happy with it. I forgot my regular camera on a trip recently and was not disappointed with the 100 or so pictures that I took using the phone. Unfortunately it doesn't put date/time in the meta information, so you have to get that from the filename. That's fairly minor, though could be a problem if you use a program like Picasa which creates timelines.
Videos
Far too many artifacts. Not just low res, but blocky. I'm somewhat disappointed with this feature, though it is handy to take quick clips of the kids playing.
I found that it can plays back videos converted from other formats by other tools in much better quality. I've converted some TV shows and watched quite a few episodes on the phone.
One drawback is that if a call/alarm comes in while you're watching a TV show/etc it forgets where you were and you have to find your place again. At least you can FF through!!
VZ Navigator
Great! Far better than I ever expected.
I did find that there is one small quirk that you have to get used to. The GPS units that I've used in the past say "Turn now", whereas this one just says the street name, leading you to believe that you still have to look for the street. Once you figure out how it's telling you to TURN NOW you no longer miss your turns! :-)
The positional accuracy is very good. One problem is that it doesn't work outside of VZ Network, even if it has already downloaded the maps and is telling you the route, if you leave their service area you've lost your navigation, game over. Don't expect it to work on mountain roads!
Music Player
Overall it has surprisingly decent sound quality. I hear occasional artifacts, though I'm not sure if that's from the source file or the phone. It's not audiophile quality, but OK to pass some time. (Who buys a lossy MP3 player if they want audiophile quality anyhow?) There is a slight skip when opening the case while it's playing. Volume is loud enough in most cases, but not ear splitting loud, if you like that. I'd be sure to get low impedance headphones as it doesn't have enough power for use in noisy environments.
If a call comes in during song playback it'll automatically pause, then resume after the call. This is great if you're using the Verizon headphone adaptor because you can just hit the answer button, talk, then as soon as the other person hangs up your music resumes... one press, no mess.
If it can pause/resume during call, why doesn't the voice button on side initiate a call? I'd love to be able to do that without having to leave the player and then choose music to listen to again.
The side speakers are surprisingly good!! I can actually carry it in my back jersey pocket while cycling and hear the music fairly well. They're so tiny that you'd never expect so much sound from them!
I have the earphone adaptor that Verizon sells. It's a 3' (or so) cable that plugs into the phone on one end, has a microphone, call button, and a standard earphone jack on the other end. This works well, though leaves you with too much cable. I wish that I didn't need an adaptor, though I can live with it.
The MP3 player program takes too long to start (about 5 seconds), and that's even worse when you've added new songs or removed songs from the SD card.
Interface:
Outside:
Pause
Previous Song
Next Song
Volume
Album Art (but if you have album art, you no longer have titles after it starts playing)
Song Title/Album
Inside:
Mute/Unmute
Scroll through song list
Next
Prev
FF
RW
play/pause
-- Options (music stops), Play album, play all, shuffle, Get V-Cast Music, and Buy music by ...
Playlist management is through the phone's interface, slow, but workable.
Other: Almost gapless playback, Some sound artifacts, shuffle algorithm seems to favor certain songs, I wish the clock was still available during MP3 playback. When choosing to browse by album, it splits albums by artist -- annoying.
I kept having a problem with many songs not showing up in the library. I finally figured it out. If the filename is more than (XX?, maybe 34?) characters long it doesn't show up. I wrote a script that goes through my memory card and renames the long ones to a unique name. Also, ALL of the files MUST be in the root of the my_music folder. Any others won't show up.
I installed a 2GB memory card into the side slot -- to get 2GB you have to format the card on a computer if it's not pre-formatted.
You can start Play All (in order) with a long press of the play button on the front. I wish it'd start in shuffle mode instead since I really don't want to listen to the same songs in the same order over and over, so I never use this feature. It's also a problem that it sometimes starts playing loudly at bad times because of my keys or folds in my pockets pressing the button!!!! I wish I could just disable this feature.
Recommended:
Yes
Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable
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Epinions.com ID:
rexkerr
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Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 0 members
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