LG CU515 - black (AT&T)

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Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 42 reviews Back to product review
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

4.0 stars

"Improve battery life--disable 3G"

by ventura_harvey on October 3, 2008

Pros: Lightweight, great basic phone, good display

Cons: requires LG adapter to use plug in headphones
Summary: This is my wife's phone. She just wants to use it as a basic phone and we had to get her a new one once we switched from Verizon to AT&T. She was quite unhappy with the battery life--only about 36 hrs of standby with at most 15-20 mins of talk.
We exchanged for new phones twice after discussing the situation with AT&T's tech support.

It was only after the 2nd exchange that the store salesman told me that all the new 3G phones have such poor battery life. His explanation was incorrect, but it got me to do a Google search. I learned that the 3G technology is more of a battery draw, and in many cases dramatically reduces standby and talk time. Since my wife only wants to use this phone as a basic phone and doesn't need the advantages of 3G (faster data speeds, internet, etc), we found that we want a 2G phone because of improved battery life. Another Google search, and I found the procedure:
LG cu515 3G/2G mode selection
type in 277634#*#

then go through the menu:

5. modem setting
2. network mode
1. network mode
2. 2g only

It's now been 48 hrs since we forced our cu515 to be a 2G only phone. My wife has already talked on the phone 60 mins, and standby time has already exceeded
36 hrs. The power indicator is still registering a fully charged battery. When we had the phone in the default mode (dual 2G and 3G), the battery would have entirely died by now. Downside for a 2G only phone: slightly worse phone quality, but we haven't noticed a difference yet. So if you just want a basic phone and can't stand having to charge your phone every night, I'd recommend you disable the 3G network as specified above.

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LG CU515 - black (AT&T): $77.98

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