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- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 153 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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15 out of 17 people found this review helpful
2.0 stars
"Beautiful phone, however, completely impractical"
Pros: stylish, nice features, good camera, personalize ringtones
Cons: poor reception, joystick delays, low quality speakerphone, ringtone volume varies
Summary: Sleek and Stylish, I was in awe when I took my Shine home on the first day. After three days of fiddling with it's various features I was pleased with the camera, the ability to customize ringtones and upload my own for contacts, and the added bonus of assigning pictures to callers.
After about a week of owning the phone I noticed that a lot of my calls were being dropped, a problem I hadn't experienced often since switching from Verizon. My 2 year old Nokia always had great reception with AT&T and if the occassional instance arose, it would notify me with an alert tone that my call was dropped. The LG Shine does not, and I find that, in an area where I have full bar signal, upon taking the call I will go to no bars instantly.
After a few days of frustration, I googled reception problems on the phone and found that other owners had similar issues. They indicate that the steel casing on the back of the phone is to blame and that when holding the back of the phone, calls can become lost. Unfortunately, picking up the phone, unless you are using the speaker is kind of a no-brainer.
I wish that I wasn't experiencing so many issues with the Shine, since it is an otherwise gorgeous phone.
In addition to reception issues that I didn't have prior to ownership, I find that the phone's joystick is delayed and hard to navigate. Beware if you're a fingernail biter, the slot to charge your phone may cause you to look for small objects to pop up the cover as I often must do. Besides that, it's only a matter of time before the thing breaks off entirely.
If it wasn't for my reception issues I'd probably suck it up and keep the device but because of AT&T's 30 day guarantee, I'll be looking for another.
- 3 replies to this review
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The manual indicates that the antenna is located at the bottom of the handset near the microphone, and thus provides a warning about holding your hand the "wrong way" so it inadvertently covers the antenna. So bad design, but a different handhold can reduce the problem.
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I have never heard of any reception problems. I work at radioshack and clear about 20 of these phones out a months. Live in central florida and recpetion is great, if you do live in another place, its because towers are not as close. The metal case has nothing to do with reception because it is not iron. The type of signal passes through it with ease. The speaker volume/quality is amazing, I am on speaker phone most of the time because of that. Again, it all depends on your towers. If you are in a rural area, that does not have 3g support, and towers far away, you will notice issues. This is not the phone, it is the area you are in. lesser quality phones run better on the slower towers, so that is why you have better experiences with that. Have had phone for about 9 months, only complaint is the amount of text messages you can have. Please read my review on the shine, I go in great detail why this is the best ATT phone currently on the market. Oh, and the joystick is awesome.no problem
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i had the phone for 1 day before i started to notice the little things that turned out to be big. it is an awsome looking phone but it gets no reception where i used to get a reception, the joystick sucks because as you scroll you click on something you didn't want because it is very touchy, you shouldn't use the screen to open the phone and it is to slick along the sides of the phone to open it with ease and if you open it from the bottom of the screen your thumb will hit the joystick or the other two buttons at time and it could open something you didn't want to open, like the internet and you don't want to get connected so you push the end button and have to start all over. but other than that, it is a great looking phone with good features and i and trying to decide if i want to exchange the phone or just keep it because i really do like the phone and its look.
LG CU720 Shine - silver (AT&T):
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