ThinkPad X200 Tablet Save Extra 5%
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 197 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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14 out of 14 people found this review helpful
5.0 stars
"excellent phone"
Pros: Excellent screen. Very good camera. Responsive interface. Fast accelerometer. Very good build quality/construction. Nice keyboard. Very versatile and works how you want it to. Combines the best of the Dare and the Voyager to make one awesome phone.
Cons: Battery life coul be better (it is NOT bad...it just could be better...I'll explain more below). The Tetris game SUCKS because of one realy stupid oversight. The I/M client hasn't been updated in forever (Verizon's fault realy, not LG's).
Summary: I absolutely love this phone. Last summer I got a Dare when it came out. I realy wanted the Voyager...but it's screen was smaller, the camera didn't even have a flash, the touch screen wasn't as responsive, I didn't like it's UI as much (even though they were very similar), the keyboard was good overall but had a few quirks, it didn't support as many Bluetooth profiles. I could go on and on. It was the phone you realy wanted to love but just couldn't. The Dare had mostly everything I wanted except for the physical QWERTY. I fell in love with the Dare and I still think it's a realy good phone. But LG has seemingly built my dream phone...and voila the LG enV Touch. Gone is Mobile TV, but I never planned on using that anyway (the Dare doesn't have it either). This, of course is probably to make way for all the other wonderful things about it. It's thinner, has a camera with the same specs as the Dare, yet offers even more features software-wise (the Dare was already one of the best Verizon camera phones out there), it has a screen even more responsive than the Dare, an updated interface and some cool new features up it's sleeve. One that I didn't have room for in the "Pros" section is...THREADED TEXT MESSAGING! Yes, this phone does threaded text messaging. I've hardly seen this talked about anywhere....I've wanted it forever and now I got it. Sweetness. There's just so much good stuff to say about this phone. LG clearly spent a lot of time working on the details. Everything seems to be in a certain place for a reason, every angle of the phone has a clearly defined shape. Closing the phone gives a nice gentle yet solid "snap effect' which makes it feel high-end...and the phone specificaly has little notches in just the right places so that even if you snapped it shut realy hard, it wouldn't hurt the screen. There are lots of little details like this that just make me enjoy owning this phone....I don't know how else to describe it. As you can tell, I love the phone....but what about the bad things? Well, first off the battery life isn't spectactular. There is a REASON for this though. This phone is quite thin for having two 3.0 inch screens, a QWERTY keyboard, and a camera...plus all the other electronics (Bluetooth, cell radio, microprocessor, etc.). As a result it comes with a 950 mAH battery, which is fairly low-capacity. THAT is the reason for the poor battery life. The phone is actualy quite efficient and uses the battery capacity quite well. Plus, I'm sure you can get an extended-life battery if you realy need one. When the Dare came out, it had good battery life...then LG released a software update and it's battery life increased dramaticaly and became amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens this time around too. From what I understand, LG has a history of this and did the same thing with the Voyager. But again, just to stress this, the battery life isn't bad...just not amazing. So what else? Okay, well here's my biggest gripe personaly (wimply because of it's shear stupidity)....the Tetris game. Everyone knows what tetris is. You have a vertical box in which shapes drop down and you have to position them and rotate them in such a way that they fit together to complete a row. The game is simple, fun, and addictive. I love Tetris on my Dare, it worked beautifuly. Not so on the enV Touch. So what exactly is wrong with it? Well, the game is oriented in the stupidest way possible....horizontaly....and it doesn't listen to the accelerometer. Basicaly, it wastes a lot of screen real estate and becomes a small box because the box itself is vertical, yet is displayed horizontaly. The closest thing I can think of to describe this is watching 4:3 content on a widescreen....with no enlargement, so that there are black bars on either side. But in the game, it's just blue from the surrounding tetris background. Yes, this is how the game is....and no, believe me, it does NOT listen to the accelerometer. I have complained about this to Verizon and hopefuly their technical guys will fix it soon. But it realy sucks because I love Tetris and it's a perfect game for a cell phone. The third thing that bothers me is the I/M client....specificaly the fact that the thing looks like it was designed for Windows 95. Alas, this I can not realy blame on LG...it's not their doing, it's Verizon's. Still, I wish it wasn't so. Not the phones fault, but still disappointing.
So yeah that's about it. I realy love the phone, definitely recommnd it. I got it for $120...not a bad deal at all. Feel free to ask any questions.
~Seth
- 14 replies to this review
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Thanks for the indepth and well written review. An item seldom if ever mentioned in these reviews is how does the screen(s) preform while outside in direct sunlight. I have a touch screen phone from LG/Verizon and one can all but NOT see the screen outside. I am interested in the Touch but if it is no better then the phone I have while outside, then not worth the spending to be honest. All seems nice but if not visible when in these conditions, it matters not. Thanks again.
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How is the lag time while texting? My daughter is concerned that she will press send and then not be able to do anything else for awhile until it sends the text. She seems to think there is like a 5 sec or so lag.
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Hi. I just got this phone and was wondering what you mean by the battery life being OK. I plugged it in last night and now I need to do it again, 24 hours later. Is this normal for the phone?
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How good is the call quality? If you don't do alot of texting but love the camera and want good call sound, do you recommend this phone or something else?
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I am curious as to how well this functions as a normal phone with the touch screen? I have a touch screen phone, and when I dial places that have menus, such as voicemail, I find that the keypad disappears, by the time that I need it. It also takes a while to get the keypad back from a dark screen, and it's hard pressing the numbers accurately, while also trying to hear the menu options. In addition, sometimes my face-cheek does weird things with the pad.
How hard is this phone to dial, and is it easy to accidentally dial, when keeping it in your pocket? I know that many get a phone like this for it's data features, rather than it's usefulness as a phone. However, I was wondering how you'd rate it overall -- strictly as a phone. -
If you are on the phone does it tell you when the battery is getting low or does it just drop the call. I have a phone now that just drops the call. I HATE that. No warning.
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So I've read in the coverage and in some reviews like this about threaded messaging.....but I can't seem to find out what it is. What is it?
Jen -
HI seth, i was wondering where i could buy it for the price you purchased it at...i think its a gorgeous phone and i'd love to have one myself!!! Your review was so clear, simple and intelligent!! Thanks alot for that... so u can reply when u see this message... thanks so so much :) bye bye
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@harry_ness
I'm glad to hear you figured it out. Just an off-day mabye? It seems pretty simple to me. This is definitely the best way to go and it's how LG handles photos on all their touch-screen phones.
@CarFreak8394
Sadly, CNET is right. When i read the review before I got the phone, I figured mabye CNET just didn't dig into the settings enough. But they are right, unfortunately. I wouldn't worry about it though, there are a few things in the OS that seem like LG meant to put in there but just forgot to. I'm sure they will make this available with a software update. There is no technical reason that they couldn't. Another example of this is the accelerometer. On the Dare, the virtual QWERTY keyboard works only in one landscape mode, yet the photo viewer works in any direction. Now on the enV Touch, the QWERTY works in both landscape modes (either side), but the photo viewer only work on one landscape mode. Huh?? This doesn't make much sense. They'll definitely fix this.. -
On my LG Voyager, you can use the external screen as a self-portrait viewfinder when using the camera. I read in the CNET review that this is not possible on the env Touch. Is this true?
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I figured out photo scrolling. When viewing photos from the external screen, simply sliding the photo will advance forward to the next photo! Very cool. In addition, flipping the phone to horizontal position will readjust the photo automatically. Didn't find this in the documentation anywhere, but definitely great features.
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Just got the phone, and I found one interesting issue. If I decide to view photos with the external screen, how do I scroll from one photo to the next? I can't find any option to do that. If I open up the phone and view them from the internal screen, I can use the left/right arrow keys to scroll back and forth between photos. But the external viewing screen (imo) is better for viewing photos. And I don't want to use the slide show feature, as I can't find a way to assign specific photos to a slide show - just all photos.
Not sure if you've encountered this before. -
hi jmdaniel,
I just want to give a little bit of background info first. With Verizon, you get subsidized pricing on a new phone every 20 months. They say "2" just for simplicity. Anyway, I've had a contract with Verizon for ~5 years now. It's a 4-line family plan so we get tons of upgrades. Well, one came and everyone was content with what they had already so i took it (anyone's upgrade can be used on any line of the family plan...which is awesome). The enV Touch costs $220 with a new 2-year contract or before a New Every Two upgrade bonus. The bonus depends on how much you pay for service. I pay $120/mo or so for the family plan, so I got $100 towards a new phone. The cutoff point for that bonus level is $80/mo. Unfortunately, Verizon lowered the bonus number in February, so anyone signing up right now will only get $50 towards a new phone for their first upgrade. I was already "locked in" so I got $100. If you pay less than $80/mo, the old bonus was $50 and is now $30. -
Great review. What kind of contract do you have with Verizon to get the $120 price?
Where to buy
LG enV Touch (Verizon Wireless):
$99.99 - $379.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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$99.99 | Yes |
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$379.99 | Yes |
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