LG Glance (Verizon Wireless)

Photo gallery:
LG Glance

Just when we thought the days of the skinny phone were behind us, LG surprises us with yet another thin handset. The LG Glance is one of the slimmest phones we've ever seen, at only 0.38 inch thick. It has quite an elegant design overall, and though it's a rather basic phone, it still has a decent camera and GPS capabilities. The LG Glance is certainly one of the better entry-level phones we've seen from Verizon Wireless, and at $49.99 with a two-year service agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate, it's quite affordable as well.

Design
Usually when we encounter entry-level phones, they feel like cheap plastic when held. Not so with the LG Glance. It's clad in metallic trim, which gives it a decent heft of 2.92 ounces. Measuring 4.31 inches long by 1.87 inches wide by 0.38 inch thick, the Glance is also very thin. It has a slim and sleek form factor with slightly rounded corners. We like the soft gold trim on the front but have mixed feelings about the woven metal backplate--it just seems a bit cheesy for our tastes.

The LG Glance is super skinny.

On the front of the Glance is a nice 2-inch display with support for 262,000 colors and 320x240 pixels. We're really impressed with how crisp and clear the text and images look, especially with an entry-level phone. You can adjust the backlight time, the brightness, the menu layout, the menu font type, the font size, and the clock format.

Underneath the display is a very compact navigation array. It consists of two soft keys, a joystick toggle, the Send key, the Clear/voice command key, and the End/Power key. The two soft keys are raised above the surface and have a lot of ridges for texture, which made it easy to navigate through menus. The joystick was easy to use as well--you can even add a vibration to the joystick for an added tactile feel. You can also adjust length and intensity of the vibration. The up, left, and down directions of the joystick can be mapped to three user-defined shortcuts, while the right direction leads to a MyShortcuts folder, where you can add up to four additional shortcuts.

The LG Glance has a 1.3-megapixel camera lens on the back.

The number keypad is surprisingly spacious for such a small phone. Each row of keys is on raised slates, and there's enough delineation between each key to dial by feel. On the left spine are the 2.5-millimeter headset jack, the volume rocker, and the speakerphone key, while the camera key and the charger jack are on the right. The keys on the sides of the phone are pretty skinny, due to the slenderness of the phone. On the back of the phone is a camera lens.