LG Neon (white, AT&T)

The LG Xenon was LG's first messaging phone for AT&T, and not only does it have a full QWERTY keyboard, it has a 2.8-inch touch screen and 3G support. If you want something smaller and simpler, LG has another messaging phone for AT&T, dubbed the LG Neon. It has a full QWERTY keyboard like the Xenon, but it's more compact, is only a tri-band phone, and doesn't have 3G. Unusually, the Neon does have a touch screen, but only for the phone dialer, which we found weird. Its quirks aside, the Neon is just fine for those looking for a simple messaging phone. We weren't thrilled with the latter, but for a simple messaging phone, the Neon works just fine. The LG Neon is available for $29.99 with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Design
The LG Neon is an attractive phone, with smooth rounded corners, clean lines, and a compact form factor. Measuring 4 inches long by 2 inches wide by 0.66 inch thick, the Neon is quite lightweight at 3.81 ounces. It's slim enough to fit in the pocket and feels good in the hand. The sliding mechanism is smooth yet sturdy.

On the front of the phone is a glossy black finish featuring a lovely 2.4-inch display with support for 262,000 colors and a 240x320 resolution. Images look great on it and the text is very legible as well. You can adjust the backlight time, the brightness, the font size of the menu text and the dialing digits, the menu styles, and the appearance of the clock on the home screen.

The most unusual thing about the Neon's display is that it is a touch screen--but only for the phone dialer application. When you press a phone dialer key on the navigation array, a virtual number keypad will show up on the display. You can then dial a number by tapping the digits on the screen. You can also set it so that the phone vibrates whenever your touch registers, plus you can adjust the intensity of the vibration. As we said, though, the display is only a touch screen for dialing numbers; all other functions need to be done via physical keys. We weren't so pleased with this--we would rather have a full touch-screen interface, or a real physical number keypad, not something in between.

Underneath the display is the navigation array, which consists of two soft keys, a four-way toggle with a middle confirmation key, the Send and End/Power keys, the Clear/Back key, and the aforementioned phone dialer key. The toggle can be mapped to four user-defined shortcuts, and the middle confirmation key brings up the Web browser when in standby mode. On the left spine of the phone is the volume rocker and dedicated camera key, while the microSD card slot and headset/charger jack sit on the right spine. On the back is the camera lens and self-portrait mirror.

Turn the phone 90 degrees to your right, slide the phone up, and you'll find a full QWERTY keyboard. The screen will automatically change orientation from portrait to landscape mode. The keyboard has two soft keys on the far left and right side, an orange Function key, a Symbol key, plus an OK/Back button on the bottom right. Even though the keys are laid out in only three rows as opposed to the four rows of keys on the LG Xenon, the Neon keyboard still felt spacious with plenty of room between each key. The keys are all raised above the surface and feel easy to type.

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