iPhone 3GS from AT&T. Free Shipping
- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 23 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
12 out of 12 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"If you are looking for an excellent phone without unnecessary bells and whistles, this is it"
Pros: Excellent button design, excellent call quality, good battery life
Cons: The front display doesn't stay lit
Summary: So here's where I'm coming from. I'm a moderate cell user - a few times a day, but don't have the thing constantly glued to my ear. I text occasionally, but usually not more than a few times in a month. I want my phone to be a phone. I've got a camera and I've got an MP3 player, I don't need my phone for either of those tasks. I upgraded to this phone about 3 weeks ago from a 2 year old LG model that I was very happy with. I couldn't find any independent comments or review of this model at the time as Verizon had just released it, so I took it on a leap of faith as I wasn't impressed by any of the other phones that I could afford. So, with that out of the way...
I LOVE the ergonomic design of this phone. The buttons are by far the best of any cell phone I've had in years. They're nice and big and work well for my fat fingers. The phone fits nicely to my head while making a call and (so far) I haven't accidentally triggered any of the side buttons while on the phone (my real only pet peeve with my previous phone). The phone feels small and light when it's shut, but opened, it feels nice and substantial. The internal screen is a good size, has pretty good resolution and is nicely lit. I was able to quickly locate all major functions of the phone before I even cracked open the manual. It's a sharp looking phone with the dark silver gray plastic and the mirror-ish front display...but I'm happy with anything that doesn't look like a brick.
This is a really nice sounding phone. I live in the Denver area and so far, I've had nothing but strong signal and great sound. I'm impressed by the signal strength especially since it's an internal antenna. I'm not quite as impressed by the speaker phone quality. But it's adequate. The ringer is loud enough and the vibration motor will get your attention if it's in your pocket.
I played with the camera a little bit and it takes pictures of about the quality you would expect from a 640X480 VGA camera. If you need a phone with a great camera, this one isn't for you. But, as I said, this feature had absolutely no impact on my own decision.
I don't have any BlueTooth gear, so I can't offer any comments about the quality of that particular functionality
The one thing that bugs me is that the front screen doesn't stay lit. I've gotten used to using my cell as my timepiece and it's annoying to have to hit the side volume control to light the screen up for 30 seconds to check the time or to see if you missed any calls or messages. I would guess the engineers did this to save battery life (which is great BTW - I can go several days between recharges) but I don't like looking at a "dead" phone.
The only other thing that irks me is the lack of a decent built-in ringtone selection - but this is a Verizon thing and not unique to this phone. It really chaps my hide how Verizon does all but force you to pay outrageous fees to get something that's not a generic, awful sounding electronic beep for a ringtone, but I'll disembark from that soapbox for now.
As for the phone, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a phone without all the extraneous junk that marketing departments pack onto phones these days.
%20user%20review%20and%20rating%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/lg-vx-5400-silver/4864-6454_7-32730359-2.html){kind=small}