Review: The LG VX4500 is a bit of a mixed bag. Though it has a bright LCD, strong voice-command options, and a high-quality speakerphone, its design is not the most inspiring, and it's missing such important features as MMS support. The phone is well priced at $139 (with no contract), but for those willing to forgo a speakerphone, the ...
Expand full review The LG VX4500 is a bit of a mixed bag. Though it has a bright LCD, strong voice-command options, and a high-quality speakerphone, its design is not the most inspiring, and it's missing such important features as MMS support. The phone is well priced at $139 (with no contract), but for those willing to forgo a speakerphone, the
LG VX4400 might be a better and cheaper alternative for Verizon's service.The stocky, silver LG VX4500 doesn't go far in the style department. Looking much like your garden-variety flip phone, it has a bulbous shape that makes it a bit wider (3.5 by 1.9 by 0.9 inches; 3.7 ounces) than many of its counterparts. Though the handset fits in bigger pockets, it feels comfortable against your face when you're talking. However, the external monochrome display--showing time, date, signal strength, battery life, and caller ID (when available)--is quite small, and the shiny, mirrorlike finish surrounding it scratches and smudges easily.
LG VX4400's screen, the VX4500's could still be bigger (1.75 inches diagonally) for the phone's size. Like many handsets that sport a color screen, this one conserves battery life by turning almost completely dark when not backlit. The buttons below the display include a four-way toggle, an OK button in the center, and two soft keys, which make the VX4500's colorful, animated menus easy to navigate. We especially liked that you can select a main menu item, then navigate sideways to another top-level selection (using the left and right mouse keys) without going back to the main menu screen.
We had no trouble using the handsome blue-lit keypad buttons or the four-way toggle, which has short cuts for wireless Web, messaging, the speakerphone, and Verizon's Get It Now service. While we appreciated the volume-adjustment keys on the left side of the phone, we had a complaint with the quick-access key for voice commands (see the Features section). It quickly grew annoying, as the phone blurted "please say a command" whenever we pressed the key by accident (which was often).For a midrange phone, the LG VX4500 comes with a solid arsenal of features. A 499-entry phone book can store up to five numbers and three e-mail addresses for each contact, while a duplex speakerphone, text and EMS (but not MMS) messaging, a voice memo function, an alarm clock, a tip calculator, a world clock, and a notepad round out the package. The handset comes with 36 polyphonic ring tones and a vibrate mode, with more available from Get It Now. You can also assign ring tones and pictures for your various contacts, though the pictures do not show up on the external display, and you can even choose separate ring tones for any text messages you receive from a given contact.
Average User Rating 3.0 stars out of 188 user reviews Rating Breakdown -
5 star: 47 -
4 star: 53 -
3 star: 29 -
2 star: 31 -
1 star: 28 My Rating 0 stars click stars to rate product Most Helpful User Review 1.0 stars 3 of 3 users found this review helpful Pros Loud speaker Cons The reception is extremely poor. Can't turn off all anouncements Voice dialing is a pain Voice program is a pain. Buy the VX6000 if you don't need a speaker phone. The reception is 100x's better. Most Recent User Reviews (Showing 2 of 188 reviews) Thanks for your submission!
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