LG VX5500 (Verizon Wireless)

Reviewed by

Nicole Lee

on 11/13/2008

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Page 2

The left spine has a headset jack, a volume rocker, a voice-command button, and a charger jack, while the dedicated camera key is on the right.

Features
The LG VX5500 has a phonebook with room for 1,000 entries, and each entry can accommodate up to five numbers, two e-mail addresses, and a memo. You can then organize your contacts into caller groups, pair them with a photo for caller ID, or one of 23 polyphonic ring tones. Other basic features include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messaging, a calculator, a tip calculator, a calendar, an alarm clock, a stop watch, a world clock, and a notepad. More advanced features are the Bluetooth support, the wireless Web browser, voice command, mobile Web e-mail, instant messaging, and A-GPS support. The latter means the VX5500 is compatible with Verizon's location-based services, like VZ Navigator and Chaperone Parent/Child.

The LG VX5500 has disappointing photo quality.

The VX5500 comes with a simple VGA camera that can take photos in three resolutions (640x480, 320x240, and 160x120), five color effects, five white balance presets, and with or without a night mode. Other camera options include spot photometry, a self-timer, the choice of three shutter sounds, and a silent option. You can also zoom, rotate, and crop images after the photo is taken. As expected with a VGA camera, the photo quality of the images is mostly blurry, with a lot of artifacts. Colors appeared muted and overcast as well. The VX5500 does not have a built-in camcorder.

You can personalize the VX5500 with plenty of wallpaper and ringtones for a customized touch. If you want more, you can download extras via Verizon's browser. The VX5500 doesn't come with any games or applications, but you can download those, too.

Performance
We tested the dual-band (CDMA 1900/800) LG VX5500 in San Francisco using Verizon Wireless. Call quality was satisfactory; callers could hear us loud and clear, without a lot of static and interference. They did say our voice sounded a bit on the robotic side and were not that natural, but it wasn't a big deal. On our end, we heard our callers' voices just fine. Automated-voice services also recognized us without a problem. Speakerphone calls did not go as well, though; we thought the volume was low and callers sounded a bit tinny. However, callers didn't notice much difference. We paired the LG VX5500 with the Motorola H780 and Bluetooth calls went well.

The LG VX5500 has a rated battery life of 5 hours talk time and 18.3 days standby time. It has a tested talk time of 4 hours and 57 minutes. According to FCC radiation tests, the VX5500 has a digital SAR rating of 0.953 watts per kilogram.