The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet-
"Excellent phone with only a few minor issues" on by solas989
Pros: Chocolarte flip, great reception, many features, mp3+wma+id3tags and art, mp3 ringtones
Cons: camera is VERY slow, no flash, touch pad is too sensitive
Summary: Time owned = 3 weeks.
Style - 9/10 - Love the piano black finish but the smudges can be unbearable. However, they do clean off easily. The chrome accent around the phone is a nice touch.
Initial Durability - 9/10 - Only worries here are the little plastic flap covers for the MicroSD and MultiFunction Port. Case is plastic but feels rugged enough for me. Nothing is loose or feels out of place. I have dropped it a few time and all still works.
Usability - 9/10 - I personally don’t like Verizon’s menus, but that is not the phones fault. I wish it would flip open a little more easily when using one hand, but that is the nature of this style. Closing is easy with one hand. Opening the little flaps is easy to do, but getting out the MicroSD card could be difficult for someone with big fingers or not long finger nails. It is small enough to put in shirt pocket without bulging out.
Keypad – 8/10 – it is flat and does take some learning to get used to, but not a whole lot. However, there is a distinctive “button feel” to them unlike some other flat keypad phones. You can assign the four directional buttons too making it more useful.
Speakerphone – 7/10 – it has one, has a dedicated button for it, but is not that loud. When playing mp3’s, it is very loud, just not when using the speakerphone.
Calling – 9/10 – Very loud phone. First phone where it is not kept on highest volume setting. Voice commands require a confirmation, wish they did not. Comfortable to use for long periods of time (30+ minutes). Can become slippery and may fall out of your hands if drowsy, talking and not fully paying attention due to the glossy finish. People I call do not know if I am on a cell phone or not – until the see my phone number.
Display – 10/10 – Very bright, very colorful. Could be larger, but then the phone might be larger too. Wish you could adjust the brightness. Seems like it has 3 settings, On, dimmed and off. Really like the display
Bluetooth – 9/10 – Lots of menus to go through to get Bluetooth hooked up to laptop. Turn on Bluetooth, then set discovery mode, accept a bunch of menus etc. However, this is my first Bluetooth device, maybe this is normal. Once connected and setup, I have not dropped a connection to my laptop up to 20 or so feet. You can transfer mp3 ringtones, pics, sounds via Bitpim.
Mp3 Player – 9/10 – Takes a bit of time to initialize the player, but once loaded it is responsive. The touch keys on the outside can be triggered by moving it in your pocket, so it can be annoying at times. Out of many different bitrates, mp3 vs wma, tags and best of all, the tag art, all were displayed correctly. I did have a few “Cant Play File” errors but I FWD once and then back and it worked just fine.
MicroSD – 10/10 – can be small to use, but excellent feature to have. Store more pics, ringtones, mp3s, movies etc.
Camera – 2/10 – Best said is it does take pictures. Mine is VERY slow. You push to take picture, it sounds the shutter “click” and then 1 second latter, it take the actual picture. Pics are grainy if medium to lower light is used. Lots of options to use such as brightness, white balance etc. There is no flash. I did not buy the phone for the camera however; it is just a novelty for me.
Battery – 10/10 – I have disabled the EV network via the service menu. Battery lasts 2-3 days of normal use (phone calls, txt msg, playing mp3). Turning on the EV network for VCAST, it usually lasts 1-2 days. Not a single time where it was not inconvenient to recharge.Updated
Now I have had the phone for 5+ months of abuse.
Style-no change,sill love the style (except so many people have the phone now)
Durability-long term-9/10. Only draw back is it does scratch (not easily, I tend to drop it alot). The port covers show no sign of breaking and I use them alot. No issues with the flip mechanism. Keypad has not worn on me yet.
Usability-no change
Keypad-no change
Speakerphone-6/10 Either Im getting deaf or the power to the speaker is less (Im guessing deaf). Wish it was louder. Plus a few instances where the other person could no hear me well.
Calling-no change. Still slippery and I have dropped it many times while talking. Guess Im not that coordinated.
Display-no change
Bluetooth-8/10. Wish I could hook up more than one item at a time, but that is minor. Still big effort to setup in begining, but once done it is plug and go.
MP3 Player - 7/10. I degraded this down because I have had some issues where it would skip to the next song for no reason. It wouldnot play some .mp3 or .wma. Had to re-encode the file, it worked. Not ALL art comes over for some reason, i had a few missing. A2DP is EXCELLENT for stereo headphones.
MicroSD - no change
Camera-no change. It still is horrible.
Battery-10/10. I dont know if I am using it less or what, but I seem to now get up to 1.5 weeks use before needing a charge. I have gotten so used to NOT charging it that it has kicked me in butt when battery died. -
"Almost perfect for me......" on by xxdesmusxx
Pros: Nice looking, External Music buttons, Gorgeous UI, Great Sound quality
Cons: no flash? (I really don't care though), collects smudges
Summary: This is the phone I have been waiting for for months now. Literally, I was about to get a Razr v3m about 2 months ago when my current phone died and then I saw a preview on this phone. I went into the Verizon store and talked with a friend who promptly said "definitely don't get the Razr...the VX8600 is going to blow it out of the water." and guess what? He was absolutely correct.
The screen is much better looking than the Razr (and most other motorola phones), the music playback is a lot more logical, the external music controls are great, and the overall feel of the phone is a heck of a lot sturdier than the Razr feels.
The only downside? It collects smudges because of it's shiny finish, but that really isn't a big deal. Also, it lacks a flash for the camera, but since I rarely takes pictures I really could care less.
Overall, a great phone, much better than the Razr or the Krzr. -
"Great but not without problems" on by auntjules
Pros: Features and Appearance
Cons: Instructions, Battery LIfe, Shutting Itself Off
Summary: I have had my LG VX8600 for a little over a week now. I have only had one real problem with this phone - it has shut down while performing a Get it Now function. I get a message on the screen stating that the phone is overheating and shutting itself down but the phone is not hot. It happened once while I was browsing ringtones and twice while syncing music from my PC.
The good:
It's pretty
The music player sounds better than I had anticipated
Good and clear call quality
I like the menu viewing options
The size and weight are great
Screens look great
Plays MP3 files as well as WMA files
The bad:
It's always full of smudgy fingerprints
It doesn't come with many ringtones and I don't like the ones it has - I also don't like the ringtone carriers available for this particular phone in Get it Now
The phone has NO instructions on loading music from your PC onto a micro SD card and little in the way of instructions for the music player. I had hoped that the instructions with the Verizon Music Essentials kit would be better but no such luck. As someone who is less than computer savvy, this was frustrating and caused me a ton of time that would have been saved by decent instructions.
The ugly:
Randomly shutting itself off is beyond irritating. Verizon is sending me a new one and hopefully this will not happen with the new VX8600 - it is a problem reported by other users on other forums so I am not the only one who has experienced this.
Verizon's proprietary practices mean that you have to buy their phone-specific USB cable.
I don't mind the flat number strips though I was concerned at first. I am a woman with small fingers so maybe that's why I don't mind.
I have nothing to say about the camera because I just don't use it. This is my 3rd camera phone and I have never really used the camera. I did buy and then return a Samsung SCH-a990 a few weeks ago. Even that camera left me feeling cold so I just gave up on liking any camera on a phone.
The music player is not as good as an iPod so you will be disappointed if that is what you expect. As someone who travels a lot and likes to carry as few things as possible, this music player is great.
Overall, I really love this phone and would recommend it to anyone who is considering buying it. -
"Very sexy and well build, way to go LG" on by cheapsweetdealz4u
Pros: Design, feel, arangement of side buttons, screen quality(both screens), earpiece sound quality, outside touch sensitive buttons.
Cons: Low speaker phone
Summary: Overall I can recall last 10 phones that i had by verizon, coming from vx6000, v710, e815, lg 8300, lg 9800, Razr v3c, chocolate, and krzr that i had for a week prier to 8600. I liked 8600 the most. Yes it's wider then KRZR but its also thinner, quality of the screen is way better (but then again almost all motorolas have horrible screen resolution) Its pretty light for a phone. The design is awesome, almost flawless. camera is pretty for for 1.3 mp. bluetooth is very responsive and accurate. the only con i got is that its speaker phone volume, its low. however i dont use speaker often so for me its not a big deal. However the mp3 volume is very loud.
BTW who ever wrote the first remark is dolbayob. -
"Disapointing, I'm returning it" on by wristerbob
Pros: Great look, thin, crisp displays
Cons: Music interface is time-consuming to use
Summary: I really wanted to like this phone. I got it for my wife because she jogs and I would like her to have a phone with her. Since she would rather carry a music player, this seemed like the perfect answer.
I used microsoft windows media player (WMP), as instructed by the phone's manual, to organize several playlists that I ripped from our CDs. I synched the phone using the music essentials pack (extra $30 from verizon) as instructed and all the songs appeared on the phone. However, I could find no way to maintain the playlist categorization set up in WMP; all the songs just appear in the phone's song library. Therefore, in order to use playlists on the phone, you must recreate them using the phones keypad. This is a tedious process of keypad button pushing. This is just not acceptable. Unless you listen to the same music forever, you need to be able to easily recreate playlists. Unfortunately, I need to return this phone because of this.
Some other minor things to note:
The phone does not support analog reception so if you rely on analog coverage, you'd need a different phone.
In order to be slim, I guess the standard headset port had to go. You must use a special headset or the supplied headset adapter. The adapter is small and easily lost so I'd factor in buying a few replacements ($10 a pop at the Verizon online store). Also, you can't charge the phone and use the headset at the same time without a separate adapter ($15 at the Verizon online store).
With a MicroSD card and card reader, you can add pictures not taken with the phone's integrated camera. I easily customized the screen display with pictures from our computer. I could not accomplish this with the USB cord supplied with the Music essential pack.
I could find no way to sync contacts from the computer. It seems like this should be easy but few phones offer this function.
The Music essentials pack, I think, is required even if you intend to sync using a separate MicroSD card reader due to the need for the verizon interface software.
I didn't have a major problem with the keys.
The exterior buttons are only active when music is being played, so I'm not sure why other users are having problems with inadvertent actuation. The buttons are used to pause the music and songs can't be started without first opening the phone. I would think using a holster or otherwise protecting the keys wouldn't be a big deal when using the phone as a music player. There are also settings to allow the reduction of the exterior keys' sensitivity.
I didn't try it, but it looks like you can add sounds if you use a MicroSD card and reader. A "my_sounds" directory appears on the card after it is formated. It would seem like adding custom ringtones would be possible.Updated
The criticisms of my review are misleading. This phone is advertised extensively for its music capabilities. I spent extra (over a "regular" phone) to have these capabilities. As I said, it was disapointing overall. I did return the phone and bought my wife an Ipod and a "regular", inexpensive cell phone. Now when she runs she has her Ipod and usually not her phone because carrying both is a pain. When I bought this phone I was hoping, for her safety, that she could have a decent cell phone and music player combination (consistent with the advertisements). This phone is almost useless as a music player and I was disapointed. Also, as a phone, its not really any different than other phones you can get for free - other than, as I pointed out, it looks a little cooler.
LG VX8600 user reviews (black, Verizon Wireless)
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