Entered CNET Catalog: 08/01/2009
SKU: CHOCOLATEBL40BLKULK
Manufacturer: LG Electronics U.S.A. Inc.
Content [Hide]
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 User Rating:
0.5 stars
out of 5 user reviews
Slow, useless, and the biggest waste off money.
Pros: The screen, watching movies Iv recoreded and photos on the huge screen is amazing, and the camera's not bad too.
Cons: everything else
Review: 1 I'v had my phone 6 months now, thats after the first one had to be replaced because of software issues. Im taking this one back tomorrow because of the same software issues:
50/50 wont anser calls,
50/50 if it dials out when i try to ring someone,
likes to turn itself off
motion sensitivity has dissapeared and flips whenever it feels like it.
Texting is slow, and difficult. Load time for music is slow, I'v found the more I have on it the slower the entire phone functions including texting and general phone usage.
There are hundreds of teeny tiny little things wrong that shouldnt be on a phone of this price. I honestly wish Id had an iphone
50/50 wont anser calls,
50/50 if it dials out when i try to ring someone,
likes to turn itself off
motion sensitivity has dissapeared and flips whenever it feels like it.
Texting is slow, and difficult. Load time for music is slow, I'v found the more I have on it the slower the entire phone functions including texting and general phone usage.
There are hundreds of teeny tiny little things wrong that shouldnt be on a phone of this price. I honestly wish Id had an iphone
User Rating:
2.0 stars
out of 5 user reviews
The sex appeal of this phone wears off... very quickly.
Pros: Unique design with piano gloss finish makes this phone one of the best looking phones in the market today.
Cinematic aspect ratio 21:9 on the 4" screen looks incredible, videos are ridiculously good quality.
4" screen produces stunning image quality.
Cons: LG S-Class OS is HORRIBLE. Slow and buggy.
LG PC Suite is poorly executed and a pain to use.
Design of the phone is hindered when using a case.
OS is HORRIBLE. Like, really horrible.
Review:
User Rating:
4.5 stars
out of 5 user reviews
Faction statement...
Pros: Looks too good, HD screen, All features
Cons: The OS is just ok
Review: AT first glance you just love it.its chocolate.yes makes a statement where ever you go. style you got it.not a lot of applications can be loaded like android or apple phones.the camera needs a little work.
User Rating:
1.5 stars
out of 5 user reviews
Dissapointing. If needing media player, don't buy!
Pros: Good phone. As a phone strictly. Good camera phone. Great photo viewer (especially is from pc).
Cons: $$$$ if paying full price. Minor service problem. Major external memory problems. A bit laggy with touch control. Atrocious media compatibility (please see below). Music player is slow. Non-intuitive computer connectivity.
Review: I was initially really exited about this product. A possible competitor to the iphone. Beautiful resolution 800x345, dual finger touch screen functionality, and multi-media player.
Phone: Great. No problems connecting calls. Clear reception and have heard no complaints from the receiving end. Only problem is from going from a non-service area to a town or city, the phone does not give me a signal. Upon powering down then on, it is fine. This is very odd, considering I work in the oilpatch where reception is spotty and the phone does transition in and out of service very well depending on elevation and clearence.
Ease of use: OK. Like the iphone for touch functionality. If using a micro SD card, there is some lag between the four main menus. Also load time increases when going to view media if using card. For dialing or texting it is fine. touch keyboard maybe could be a bit faster, and you do need small fingers. You can use any photo as the background or the lock screen background. A nice touch. can use any sound effect or mp3 as a ringtone or message alert. Great!
Apps: comes with a couple. there is no current American online store to load more. coming july 2010 supposedly. UK store is online. Comes with a few good games. race car game uses an impressive graphics engine.
Media: A huge dissapointment. Yes, this is a phone, but if one was to spend the full msrp of $399, they are in for a surprise. First off, the expanded memory (comes with 1gig internal). It can use up to 32gigs (16gigs is stated online, but 32 in manual) from a micro sd card. great. But i left my music player open overnight, it went to power save, then in the morning it was corrupted (was an lexar 8gig card). said it did not recognize the external memory and promted for a format. upon attempting to format, the phone will just say formating... for hours. have to reset the phone. retried this multiplye times. nothing. when trying to format the card directly with a computer (sd card adapter with sd slot) the computer comes up with an error. memory card is toast. not good. when it did work (2 weeks), it wasn't the fastest.
music player is laggy. not an apple fan, but the ipod trounces this device for speed (especially if using external memory). other than that it works fine. dolby mobile is a gimic. if you have quality headphones, leave this off (takes out the mids).
video: stunning......IF you can recreate what the phone comes with (avatar trailer and phone add).
the screen (held sideways) has an aspect ratio of 21:9. 2.33 if you are savvy with movie ratios. This phone will NOT play drm material such as digital copies that come with blu-rays or dvd's. you will have to get a drm removal program, then a conversion program (very few codecs supported), to get it to work (many hours wasted figuring this out). many movies like avatar, or pixar's are ratio'd at 16:9 (1.78). they won't use the full screen of course, but that's fine (you can press + on the phone to stretch it, but looks unnatural). BUT, if you want to transfer a movie like Wall-e or Harry potter (which are a 2.35 aspect ratio; very close to the phones design) and take advantage of what the phone offers, you will need very advanced video editing software to essentially crop the movie (these movies have letterboxing, and the file ratio is 1.78, (even though the actual image is 2.35) for all modern tv's and players). then convert and encode to make it compatible. utterly ridiculous!!
No one is going to do this. Other devices allow a simple transfer for any digital copy material. if you do successfully transfer an ideal 800x345 video with the right bitrate (so it doesn't get choppy) it looks phenominal. Good luck.
pc connectivity: when you connect the phone to the computer (with the free software from lg installed), the phone prompts for one of four different options for transfer use. the pc suite program is ok. overall, the computer connectivity is far from intuitive. contact transfer was the easiest, but music and video is not so good. music uses windows media player sync. it's ok. huge inconsistancies with transfering album artwork if that is important to you. photo transfer works well.
photos: so far the most consistant and impressive feature. for a camera phone, it takes descent pictures (5mp res). it you transfer good quality pictures from a pc, the screens qualities really shine through. very impressive. can view phone vertically or sideways and it will orientate appropriately. also can zoom and move within a photo via typical touch scheme. nice.
Nail in the coffin: picked up my phone this morning. realized i was last using the photo gallery. came up with 'file not recognized' for all photos i had transfered from pc. Insert expletives. powered off powered on. problem fixed. however the background photo was gone, and i had to put it back on. wow.
So, then i figured i should write a review.
Phone: Great. No problems connecting calls. Clear reception and have heard no complaints from the receiving end. Only problem is from going from a non-service area to a town or city, the phone does not give me a signal. Upon powering down then on, it is fine. This is very odd, considering I work in the oilpatch where reception is spotty and the phone does transition in and out of service very well depending on elevation and clearence.
Ease of use: OK. Like the iphone for touch functionality. If using a micro SD card, there is some lag between the four main menus. Also load time increases when going to view media if using card. For dialing or texting it is fine. touch keyboard maybe could be a bit faster, and you do need small fingers. You can use any photo as the background or the lock screen background. A nice touch. can use any sound effect or mp3 as a ringtone or message alert. Great!
Apps: comes with a couple. there is no current American online store to load more. coming july 2010 supposedly. UK store is online. Comes with a few good games. race car game uses an impressive graphics engine.
Media: A huge dissapointment. Yes, this is a phone, but if one was to spend the full msrp of $399, they are in for a surprise. First off, the expanded memory (comes with 1gig internal). It can use up to 32gigs (16gigs is stated online, but 32 in manual) from a micro sd card. great. But i left my music player open overnight, it went to power save, then in the morning it was corrupted (was an lexar 8gig card). said it did not recognize the external memory and promted for a format. upon attempting to format, the phone will just say formating... for hours. have to reset the phone. retried this multiplye times. nothing. when trying to format the card directly with a computer (sd card adapter with sd slot) the computer comes up with an error. memory card is toast. not good. when it did work (2 weeks), it wasn't the fastest.
music player is laggy. not an apple fan, but the ipod trounces this device for speed (especially if using external memory). other than that it works fine. dolby mobile is a gimic. if you have quality headphones, leave this off (takes out the mids).
video: stunning......IF you can recreate what the phone comes with (avatar trailer and phone add).
the screen (held sideways) has an aspect ratio of 21:9. 2.33 if you are savvy with movie ratios. This phone will NOT play drm material such as digital copies that come with blu-rays or dvd's. you will have to get a drm removal program, then a conversion program (very few codecs supported), to get it to work (many hours wasted figuring this out). many movies like avatar, or pixar's are ratio'd at 16:9 (1.78). they won't use the full screen of course, but that's fine (you can press + on the phone to stretch it, but looks unnatural). BUT, if you want to transfer a movie like Wall-e or Harry potter (which are a 2.35 aspect ratio; very close to the phones design) and take advantage of what the phone offers, you will need very advanced video editing software to essentially crop the movie (these movies have letterboxing, and the file ratio is 1.78, (even though the actual image is 2.35) for all modern tv's and players). then convert and encode to make it compatible. utterly ridiculous!!
No one is going to do this. Other devices allow a simple transfer for any digital copy material. if you do successfully transfer an ideal 800x345 video with the right bitrate (so it doesn't get choppy) it looks phenominal. Good luck.
pc connectivity: when you connect the phone to the computer (with the free software from lg installed), the phone prompts for one of four different options for transfer use. the pc suite program is ok. overall, the computer connectivity is far from intuitive. contact transfer was the easiest, but music and video is not so good. music uses windows media player sync. it's ok. huge inconsistancies with transfering album artwork if that is important to you. photo transfer works well.
photos: so far the most consistant and impressive feature. for a camera phone, it takes descent pictures (5mp res). it you transfer good quality pictures from a pc, the screens qualities really shine through. very impressive. can view phone vertically or sideways and it will orientate appropriately. also can zoom and move within a photo via typical touch scheme. nice.
Nail in the coffin: picked up my phone this morning. realized i was last using the photo gallery. came up with 'file not recognized' for all photos i had transfered from pc. Insert expletives. powered off powered on. problem fixed. however the background photo was gone, and i had to put it back on. wow.
So, then i figured i should write a review.
User Rating:
5.0 stars
out of 5 user reviews
outstanding
Pros: best handheld device in the market by far.
Cons: not for average joe, not yet in usa carriers... too bad!
Review: this device is one if not the best out there, lg slogan says it all " life's good". just got it if you can!
