LG Voyager Review

LG VOYAGER: VERIZON'S NEW
FLAGSHIP MOBILE DEVICE


The LG VX10000-also known as the Voyager-is Verizon's new flagship phone. Along with the Samsung Juke, BlackBerry Pearl, and LG Venus this phone is part of Verizon's "Big 4".

DESIGN:
The LG Voyager's looks are impressive. It sports 2 luscious 2.81" QVGA screens. The touch-screen is excellently built. With the option of using haptic feedback, you get a vibrate telling you that a button has been pressed. The touch keyboard on the Voyager is at the perfect sensitivity. Though we were quite disappointed that for sending messages on the external screen we could only use a virtual 12-key pad. This, however, is compensated with the internal QWERTY hard-key pad. There is also 5 different font options on the phone as well.



Verizon has also put their same user interface on the Voyager just like on any Smartphone or BlackBerry Verizon has to offer. The interface, though, is customized for the Voyager and is actually quite pleasant to use while navigating.

CALLS:
The call quality on the Voyager is quite good as well. We liked the speaker-phone sound quality which is nice, crisp, and clear but sounded much better opened than closed.

Making calls on the Voyager were easy. The contacts list was easily navigable. There is a search option and an option to search by letter with the touch of the screen. Another way to make a call is to bring up the phone menu and dial in the speed dial or the number. The virtual dial pad is very responsive and nice to look at. Voice-dialing is also relatively easy to use and most of the time accurately depicts what you are trying to do.



MEDIA:
Media is excellent on this phone as it should be since it is Verizon's flagship phone. Verizon has packed in VCast Mobile TV, VCast Video & Music, SMS, MMS, Mobile IM that supports AIM, Yahoo, and MSN, E-Mail, a 2.0 megapixel camera/camcorder, GPS,and a full HTML web browser.


Unfortunately, VCast Mobile TV was not available in the area so it could not be reviewed. VCast Video however, was available. With the fast EV-DO service, it ran the videos well with a decent quality. Though with some videos in full screen, the video would start chopping.

VCast Music is a very useful tool for buying music on the go, but it should probably not be used for all of your music purchases. Songs cost $1.99, twice as much as you would get the same song on iTunes or any other online music store. Nevertheless, the music downloaded fast and the quality was good. The music player on the phone is fantastic, however. It can play your MP3's, WMA's, ACC's, and ACC+'s. Though we wish there was support for the protected ACC files we and other people buy off iTunes.


Texting and IM on the phone are excellent. With the QWERTY keyboard, texts and IM's are easily made and sent. We also like the option that it can read out your texts to you. This option is completely useless, but still very cool.


E-mail was a little weak on the Voyager. There is a monthly subscription price of $5 for access to email. Though it did work nicely with gmail, yahoo, and etc.

The 2.0 megapixel camera/camcorder is excellent on the LG Voyager. Though there is no flash, the auto-focus on the camera makes up for it in the long run. The picture quality was excellent and clear. There were also many effects that you could put on the picture. The camcorder is a good one. With the option to take QVGA videos, the quality is not too shabby. The microphone can fail on you and distort the sound if you are in loud places or someone is yelling by you and your phone (but what camera phone doesn't?). The Voyager can also playback MPEG 4, WMV, 3GP, and 3G2 formats. You can also set videos that are under 5 MB as wallpapers.
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This picture was taken with the Voyager.


The web browser on the phone is, at sometimes, very frustrating to use. We liked that we could view basic sites with no flash or java, but the fact that we could access sites like youtube.com (yes, you can use the mobile youtube site but it is not the same.) or any site with flash or java was very impressive. The browser is a speedy one. with 2-3 bars of EV-DO, it would load sites in about 3-6 seconds, depending on the intensity of the site. Navigation was also easy on the touchscreen, although it was a bit choppy on the more intense sites.




GPS is another good thing Verizon added to the LG Voyager. It can be very useful in times were you do not know where you are going. It found us nearly everywhere and could navigate us to where we wanted to go. Loading maps on VZNavigator is also fast and is convenient to use in order to find almost any location you want.


THE PROS:
Responsive and nice touchscreen, camera, user interface a bit more free, call quality.

THE CONS:
Laggy scrolling on some websites, still Verizon's UI, speaker phone not accessible from the outside.

OVERALL:
The LG Voyager is a giant feat in Verizon Wireless's phone selection. Though there is the Verizon UI to deal with, it is upgraded enough to have it seem to be new. With its good looks, some solid features, and good call quality, this phone could be the best phone for Verizon for a while. You can purchase this phone for $300 with a 2-year contract and a rebate.