Best phone I've owned to date
Written: Mar 28 '03
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Pros: Excellent color screen, decent OEM battery life (for a color phone)
Cons: Ringers can be distorted, unless you hack it, prepare to pay Verizon for options
The Bottom Line: The VX4400 is one of the better color phones on the market as of Spring 2003. Awesome screen, great sound quality and cool features make it a good buy.
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| pianoman41's Full Review: LG VX4400 |
My Cell Phone History: I've had cell phones since the late 80s (back when they were the size of a two-way radio). The VX4400 is my first color phone and my second LG phone. It is replacing my current LG TM510 (another very good phone).
Other Models Considered: Motorola T720, Audiovox 9500
Cost To Value Ratio: I bought this phone brand new in a sealed box for $260 off of eBay (02/2003). I did this because I was not eligible yet to upgrade my equipment at a discounted rate through Verizon Wireless. I wouldn't advise anyone to pay over $200 for *any* phone regardless of what it can do since the technology changes so much so fast that in six months the phone will cost half of what it does now. Case in point: Verizon now sells this (03/2003) for $199 with a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year renewal. If you're willing to commit to a two-year contract that's a heck of a deal.
Pluses: I'll break these down by features/components -
COLOR SCREEN: First, it's a color phone so I will talk about the quality of the screen. This is hands-down the best color screen I've seen so far. Night and day better than the T720. Colors are crisp and clear and photos look as good as on a regular PC screen (or more appropriately a PDA screen). You can adjust both the contrast and the brightness for the main color screen (and contrast of the outer LCD screen) and colors never have that "washed-out" look unless you crank the contrast way down. You can view it from a wide angle without not being able to see it and it's plenty bright and clear in all lighting conditions. Games look good, but pictures look awesome.
SOUND QUALITY: Some people forget that no matter how many bells and whistles a phone has, the two most important qualities are sound quality and signal strength. And although signal strength can vary by where you are, sound quality never really changes. Luckily the VX4400 does very well in this category. The earpiece is *very* loud and I usually have it on the lowest setting unless I'm in a car or other noisy environment. The transmitted voice quality is also excellent--I've had people call me with the phone so I can hear how it sounds--sounds really good. Ringer quality is another story (see below).
SIGNAL STRENGTH: I realize that signal strength is more a function of location and network coverage than the individual phone, but the VX4400 is very good at acquiring and holding a signal on the fringe areas of digital coverage (where I live). My old StarTac would always lose it in my basement, and my LG TM510 was better, but the VX4400 tops them all.
BATTERY LIFE: This is always a subjective comparison since everyone uses their phones differently. I use mine about 20 minutes a day on average, but the phone is on 24/7 so standby time is important to me. With the standard battery that ships with the phone, I can get about 2-3 days on standby, provided I stay in a good digital signal area. Like any newer phone, going into analog or losing a signal altogether really kills battery life. I've also been using the Mobile Web feature recently and the nice thing is the phone will disconnect (to conserve battery power and minutes used) when you are reading a page and not requesting new information after a brief period. I also have the extended OEM battery (I leave one battery on the charger and rotate them when the battery is almost dead) and it does last longer (approx 3-4 days) but it does make the phone significantly bigger. If I had to do it again, I would probably get another standard battery and swap that out instead of the extended battery. I don't think the extra time is a good enough trade-off for the extra size (it's not *huge*, just noticeably bigger than the standard battery).
FEATURES: Phone book is great (and alphabetized--a first for LG I think) and gives you lots of options to store numbers, names, email addresses, assign to groups, associate pictures and/or ringers to entries, etc. You get a tip calculator, regular calculator, world time clock, three alarms, a quick alarm, notepad, voice recorder. LG phones have the cool feature where you can press a button while talking and record both sides of the conversation into the voice recorder. Although it's illegal in most states, it is also handy when someone is, say, giving you lengthy directions and you are driving and can't write them down. Just record as they talk and then play it back as many times as you need--great feature! For those of you wanting games, note there are *NO* games on the phone when you get it. The only way to get them is through Get It Now.
MINUSES: It's a short list, but here there are -
RINGER SOUND QUALITY: Many of the older LG phones got bad reviews for having ringers that were too quiet--even at the loudest setting people were missing calls because they couldn't hear them. Well apparently the LG engineers decided they wouldn't let that happen again. The ringers on the LG VX4400 are LOUD! Very loud. I've got mine on the quietest setting (other than vibrate) and it is still obnoxiously loud in public. The other side effect of making the ringers LOUD like that is they all sound slightly distorted (at least to me and a common complaint on the 'net). Like the speaker is now overdriven. Supposedly the new software update somewhat alleviates this problem, but until I see it firsthand I can't say. Also, some others have complained that out of the 26 or so ringers the phone ships with, only one sounds halfway professional and even that is pushing it. Yes, you can download better ones (through Get It Now), but you'll have to pay. If you like song ringers or funky sounding ones, you'll be fine. But if you want your phone to sound professional, you're going to be disappointed.
GET IT NOW: This part of my complaint only applies to Verizon Wireless customers, since I can't speak for other carriers. For me (and I'm sure others too), the main reason you get a color phone is so you can have color pictures on it (wallpaper, picture ringer ID, etc). More specifically--*my* pictures on it. What Verizon doesn't tell you when you buy this, is the phone ships with 4 or 5 wallpapers and that's it. And the only way (there is another--see below) to add pictures or ringers or games is through Get It Now, which means you have to pay for it. You pay all this money for the phone, the service and now you have to pay to put your own picture on your own phone? I don't think so! I'm sure this was a marketing decision by LG & Verizon but I think it stinks. If you are comfortable with computers and electronics, you can visit the fine folks over at Howard Forums (www.howardforum.com) and there is a way you can import your own ringers and pictures into the phone for free using a $20 cable from Radio Shack and a free downloadable piece of software. It is hacking your phone, Verizon doesn't support it, but it works very well (or so I've heard :D ). We shouldn't have to go through such lengths for ringers and photos but unless you want to pay a monthly fee (PictaVision is $3.99 a month and the cheapest ringers are $1 *each*) it is the only way to do it.
MINOR BUGS: There are some minor annoyances with the software. Older phones shipped with the 04 software, the latest (as of 03/03) is 05 and it does address some of these (like the T9 predictive input won't add words to the dictionary unless you're in one particular mode, ringer volume is lowered, etc). The phone was great before so ironing out these minor bugs will make it better. These bugs are not nearly as awful or crippling as the early T720 bugs.
Conclusion: This is a great color phone. Understand that very shortly Verizon is going to come out with camera phones and push-to-talk phones (a la Sprint PCS) so if those features appeal to you, pass on the VX4400 and wait for something newer (like the VX6000). But if you want a phone with an awesome color screen, great reception, decent battery life and some cool features, I highly recommend the VX4400.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 260
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Epinions.com ID:
pianoman41
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 1 member
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