Outstanding little cellphone, worth taking a serious look at.
Written: May 04 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Clarity: |
|
|
| Portability: |
 |
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
|
Pros: Feature packed phone that does just about everything imaginable.
Cons: Reception? Maybe.
The Bottom Line: Bottom line, I looked at all the other options before purchasing this phone. I believe this phone is the best value for the money today.
|
|
|
| mskvarenina's Full Review: LG VX4400 |
There are plenty of great reviews here on epinions.com on this cellphone already, my review will concentrate on some of the features I think make this phone stand out as an excellent phone for the money:
Every few years my cellphone dies and I get a replacement. I've always stuck with Motorola but this time I decided to try the LG VX4400.
First Impressions
When I first got this phone I was amazed at how much different it was from my Motorola StarTac. It had an LCD color screen, voice actuation, Get It Now!, and a slew of other features. I wasn't sure if I'd every be able to learn how to use everything on this phone...I soon learned otherwise.
Usage
This phone is great. To me, it's a phone that's ready to work for you. When I open the cover for example, the first this is does is say "Name Please?" Most times when I am opening the cover, I want to make a call to someone I know so I simply say "home" and it say "Calling...home". Of course that was an option, I could have it not prompt me for a call when I opened the cover.
When I'm at a restaurant, to figure the tip, I open the phone and access the EZ Tip Calculator. If I just need a simple calculator, it's got that too.
Need a reminder for something? Set a "Quick Alarm' to go off 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 3 hours later with just a few clicks. Need a more advanced alarm, how about every day at 7AM, or just Mon-Fri at 8PM, or just the weekends?
Features
Let's start by saying one of the most frustrating things about the StarTac was programming phone numbers into it. I could never figure out how to get a number into that phone without using the manual. With the VX4400, after a few minutes, it becomes very easy.
I've already made mention or hinted at some other features. Let's talk voice dialing. When I first saw it in the manual, I thought, "Hmmm...cool gimmick" that I probably wouldn't use. Well once I added a few voice dials to my stored numbers I quickly saw how easy it was to call someone. No longer do I have to open the phone and push those tiny little buttons ten times. I say a name and I'm done. This is especially helpful when driving.
Ring Tones: OK, the phone comes with 25 or so ring tones. The first few are typical ring sounds and the rest are musical tunes. For me, I like a phone to sounds like a phone but for others, they may like the "Can-can" song to play when a call comes in. What's very cool about ring tones and this phone is that you can set different ring tones for everyone in you address book (provided the phone can identify their number via CallerID). This is great because my wife has one ring tone, family another, and everyone else something else. This may not sound overly helpful, but just like the voice dialing, you quickly learn to love this capability.
Get It Now: Verizon calls this a feature, I call it a capability at best. Get It Now allows you to download games, wallpaper, ring tones and some other goofy stuff like a Magic 8 Ball to your phone. Problem is none of this is really free, with most items costing between $1-$6. Doesn't sound like much but download a few of these babies for fun then see the $20 charge appear on your cell phone bill the next month. If you're like me, after one or two downloads, you'll agree it's not worth the money.
Schedules and alarms: I've already mentioned this feature. Here's just a little more on this. The phone has both a scheduler and an alarm feature. With the scheduler you access a calendar and can enter alarms for specific date and times. I mentioned ring tones earlier, each alarm can have it's own ring tone. If you download a "Happy Birthday" ring tone for example, you could schedule everyone in your families birthday in the phone and have it remind you when a birthday comes up.
Other features: Again, this phone is feature packed. A quick run-down includes call histories and dialing abilities of incoming and outgoing calls, phone books (you can assign numbers to groups then access the "family" only group for example, messaging, mobile "web" (the phone is capable of surfing the web but a)there's an additional charge for this feature and b)web browsing ona cellphone display isn't really ready for prime time yet. Calculators as I mentioned before, and schedules, alarm clocks and voice memos.
The phone has 2 LCD displays. The inside display is a color LCD that you use to navigate through the features and programming and displays the elapsed time when on a call. The outer screen I find especially useful. First when not in a call it displays the date, time, battery, signal strength and roaming status. When a call comes in, the display lights up (incidentally to a color of your choice), and if the phone get the call's number, it will be displayed. Got voice mail? If so, push a button and that call goes right to voice mail. Want the call? Open the cover and begin speaking.
Quality
I've had this phone for 2 weeks now. Quality wise, I'm quite impressed with its quality. The flip open lid opens nicely and feels quite solid. The buttons glow with a strong blue color that is especially useful when dialing at night (when you're not using voice dialing :) ) Battery life seems very good but I did purchase the LG extended battery from eBay for around $45. Sound quality from the earpiece is good. Actually my Motorola was a bit better, but the LG certainly is acceptable.
Cons if any:
If there are any cons to discuss, I'd start with a possible reception problem. Actually I wouldn't call it a problem but the VX4400 has dropped calls where my Motorola always worked. This hasn't happened alot at all, but just be aware that reception may be a little better with a different phone. I'm not overly concerned about it, if I was I would have returned the phone and got something else.
Another con, that's not really a con is that the ringer sound quality is a bit tinny and can be a bit piercing at time while the phone rings. Again, not really a con, just something you need to get used to.
Finally, the phone comes with a desktop charger. I've had continued difficulty getting the phone to easily drop into the charger. I've pretty much got it down now, it's just not an easy drop in, you kinda have to use two hands to line it up and snap it into the charger.
Summary:
In summary, the VX4400 is a great phone. I couldn't imaging moving back to a phone without the features I learned to love. The voice dialing is fabulous, once you try it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. The cons as I said aren't really cons, they're just the way it is. Nothing can be 100% perfect. The features and functionality of this phone greatly outway and cons this phone may have.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
mskvarenina
|
|
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.