Digital Trends

LG VX9800 May 14th, 2006 | by Nick Tessler

Performance

As you'd expect, Verizon's EV-DO network is speed-of-sound fast for streaming and downloading. Music videos usually take less than a minute to download, depending on the length of the clip, and V CAST TV clips take less than 15 seconds on average, all about par for a V CAST phone.

The landscape-shaped screen is a real boon for video viewing, although you will see some splotches when a video is blown up to fill the screen (this is normal for larger cell phone screens, since cell phone videos have a low MPEG-4 resolution). The twin speakers generate only enough volume to be heard in a silent room, and the sound quality won't remind anyone of Bose—not that we expected much better.

For calls, we experienced more conversation dropouts than we expected from Verizon's usually reliable digital network. Voice quality from the phone's earpiece had more echo than we liked and sounded tinny. When using the speakerphone, the stereo speakers actually sounded better than the earpiece. You will be better off with a Bluetooth or the included wired earbuds for conversation.

The poor pictures produced by the digital camera were not surprising. No matter how still we held the VX9800, we could not produce an image that wasn't blurred.

What was surprising was the VX9800's relatively long battery life—four hours of talk and more than eight days in standby.

 
The numberpad is simple enough to use; the camera comes with a built-in flash.