Digital Trends

LG VX9800 May 14th, 2006 | by Nick Tessler

Features and Design

As noted, the VX9800 resembles a little laptop. On its face, however, with its 1.75-inch LCD screen and standard albeit tightly-packed dialpad, the VX9800 looks like any other candybar cell phone. At 5.1 ounces, the VX9800 is about a third heavier than most standard clamshells, and measuring 4.57” by 1.97” by 1.0”, about a third larger.

Even though the VX9800 is a rather bulky device, the round keypad keys are generously spaced for mistake-free typing for everyone but the fat-fingered. Another feature besides the QWERTY keyboard is the 1.3-megapixel camera on the rear. However, the camera ergonomics are a bit awkward. With your finger on the shutter release, you have to be careful that your other fingers don't block the lens. The shutter release button gets wedged against the flip top when open, which you'll actually want to do since the inside LCD screen makes a better viewfinder than the external display. The neighboring volume toggle also gets jammed against the open top, which makes it difficult to turn the sound up or down.

Inside, the VX9800 comes with the basic organizational applications, such as a 500-contact phone book, a calendar/scheduler, an alarm and world clock, a regular and tip calculator, and a notepad. Also included are a miniSD card slot to supplement the built-in 128 MB of internal memory, Bluetooth, a full duplex speakerphone, voice dialing and voice command. Oddly, also included is the T9 predictive text input, which is usually found on regular non-QWERTY cell phones to facilitate messaging creation; why this is included on a device with a QWERTY keyboard is anyone's guess.

Newer versions of the VX9800 are compatible with Verizon's music service, but older versions can be upgraded at your local Verizon dealer, which means you can add not only music to your older VX9800, but MP3 ringtones as well.

For messaging, the only reason you might consider the VX9800 is because you get mobile instant, text and picture messaging, MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! e-mail, and, last but not least, synchronization to POP3 and IMAP email accounts.

Image Courtesy of LG