Digital Trends

Introduction

At first, wacky cell phone ergonomics reflected nothing but the desire of manufacturers to differentiate their handsets from the rest of the look-alike clamshells and candybars. But as technology has progressed and counterintuitive functions such as PDAs and cameras have been added, cell phone industrial designs have started to reflect their additional non-cell phone functions. The LG-VX9800 by Verizon, for instance, flips open like a toy laptop, sort of a smaller version of the Nokia 9500 Communicator.  It has a tiny QWERTY keyboard on the base and a 2.25-inch landscape LCD screen with a pair of stereo speakers on either side, which makes it ideal for video and TV watching; however, messaging, not video, is the VX9800's primary non-cell phone function. The VX9800 is not a good music phone, and it's too chubby for jeans pockets. If you need a messaging phone, choose a real Blackberry. If you need a Verizon multimedia phone, go with the LG VX8100 or Samsung SCH-A950.