Performance
You're buying this phone for speed, and it is speedy—but not compared to its EV-DO competitors. In our admittedly unscientific tests, the CU500 was a hair slower loading web pages than EV-DO phones from Verizon and Sprint. But these differences are negligible since most pages loaded in three to five seconds and most video clips loaded in less than 10 seconds.
Video from Cingular Video and MobiTV, however, were both superior to Verizon V Cast and Sprint Power Vision video offerings, with crisper, cleaner, and smoother video with fewer buffering pauses. Our only complaint is the lack of a widescreen option as found on V Cast phones.
Musically, the CU500 plays back unprotected MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+ tracks. You can choose between two animated "spectrum analyzers" to accompany your tunes or simply a display or track name and artist. There's a real EQ with our favorite 3D Surround, along with Classic, Jazz, Pop, and Rock settings, and you can choose from repeat and shuffle options. There's a 2.5mm headphone jack but, surprisingly, there is no headset—stereo or mono—included. Fortunately, the Bluetooth Stereo implementation delivers excellent, solid sound with nary a connectivity blip.
As noted, the CU500's earpiece is comprised of tiny stereo speakers that produce robust sound as a speakerphone and make the CU500 a reasonable-sounding mini-jukebox with the top up or, even better, down. For some reason, the sound is trebly and thin with the top up, but when down, the music's tone turns richer and deeper. There's not a lot of volume, but in a quiet work environment, it provides nice background music.
Other than seamless video streaming and Jose Reyes quick data downloads and web page loading, the primary benefit of HSDPA is what LG and Cingular promote as "multitasking." The CU500 spec sheet declares that you "use voice and data capabilities simultaneously.” This is misleading at best, incorrect at worst. If you're surfing or listening to music or watching Cingular Video and a call comes in, the application automatically pauses. When you end the call, your multimedia application picks up from where you left it. Convenient, certainly, but hardly multitasking.
While the CU500's camera produces some of the best 1.3-megapixel pictures we've seen, getting them out of the phone is problematical. As noted, there's no USB cable, the prospect of extracting the microSD card is unappealing, and sending your photos via Bluetooth is not nearly as intuitive as it should be -- Bluetooth is a "send" option only when your photos are in thumbnail view. Once you choose a picture to fill the screen, you mysteriously lose the ability to send it via Bluetooth.
Assumedly, you will actually use the CU500 to hold conversations, and with near landline voice quality and plenty of volume in both private and speakerphone modes, you won't be disappointed. But the faster network is a greater power drain, limiting the phone to just 3.5 hours of talk time.
Conclusion
This otherwise outstanding fast and well-designed multimedia phone is almost fatally flawed by its frustrating microSD card slot location, akin to putting the gas tank opening under the rear seat in a car.
Pros
- HSDPA/EDGE world phone
- Superior integrated MP3 player
- Cingular Video, MobiTV applications
- Superior Bluetooth Stereo connectivity
- Convenient 1.3-MP rotating camera
- External music/camera controls
- Landline voice quality
Cons
- Buried microSD flash memory slot
- No included sync cables or earphones
- Difficult to transfer photos from phone to PC
by Donna Ashley on November 4, 2009:
“I really wish I had found this site before I bought TWO CU500's off Ebay. The reviews I read on another site were good. I like the phone and it's features EXCEPT the battery dies after a few calls, which makes it almost useless. I exchanged one of the phones...” More...