Digital Trends

LG Venus February 18th, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Features and Design

The LG Venus is built like two parallel candy bars, each about ¼ of an inch thick. The first bar is all black with a silver trim and contains two screens, one long and vertical, the other squat and horizontal. The top, vertical screen is about twice as large as the bottom one. The vertical is the usual cell phone screen. The horizontal display is actually a touchscreen.

Give the first bar a push with your thumb and the second bar is revealed. It simply has the key pad, as well as a few other functional buttons like Send, Clear and Power. The keys have a slick design: every other key is raised, so it is noticeable when you’re drifting to another button. Two pimple-sized buttons surround the “5” to make the middle easy to find. While the sides of the first bar are silverly smooth, the second bar’s sides are packed with holes and buttons. On the left side are the headphone jack, volume buttons, a voice command key, and a USB/charging port. On the right are the microSD slot, a camera key and a video key. On the very back is a small camera lens.

Setup and Use

For having two connected sections and two screens (one of which is a touchscreen), the LG Venus is simple to use. Lightly push the bottom of the phone and the first bar rises to activate the vertical display and the horizontal touchscreen. The touchscreen has four options in squares: Message, Contact, All Calls and Shortcut. Press the appropriate touchscreen square and the vertical display will change along with the touchscreen menu options. It is all contextual. In other words, the Contact touchscreen options include Call, Edit Contact, and so forth. The touchscreen is sensitive without being too responsive, and the phone does a satisfying little shake whenever it accepts your touch. The Venus comes with a half-inch user guide, but most users won’t need it to explore its basic and moderate abilities.

The Venus does come with a disc for Verizon’s proprietary V-Cast multimedia software, but the CD, strangely, just sent us to the website to download the actual software. It is only compatible with PCs, and specifically with Windows XP or Vista, which is disappointing. However, the software download was quick and painless. (The web link is http://www.vzam.net/vcastmusic/.)

Image Courtesy of LG