This phone just may take you on a Voyage to dream land with its modern style, nifty touchscreen, great resolution and clarity, and reasonable price for the features it holds. It is a phone with CDMA technology and high-speed EVDO, for data transmission, that offers Internet using 3G. The style is similar to that of the enV with features and quality comparable to the iPhone. To keep with the tradition of being corny; go on a mobile dream voyage with the LG Voyager VX10000! (Corny joke IS very neccessary.)
Design and Style:
The Voyager it quite large at 4.6 inches tall, 2.1 inches wide, and 0.7 of an inch thick with 4.7 ounces of gravity pulling it down. This is not such a bad thing since LG manages to make this phone look slick and sleek with a solid, sturdy feel. This is definitely not a fragile egg of a phone. You’ll feel its presence in your pocket and it’s such a nice feeling.
The dominating display on the front is 2.8 inches with 400 x 240 pixels. The touchscreen has buzz back to confirm the pressing of the large and easy to see icons. A virtual QWERTY keyboard exists for web surfing but when using the external display for texting you have to use a 9 key numeric pad. This makes for a perplexity.
Below this magnificent display are the Send, End, and Clear buttons. The Clear key also serves as the voice-dialing function key when pressed quickly. This could be annoying when the key is accidentally pressed and you hear a voice asking you to say a name. No need to think you’re going crazy – or crazier than you already are – it’s just the phone. Press the Clear key longer and you’ll start the function key.
The display shows the date, time, signal strength, and photo caller ID when in standby mode. The sensitivity of the touchscreen cannot be changed though but the vibration time and intensity can.
On the right spine is the microSD card slot as well as the 2.5mm headset jack.
The phone flips open sideways like the LG enV. Shrink your laptop down to this size and you have the LG Voyager. The QWERTY keyboard has spacious keys that are comfortable to your fingers. Above this keyboard is the 2.8 inch internal display that is 400 x 240 pixels in screen resolution. Flanking the display on both sides are the stereo speakers. The dialing font, backlight time, menu fonts, and dialing fonts can be changed. You can change the back-light time, the menu font style, and the dialing font size as well.
Keeping with cell phone tradition and practicality, the camera lens is on the back. Not so traditional is the antenna that extends out of the top left corner of the Voyager for those who wish to pay $15 a month for Verizon’s mobile TV service. It has 8 channels in which to choose from. Right by the antenna is the charger port.
The menu system of the LG Voyager is icon-based. Hold your finger to the screen and move it and you can scroll the screen to view menus. This also works with the Internet pages as well. This does require some getting use to but if you’re like me and like to play with your new phone for hours after opening the box, this will take no time.
Messaging:
The touchscreen is a nice feature for this LG phone. It’s too bad the touchscreen keyboard isn’t available for texting or instant messages. Opening the phone provides for the best messaging experience and it is a nice one. Instant messaging is available through AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. Email works well and there is no trouble setting up those up. Although there is no way to email pictures or videos, the phone does handle incoming picture and video messages well.
Internet:
The external display shows full Web pages nicely, as good as any iPhone. The LG Voyager has an option to show the Web in 3G. Viewing photos, selecting links, and clicking through pages is quite easy. Scrolling through pages is a matter of sliding your finger along the display, although it isn’t as quick as we’d like. The external display is better for viewing pages over the internal display, simply because the controls are bothersome.
The onscreen QWERTY keyboard is only used for the Internet and has nice buzzy feedback that helps you make sure of the keys that are pressed. We would prefer the touchscreen QWERTY keyboard to be used for every application, but eh, maybe the next version will get light of this neglect.
Camera:
The 2.0 mega-pixel camera is pretty standard for cell phones. There is no flash but there is auto-focus and a 2.5x digital zoom. Pictures are taken in 1,600 x 1,200, 1,280 x 960, 640 x 480, and 320 x 240 pixel resolutions. White and color settings have four options as well. There is a night mode, self timer, brightness control, spot metering, and three shutter sounds with an option to silence the shutter. The camera’s menu can be accessed from the external display.
The quality of the pictures taken is pretty decent. The colors were bright and sharp as long as the camera is held still and as said before, the auto-focus helps. The auto-focus makes it easy to keep the phone steady but the lack of flash limits the usage of the camera in dim lit areas.
The video recorder, with sound, has 320 x 240 and 176 x 144 resolutions. 30 seconds is the limit for multimedia messages. However, if you just plan on storing the videos on your phone, the length is only limited to your available memory. Taking videos horizontally is better to get the full image. The quality of the videos that are taken are smooth and in sync but quick movements aren’t handled well by the video camera.
GPS:
The GPS is a feature that makes this phone great but could use some minor improvement. The sensor of the GPS was strong outside as well as in. The navigation loads quickly and the maps are clearly readable. The directions are accurate. Verizon really does well with its navigation features. $9.99 a month or $2.99 for a day’s use is not bad for the convenience of this turn-by-turn technology.
Battery:
Touchscreen requires a bit more energy than regular phones. The LG Voyager comes with a 950 mAh Li-Polymer battery that claims to give the phone 240 minutes of talk time and an amazing 10 days of standby – because of the energy saving features. However, using Bluetooth, Media, and watching TV will drain the battery quickly. If you use all of the features of this phone plan on charging it every day. Moderate usage will require the phone to be charged every other day.
Making Phone Calls:
The call quality is fairly decent but not as good as we expected. There is no conference calling with the Voyager. The voice dialing wasn’t disappointing though. The speaker phone was loud and clear. Although it takes more of a toll on the batter life, the Bluetooth is a nicer experience on the Voyager than regular calling.
Talk tests lasted about 5 hours, which is longer than they promised.
Media:
Listening to music didn’t wow anybody but it’s as nice as any other media phone. Verizon offers V Cast Music, which is always nice. The V Cast Music Store sells downloads for an average of $1.99 each. Music can be easily synced from the PC if cheaper means are available, as there are. The music player can be totally controlled through the touchscreen.
The LG Voyager offers more options; you can go through the tracks by scrolling the progress bar and you just simply click a song to be put on a play list.
The 2.5mm jack is disappointing because we would rather use our own headphones.
The video, now this is amazing. The display rivals that of the Vu. Television is sharp with 3G service. The 8 station limit isn’t as bad as it sounds. NBC, CBS, and Comedy Central offers prime time shows like Bionic Woman, Heroes, the Daily Show, and Colbert Report. MTV is available. Live broadcast is also a great virtue of the Voyager.
The music videos aren’t as great of an experience as the Mobile TV but the TV is hard to top. V Cast video has never been the greatest of quality when compared to the quality of the supreme. If you don’t have too high of a standard with music videos while going mobile, it may just work for you. Moderation rarely hurts anybody.
Memory:
The LG Voyager supports microSD cards of up to 8GB with an internal flash memory of 18MB.
The Gist of It
Some complaints:
Widescreen QWERTY should’ve been available for more applications, especially for messaging. The web browser wasn’t a responsive as we like; of course, we’re use to things being instantaneous.
Some compliments:
The Haptic feedback puts this touch-phone in its own class. The comparison of the V Cast TV and real TV is amazing. The call quality is pretty decent.
The current online price for the date of this article is $149 with a 2 year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate through Verizon Wireless.
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