EnV LG VX9900
Posted on Sep 11, 2007 by Rob in All, Older, Review
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Well I’ve had my new enV phone for about a week now and I thought I would share my own little review of this phone. I should probably start by explaining that I am a bit of a phone junkie and have owned (and often burned out) dozens of phones over the years.
I have owned everything from the basic candybars from the mid-90’s to the latest PDA phones on the market. At first glance the enV has the same cheap look that it’s predecessor (the V) has. When holding and using the phone you quickly find that this is not the case at all. The build quality of the enV is very nice and is made with some decent density plastics. The hinge on the clamshell is very solid and clicks easily into it’s three positions (closed, tilted, and 90 degrees). The outside buttons are solid and have a good tactile feel to them, though placement of the camera button above the volume may have not been the best choice. The button inside the clamshell are solid as well, though the directional buttons feel soft and may damage faster with heavy usage. The keyboard is easy to use and I found myself able to type rather quickly with my average sized hands. The screens are amazing in quality and are a high enough resolution to give the image an excellent edge. I was disappointed to find that there is no way to dim the backlight on the enV so battery life may be shorter than expected. Speaker quality is better than average phones, but nothing to get excited about. Overall I have been very happy with this phone and the options it has. As always with Verizon there are limitations to it’s functions without paying extra monthly costs. The VCast player is still awful as always, but with the good memory card support (up to 8GB) you can easily hold enough music on it. A few GetitNow programs come built into the enV such as Navigator, Mobile IM, and Wireless Sync Email. You will need to have some subscriptions in place to utilize these features though. One nice thing I found is that custom wallpapers and ringtones are easy to add to the phone so that is one cost you can save on. The camera is very nice in quality, though the lens cover is manual and tends to rattle a little.
Pros:
- Great build quality
- Loud volume
- Excellent screen resolution
- Full QWERTY keyboard with directional pad
- Easy to customize ringtones and wallpapers
- Good camera
Cons:
- Extra software requires up to $50 a month in subscriptions to use
- Manual camera lens cover is cheaply made
- Soft directional pad feels somewhat cheap
- VCast player still included
Overall I would highly recommend this phone to users who love to text message and use IM a lot. It is an excellent phone with a lot of great features. The build quality is good enough to easily last the two years until contract renewal.
