Sleek, Shiny and Functional - The LG VX8700 Cell Phone looks good and functions well

Author's Rating:

Pros: Small and lightweight, Sleek, Easy-to-use LG interface, 2.0-megapixel camera, Bluetooth

Cons: Display and keypad can be hard to see because of glare and reflections

The Bottom Line: 
Looks good, small and easy to carry, offers good reception, has a 2-megapixel camera, has Bluetooth, and comes with plenty of other useful features

Author's Review
The LG VX8700 is a stylish and functional cellular phone that should easily satisfy most users. For starters, the phone offers good reception, clear calls, camera and video capabilities, Bluetooth connectivity and a speakerphone. Not only that, there are plenty of other features and capabilities included with this phone, which packs a lot into a light, thin and easy to carry package.

As I reached the two year mark with my trusty old LG VX7000, I actually really didn’t want to trade it in. I had gone to the Verizon store and checked out phones but nothing really grabbed me and besides having lost the wall charger (I had to charge it in the car), the phone was working fairly well and after two years, I was so used to it, I didn’t want to get rid of it.

A couple of months later with vacation looming (and the lack of a car while I was there to charge the phone), I realized I probably had to break down and upgrade. I figured it would also help out with reception and the like since I noticed folks with newer phones being able to use their phones in more places than me.

Thus I walked into the Verizon Wireless store and decided I would upgrade to another LG phone since my last two had been LG’s and I’ve had good luck with them. I knew I wanted something with a good camera and I wanted a speakerphone. A slick looking phone was also another desire. That’s when I came across the LG VX8700 with its brushed steel exterior and smooth, silver interior. It offered the same general LG navigation menus that I like but in a thinner, lighter and more feature packed phone than before.

LG VX8700 Details

The first thing that struck me about the VX8700 was the way it looks. The exterior is brushed steel with a narrow display running along the middle of the front of the phone and the camera lens just above that display. Once open, the phone is silver on the inside with a large interior display and a backlit keypad. There’s a couple of buttons on either side of the phone that provide quick access to the camera functions and sound levels. There’s also the MicroSD card port that also can be used for charging and data functions.

Size and Weight
The VX8700 is a fairly lightweight and compact phone. It measures just under 4 inches in height and 2 inches in width and is only a little over ½ an inch thick when it’s in its closed position. It weighs in at about 3.77 ounces. That makes it small enough and light enough to fit almost anywhere.

Keypad
If you’ve ever used an LG phone, the keypad structure of the phone will be familiar to you. There are the standard numeric keys and then along the upper portion of the keypad you have, on the left and right sides respectively, the send and end function keys, the clear and speakerphone keys and the two menu navigation keys. In the center of this upper portion you have the ok button surrounded by a 4-way button that lets you navigate through the menus on the phone.

One thing that I’m not terribly fond of with the phone is the fact that the keypad is basically smooth. That is, while there are lines separating the buttons, they aren’t raised and it can be a bit difficult to know if you are pressing the right key until you do. It also makes it easy for your finger to slip and accidentally press a different key. The other thing I’ve run into with the keypad is that in bright conditions the white, backlit lighting on the brushed steel can be a difficult to see. I end up having to look closely at the keypad in these conditions, which can be a pain at times. That said, at night or in darker conditions, the backlit numbering on the keypad is really easy to see, even if the smooth keypad might through you for a loop at times.

Menu Structure
It took me about 5 minutes of clicking around in the menu structure of the VX8700 to figure out the vast majority of the functions. Almost all of the menu structure is the same as older phones with the major differences only being the new additional features available on the 8700 and the subsequent menu changes to accommodate them. The main menu consists of five different categories: Get it Now; Messaging; Contacts; Recent Calls; and Settings & Tools. Each dive down into a number of different subcategories that let you modify almost every function on the phone.

Call Quality, Reception and Call Features
As I’ve used my new phone around my home and elsewhere, I’ve been surprised at how much better the reception has been in areas where in the past, I might have not had a signal or had spotty service at best. For example, my office is located in a basement and while my old phone would work, I would often lose the call or the call would be so badly garbled, we couldn’t understand one another. With the 8700, it’s like I’m standing outside making a call – I haven’t had a dropped call and the clarity has been fine down in the basement.

I was a bit concerned at the lack of an exterior antenna on the 8700, but it doesn’t appear to be a problem. It has worked everywhere that my old phone worked and now works in several areas where the old phone didn’t work at all. Not only that, the calls sound significantly better – both for me and for the person I’m speaking to (so I’m told).

When it comes to call features, the 8700 offers one-touch programmable dialing, which I use to quickly call the numbers I call the most often. There’s also voice-dialing which lets you set up the phone to dial numbers that you ask it to dial.

Speakerphone
One thing I’ve always wanted on a cell phone and never had is a speakerphone – if only to use it to let a couple of us talk to someone at the same time or use it when I had to be doing something else with my hands. Well, I finally got that functionality with the 8700, which has a one-touch speakerphone. Once you’ve made a call, all you have to do is press the speakerphone button and it transfers the phone to speakerphone mode. From what I can tell – it’s got a very sensitive microphone as I’ve used it while driving and the phone is on the passenger seat and the other person has been able to hear me fine. I’ve also used it where my partner and I are talking to someone and both the outgoing and incoming sound has been good.

Bluetooth
I’m new to having a Bluetooth enabled phone, so it was interesting to get to learn about this technology as I got used to using the 8700. As part of my phone upgrade, I went ahead and got one of those Bluetooth headsets and the set up was very easy. I put the headset into discovery mode and then had the phone search for it, which it found right away. Now it’s easy to make and take calls on the headset. I know there’s more functionality to Bluetooth too – like the ability to send and receive data and directly print to Bluetooth functional printers, but at the moment, I don’t have any of those capabilities and haven’t been able to try them.

Display
The larger interior display on the 8700 is a bright, 11-line, 240x320 pixel color LCD screen. My only real complaint about this screen is that in very bright conditions or bright sunshine, it becomes almost impossible to see between the reflections and the fact that the picture gets washed out in the bright conditions. I’ve found myself having to shade the screen in very bright conditions just so I can see it – which when one is taking pictures, can be a pain. The exterior display is smaller and features a color LCD screen with 48x160 pixel with three lines. This display generally displays the time and phone status, but also shows caller ID when a call is coming in and can be used to see what you are taking a photograph of when the camera is closed.

Camera
I learned to love my cell phone camera on my VX7000. I was able to capture candid moments when I didn’t have my regular phone with me. Not only that, I was also able to capture short videos, which were a ton of fun. So I made sure that any new phone I was going to get, had to have a camera that improved upon what I had in the 7000 (which really, wasn’t that hard).

The VX8700 comes with a 2-megapixel camera. This almost blows me away – that’s more megapixels than my first digital camera! It offers 4 different resolution modes – the full 2-megapixel resolution at 1600 x 1200, the default 1280 x 960 resolution, a 640 x 480 resolution and finally the lowest resolution at 320 x 240 pixels. The highest resolution is good enough for standard 3x5 and 4x6 prints while the two middle resolutions are good for websites and emails. The lowest resolution is really only useful for pictures that you’ll store on the phone and use as wallpaper. There’s a digital zoom feature available, but I wouldn’t suggest using it, since I’ve found the best photos are when you haven’t used the zoom feature. There are also several different modes available while taking photos including a night-mode and options available include adjusting the white balance, brightness and timer functions on the camera.

Not only is there a camera though, the 8700 also has a camcorder feature that lets you record video at either 320 x 240 or 176 x 144 pixels.

The number of photos and the length of video is only limited by the amount of storage you have. With a MicroSD card you could conceivably record a video of quite some length. However if you want to send the video to another phone as a video message, you are limited to a 30-second clip.

Music & Video
With the appropriate setup from Verizon, the VX8700 also doubles as an MP3 player. You can download music directly from their VCast service or store your MP3’s on the MicroSD card and play them back on the phone. You can also use the VCast service to download video clips and play them back on the 8700.

Messages
Feel like sending a message instead of actually calling someone? The VX8700 lets you send and receive text messages, picture and video messages. Text messaging is no different than other phones, though there is a short-cut key that lets you get into the messaging section of the menu without having to go through the menus. From here you can type out your message, send your picture or send a video to someone else. You can also check out any messages you may have received.

Talk-Time & Battery Life
According to Verizon, the 8700 is rated for about 200 minutes or a little over 3 hours of talk time on a full charge. If you were to just leave the phone in standby mode, the charge is expected to last around 240 hours (or about 10 days). What I’ve found is that I’ve got to charge the phone about every 2 to 3 days with regular usage each day. I make and receive several calls each day, I often fiddle with the camera functions, and I send and receive a number of text messages, all of which use up the life in the battery more quickly than either leaving it in standby or just making and receiving calls.

Charging can be done either with a standard charger or with an auto-charger. It doesn’t take too long to charge the battery if you aren’t using the phone while it’s charging.

Programs
The 8700 comes with the standard programs you’ll find on other LG phones. That includes the calculator, the calendar, an alarm clock, world clock, notepad and tip calculator. For me, the most useful is the alarm, which I set to remind me about things at various times. The notepad is also useful for jotting down quick thoughts that you want to save for later – but anything beyond a sentence or two is tedious when you have to use the keypad to type it out.

MicroSD Card
I haven’t really tried out this functionality yet, but you can store your pictures, videos and music on a MicroSD card connected to the phone (up to two gigabytes worth). You can then remove the card from the phone and with an adapter, connect it to your computer and download the information stored on the card.

What's in the box?

If you just purchase the LG VX8700 from Verizon without any additional packages, you will get the phone, a standard ac power charger and a pouch to store your phone in.

I went with their standard package that also added the Bluetooth headset, a leather case and an auto charger for the phone.

Use

While it was the look of the phone that first grabbed me, now that I’ve been using the 8700 for a while, I’m learning to love all the features that it offers. I’ve been taking pictures of everything and the difference in quality between my old phone and this phone is amazing. Not only that, I love the increased reception and improved call quality, which lets me use my phone in places that were either difficult or impossible before. The speakerphone has come in handy too, letting me talk to people hands free when I don’t have my Bluetooth headset available and letting a group of us talk to someone at the other end of the line. It’s also been neat to learn about Bluetooth and further explore the functionality of the phone. I might not be using everything on the phone yet, but I figure, give me some time and I’ll manage to exploit most of its features.

Final Thoughts

Besides the glare on the interior display and keypad in really bright conditions, I don’t have that much to complain about with LG VX8700. It looks good, it’s small and easy to carry, it offers good reception and call clarity, has a 2-megapixel camera, offers Bluetooth connectivity, and comes with so many other features that most people will probably not even realize what all the phone can do.

I’m glad I went with another LG phone. I’ve found them to be well made, easy to use, and long-lasting and from what I’ve seen so far, the 8700 is no different.

While its looks sold me when I first saw it, now that I’ve had the LG VX8700 for a while, it’s the call clarity, reception and features that I really enjoy – especially that camera. I for one am quite happy that I found this phone and look forward to using it in the future.


10/15/07 Update

After several months of pretty flawless service, my phone apparently suffered a software “glitch” or as the Verizon tech said “it crashed.” That caused the phone to shut itself off and not turn back on again.

I took it back to Verizon and went through their repair service in the store. The tech there played with it for several minutes, swapping out batteries, trying to reset it and nothing did the trick. The phone was pretty much as dead as a phone could get.

Since the phone was under warranty, I was given a new phone. That new phone has been working fine since I received it, though I have to admit that I’m not quite as sure of its reliability now. I’m going to make sure that any photos or videos are downloaded off the phone fairly regularly – since that’s really all that I lost on the original phone. As for my contacts, I use Verizon’s backup utility so I didn’t lose any of those.

I asked the tech if this had been a common problem and she said that she hasn’t seen any other of these phones fail like this. So perhaps (hopefully) it’s just a fluke. I’ll post another update in a few months to go over how this phone has been doing.

March 2008 Update

Since getting the new phone back in October of 2007, I haven't had any issues with its replacement. So I'm thinking that the crash and failure of my original VX8700 was just a fluke.