LG VX8700 - Sharp Phone. But why so Many Silly Toys?

Author's Rating:

Pros: Quality build, nice looks, large bright screen. Fair to good sound quality.

Cons: Too many ineffective and inefficient toys. No cradle recharger, limited Bluetooth data transfer.

The Bottom Line: 
Nice looking and well made cell phone. Loaded with useless toys which children may enjoy but grown-ups will find a silly waste of time.

Author's Review
I use a cell phone to talk business related calls which roll over from a primary office number. To me I need a phone which offers ease of use, clear calling and durability. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cell phones currently offered are less phone and more toy. I am very sorry if I am offending any gadget freaks, but I just don't see why a cell phone must be cluttered with barely functional "add-on" functions which offer inferior quality of use to stand alone devices. (if you need a MP3 player, I suggest buying a stand alone player, you will have ease of use, better battery life and dare I say, a better cell phone!) I will temper my frustration with current cell phone "features" at this point, but I will mention some of the obvious "cell phone clutter" problems in this review.

Appearance and Build:
Much has been written regarding the appearance of the LG VX8700. With it's brushed steel body and sleek looks, this phones does look sharp. It has a solid, hefty feel. Opening and closing the flip offers a solid feel. Its external color display is nice on the eyes, but unlike my wife's easy to use Coupe cell phone, its display does not stay on all the time. You must press one of the external function buttons to turn the display on. The main reason I favor an always-on external display is for easy view the time. The display does look and act like a small mirror when the display is off.

The LG VX8700 does not open fully flat leaving about 10 degrees of curvature. This is a good thing as the phone shapes the head better this way. There is no external antennae and there seems to be no reduction in reception. The VX8700 feels fairly well balanced when open with the screen end oddly feeling a little heavier than the keypad/battery end. This phone is thin and as such is a little hard to hold onto. As cell phones have been down-sized to the size of a match box, it makes me wonder how do we hold onto these things? Remember the old "Brick" cell phones which looked more like a walkie-talkie from "Hogan's Heros"? At least that brick was easy to hold onto! Perhaps a compromise would be in order. Must we have postage stamp sized cell phones?

The internal display of the VX8700 is very nice even under varying light conditions. I can't imagine a cell phone display needing offer sharper and clearer image quality. But then again, some folks are actually watching TV or movies on cell phones. To those who require such display functionality, the VX8700 is a good choice. I do have a better suggestion though; go home and watch TV on your 50 inch flat panel! Even though my eye sight is 20/20, I do like the ability to display the number dialed in very large font, as it can help you cancel a misdialed call before it is connected. There is no way to alter the contrast of brightness of the screen, but honestly, you will probably not require this as great thought has obviously gone into the visual quality of the VX8700 screen.

Setting up the phone for first use was simple. The initial charge took about 2 hours. From there a simple automated call to Verizon was that was needed to activate the phone. The charger port serves as a USB port and wired headset jack. The USB cable is not included with the phone. This combo port is covered by a small plastic tab which in turn is held in place by a thin strip of plastic. I can see this port cover tearing off within a year. I ecommend being gentle with this little plastic port cover. I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world should it be removed entirely.

Controls and Interface:
The LG VX8700 has a rocker volume switch, voice command button and charging/USB port on the left. The right side has a camera shutter button. The keypad works well, particularly given the thin size of this phone. The white back-lit keys offer a light tactile press. I do feel that the right/left arrow keys are too thin and I often press the wrong key as a result (and I have very small hands/fingers). The user interface is apparently fairly standard to all Verizon phones. The LG VX8700 does offer two choices of display themes. I am using the default grey/blue interface theme for now. The other is a red/blue theme which I have seen on other Verizon phones. There are a great many setup options on this phone, many of which you will need to consult the phones manual to explain. Thankfully, most of the esoteric options do not need much attention or alternation.

The voice dialing feature works well enough to sometimes be helpful. The phone usually gets the name I ask for correctly. I did find a little bug in the Voice Training setup area. The train Digital Dialing dialog fails to work. You are asked to say "025714". You can say this as many times as you like, but the phone will not recognize the numbers. This is obviously a software clitch and I have heard it reported elsewhere.

The phone includes calendar, calculator, alarm, world clock, notepad and tip calculator tools. These can be linked to a hot key button (right/left/up/down buttons). Oddly the notepad tool cannot be linked to a hotkey. The notepad also has no password feature. To bad as cell phones with password notepads can be a nice place to hide personal info. The calendar feature isn't bad and I am trying to use that to schedule important meetings and set reminders for them.

Sound Quality:
I purchased the LG VX8700 after I had read several reviews of the LG VX8700. Some of the reviews had positive things to say regarding this phones call sound quality. One must bear in mind that a cell phone's call sound quality is greatly a factor of the cell network connection quality. I find the sound quality of the LG VX8700 to be at least as good as my wife's Coupe. In speaker mode however the LG VX8700 is only fair. At its highest volume the quality is distorted by some rattling of the tiny speaker. Turn the volume down to eliminate the rattle and the call is very quiet. I have not yet tested the phone with a headset or Bluetooth headset, but I will offer an update when I do so.

The "Toys":
I am not going to go into technical detail regarding the non-phone features of the LG VX8700. The LG VX8700 has a 2 mega pixel camera which also takes video. There is no flash unit on the camera so you will need good lighting for decent photos. With no memory card inserted the phone can take about 30 seconds of video with sound. The camera and video are pretty easy to use but no where as easy as a stand alone camera. The quality of the photos you take on a cell phone will be impacted by the stability with which you hold the device. A "camera" is generally built for the user to hold the device steady while taking a photo. A cell phone, particularly a slim and light unit, can be difficulty to hold steady to achieve a good photo.

The great difficulty in getting photos or videos uploaded to your PC will cause you to wonder why on earth there is even a camera on the phone. I suppose the idea is that you can send photos to another phone (for a fee of course. Verizon does a good job of camouflaging costs involved for data transfer I believe that you may be able to purchase an unlimited data transfer monthly package, but I need another bill like a hole in my head. Many "services" offered come at a price which a Harvard economist would have a hard time understanding). In order to move photos from the phone to your PC you will need either a Bluetooth PC adapter (available on Ebay or Amazon for 10-15 dollars) or you need a USB cable which can also be found online for 10 dollars or so. I had a Bluetooth adapter and tried the connection utilizing the freeware version of BitPIM (http://www.bitpim.org). It took some fiddling around for about 30 minutes, but I got my PC to find the phone. BitPim allows you to upload contacts, ringer tones and photos TO the phone. To get photos off the phone to the PC using BitPim, oddly you must select "Wallpaper" as the source. This works but it is quite clumsy.

I do not have the special USB cable connector so I cannot test USB uploading to my PC. I find it strange that cell phone maker add features to phones but fail to make them useable. Why was no USB connector included with the phone? My guess is that they figured that most users will never use the camera or music features on the phone. So they can grind a few more bucks by selling the cable separately to the few users who would actually use such features.

Now for the really silly "feature" of the LG VX8700. Apparently you can download music and video (for a price mind you) from Verizon via the "Get it Now" menu selection on the user interface. Of course Verizon places the "Get it Now" selection at the TOP of the menu, no doubt hoping that users will jump on board and toss Verizon oodles of cash for ringer tones, MP3's and silly postage stamp video. I beleive that there is a way to actually upload music to the phone using the not included USB cable, but I have not yet tested this as I have no such cable. Apparently once you have uploaded and MP3 to the phone, you would then navigate to the "Get it Now" menu option and find your MP3 somewhere in the menu listing. Talk about poor user interface design! Again, I think the idea is to make such a transfer of data to the phone so difficult that the user will ultimately give up and try the Verizon "Get it Now" feature to download (and pay). This sort of user interface is truly evidence of pathetic corporate contempt for its customers. So in effect the LG VX8700 (and many if not most cell phones offered) offers an MP3 player, but the feature is so hobbled by Verizons greed that the feature actually is quite useless. If you like music on the go you no doubt already have an MP3 player. Trust me, a stand alone MP3 player produced by any maker will be far superior to the silly MP3/media player offered by the LG VX8700 (or most any other cell phone).

Battery Life:
As I do not use video/music or other wireless data features, I discovered that you can disable EVDO connectivity to greatly extend the battery life. For me, internet connectivity or data features are best left to the home or office. If I need internet connectivity once a month, I can pay as I go and not pony up 15 bucks a month. I found that disabling the EVDO connection still allowed me to connect to view email if needed. By turning this connection off, you essentially double or triple the battery life apparently because the phone will not constantly try to connect to the network.
To turn off EVDO:

1. Take your phone. Flip it open.
2. Dial ##77647268700 and hit "SEND"
3. When the 'Service Code' screen appears, dial: 000000
4. In the programming menu, select "3. Network Select"
5. Select "1. Mode Preference"
6. Select the option "1X only"
7. Press OK
8. Press END to leave the menu and return to the main screen.

I tested the phone initially with EVDO in it's default ON status. The battery life was about 1 day. When I disabled the EVDO I can get 3-4 days standby. Recharging is a bit of a turn off when compared to the ease of my wife's Coupe which uses a small charging cradle. The Coupe requires no cable or rubber cover to remove. Just slide the Coupe into its cradle. The LG VX8700 has no cradle recharger. It can only be recharged by removing its rubber charging jack cover and inserting its charger cord. Charging is fast however with a charge being completed in 1-2 hours.


Overall:
As I stated earlier, I need a cell phone to make and receive business related calls. I didn't need an MP3 player, camera, video player or PC stand-in. THe actual cell phone functions of the The LG VX8700 are quite good. It's appearance and build quality are very good. It would be nice to have a user interface option which elliminated the clutter from the menus. I don't use the camera or media functions. It would be nice to disable these functions and have them disappear from the menu.

The LG VX8700 offers quality construction, good looks and good call sound quality. The price was right as I purchased it through Amazon and received a $50.00 dollar rebate, making the effective price $9.99. If you are considering this phone check out Amazon first. Verizon will sell the phone for more. At the time I ordered, Verizon wanted $179.00 as their "special" price. While ordering through Amazon took a few more days it was worth it to save $170.00 dollars! I will add that my wife and I opened separate accounts with Verizon as their Family Share plans do not really save any money. Plus we both use the phones for our separate businesses.

While I can do without the toy features of this phone, the phone works fine. I will add some sort of external cover for the phone as it is a little too thin and hard to hold. I don't mind scratching or smudging the phone as I think it will look nicer with some battle scars. A cover will just help me hold it a bit easier.

UPDATE: 3/8/08
I purchased a USB cable ($3.91 from Amazon, including 2 chargers) and a 2 GB microSD (12 dollars) card for this phone. I also bought a corded stereo headset made to fit the VX8700's headset port ($9.00). After 10 minutes of searching on the web, I found that Verizon has a software download for its V-cast phones. This software will allow you to upload mp3's to your VX8700 via the USB cable. While this software is not easy to use, I was able to clumbsily get some MP3's uploaded to my phone.

LISTENING TO MP3's:
To get to your MP3's you will have to go to "Get it Now" on the menu, click Music and Tones, then click My Music. The V Cast software will load (4 to 5 seconds) then you may use a rather pathetic GUI to navigate to your music. I recommend setting My Music as one of your hotkeys so you can launch your music with a single click) Once playing the player sounds quite good with my stereo headset. The top volume position will give you fair output, but could certainly be louder. You can play MP3's without ear phones and the sound is not bad with the handset open and at a low volume. If you close the handset you will notice that there is no external speaker so the sound is muffled. In addition, just as with the speaker phone, louder volume results in noticeable rattle. You will have to back the volume down to avoid this.

USB connectivity does little to enhance the value of this phone, as the software interfaces available are clumbsy and difficult to use. It is rather funny that Verizon put so much effort into their V Cast software. It was obviously intended to SELL music to users and was not intended to allow users to easily upload their own MP3's. The MP3 player offers good sound quality through a headset, but its poor software makes it difficult to use.