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An average brand-name Netbook (e.g. Dell, HP) with a standard 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and 1GB of RAM costs about $300. Cell Phone carriers including AT&T and Verizon now offer subsidized Netbooks with a 3G Wireless Broadband card built in. So the big question: “Is it worth purchasing a Netbook with a contract?” The simple answer is NO.

For example, let’s take a look at the HP Mini 110. It retails for about $300 excluding tax straight from HP.com. Verizon Wireless offers the same configuration of the Mini 110 for a subsidized price of $150. Half-off seems like a great deal, but it’s not. First there’s a $35 activation fee. Next you’ll have to sign-up for a data plan that costs $60 per month for just 5GB of data. I should note that there’s also a $40/month data plan that offers just 250MB of data. Considering that I feel 5GB itself is too little, 250MB is just ridiculous. Plus there’s also a 2-year contract associated with the device. To get out, you’ll have to pay the $175 early termination fee. So if you add that up here’s what you get:

$150 (HP Mini 110) + $35 (Activation Fee) + $1440 (5GB Plan, $60 x 24 Months) = $1625.

Keep in mind that I didn’t include tax either. That’s nearly the cost of a fairly high-end Dell XPS laptop or MacBook Pro. Although Netbooks are a great tool, it’s not a good idea to spend that much for one and be stuck with it for two years. The technology is evolving and new models that run faster and longer keep coming out. Dual Core Atom processors are probably going to hit Netbooks within the next few months. Your Netbook will be outdated in no time. Unless you need a computer with 3G Broadband at all times, it might be better just to use hotspots when you need access. If you decide to upgrade your netbook every year, you can do so and still end up paying less than half of what a contracted Netbook costs. If you really need broadband on the go, either try to add a tethering plan to your current phone, grab a MiFi that works with multiple devices, or a separate 3G USB Modem.

Links: AT&T Netbooks | Verizon Netbooks

On another note, Verizon Wireless also announced the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530. Unlike the clickable touch-screen the Storm2 features (see our review), it has traditional form factor with a physical QWERTY keyboard. Unlike older BlackBerry phones, this one does away with the trackball, replacing it with a touch-sensitive trackpad. And for some quick specs for this phone, it’s packed with WiFi, 3G, GPS, 2 megapixel camera, and mainly a lot of business/enterprise features. The Curve 9530 will be available on November 20th for $99 after a $100 rebate and signing a 2-year contract.

We will be getting a hold of both of these phones in the coming days and will be publishing full reviews shortly after. In the meantime, to be the first to read our reviews, subscribe to our RSS Feed, sign up for Email Subscriptions, or find us on Facebook or Twitter!

If there is anything you should take from that last paragraph, it should be that I am hypercritical when it comes to reviewing smart phones because I have yet to experience the recipe for a so-called “iPhone-Killer”. So when I say that the Motorola Droid is my new favorite phone, you can take me seriously. Yes, yes, all of the smart phones in this generation do just about everything short of cooking for you. But the Droid just does it better with Motorola’s feature-packed hardware, Android’s new open source operating system, and Verizon’s high quality network. I’ll explain.

The Hardware
This phone is built like a tank. It weighs about an ounce more than the iPhone, but the extra weight just makes the Droid feel like it’s expensive and has a lot to offer rather than just a heavy burden. I was initially concerned about the sliding mechanism for the keyboard, which is often the first to break on phones with a similar form factor. However, this isn’t the case. The Droid is far from flimsy. Although the phone doesn’t sit flush on a flat surface; the shape of the back elevates the phone just enough so that it doesn’t vibrate off of a table or let the camera get scratched. The lip below the screen didn’t seem to serve any purpose, but I soon realized that it houses the microphone and helps the user to tell the speaker from the microphone.

I only have a few small complaints. My first complaint is with the external buttons. Don’t get me wrong, all three power, volume, and camera keys work fine, but they sit loosely in the frame, which feels as though it takes away from the quality of the build. My second complaint is with the battery compartment cover. It slides off rather easily. It even came off once when I pulled it out of a tight pocket in my backpack. I suppose that’s better than not being able to take it off at all, but it’s something to keep in mind if you like your jeans extra tight.

• Overall Quality – 5/5
• Mechanical Parts – 5/5
• External Buttons – 4/5

The Display
Measuring 3.7 inches and 480 x 854 pixel resolution, the Droid’s touch-screen display is beautiful, bright, enormous, and knocks competitor’s displays out of the park. The screen is both larger than the one found on the iPhone and also has over two times screen resolution. That means it can easily fit and render websites normally designed for computers. Plus, it’s large enough of a resolution to playback DVD quality movies. It’s also accurate and sensitive enough to register touches properly. Like all glossy touch screen phones, the screen tends to get covered with fingerprints and smudges, but it’s nothing your t-shirt can’t fix.

• Size – 5/5
• Resolution – 5/5
• Brightness – 5/5
• Quality – 5/5

The Keyboard
The Droid offers both a physical keyboard and an on-screen keyboard to suit your taste. The on-screen keyboard works perfectly in both horizontal and landscape modes. A key press results in both a sound and/or haptic (vibration) feedback. In fact, the on-screen keyboard is almost the same as the iPhone’s, so it should be an easy transition for those used to Apple’s keyboard.

The physical keyboard is pretty standard. The buttons are square and the keys become illuminated when it’s dark. There’s nothing incredibly special or annoying about it. The only issue is the layout. Rather than having slightly offset keys as found on standard keyboards, everything is aligned in a perfect grid. However, just like any other phone, you get used to what you have after a day of use. I shouldn’t understate the keyboard. Many smart phone owners are first time buyers who are accustomed to the traditional click and feel of physical keyboards. The Droid wouldn’t have been as interesting of a phone if it didn’t have one.

One major drawback to the keyboards is the lack of language interchangeability. Android does not offer native on-the-fly language switching. There are a few applications on the Android Marketplace that will do this for you, and something may be in the works for future upgrades, but I’m disappointed that the Droid can’t handle more languages than I can out of the box.

• On-Screen Keyboard – 5/5
• Physical Keyboard – 4/5
• Language Options – 2/5

The Interface
The touch screen interface is flawless, responsive, and frequently used, which makes the Droid extremely intuitive. Surprisingly the Droid lacks multi-touch gestures, while the European version, called the Milestone, offers it. I can’t imagine why they left this out, but hopefully it can get fixed with a future software update. But even without that, the Droid is just as easy to get along with. I felt that the double-tab to zoom command was easier than the pinch-to-zoom since it can be done with just one finger.

There are four touch-sensitive spots below the screen: back, menu, home, and search. The interface controls for nearly every application stay in an orderly manner, so the touch sensitive keys work perfectly everywhere. My favorite by far is search, which looks through both your phone and Google. Thanks to the Droid’s ability to multitask, this feature can be used at just about any time without losing your work. For example, say you are in a call with a friend and need to find the address of a restaurant. Just hit search and type in the name of the restaurant. If the information is not already saved in your address book, it will search Google and display results while remaining on the line.

• Multitasking – 5/5
• Touch Interface – 5/5

Voice Recognition
Android’s voice recognition engine is unparalleled and works with almost everything. That includes slang and even thick accents; “Call Kreestan” works just as well as “Call Kristen”. Android was even able to recognize my French and (bad) Spanish without changing any settings. “Direcciones al gymnasio” (Spanish for “directions to the gym”) gave me a list of nearby gyms while my locale was still set to English. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow using this feature to dictate text messages, but if it did I would image it would work better than the Samsung Rogue. With laws prohibiting texting while driving, it would be a great idea to let you speak your texts through a hands free device.

• Voice Recognition – 5/5

Phone Calls
With all the other stunning aspects of the Droid, it’s quite easy to lose sight of its primary function: a phone. The Droid does not fall short in this category. Calls are as clear as ever and the microphone intelligently cancels out background noises. During one particular call, a caravan of buses passed by not three feet away from me, and the person on the other end didn’t even notice. Until I mentioned the busses to see if anything was heard, the caller thought I was in a quiet room. Signal strength was strong just about anywhere I went in Northern California and I didn’t face any dropped calls. And as I’ve mentioned before, it’s easy to multitask while on the phone. You can add callers, look up contacts, search for information – the only thing you can’t do while on the phone is use the microphone.

• Call Quality – 5/5
• Signal Strength – 5/5

The Android Roadtrip
The Motorola Droid’s features integrate incredibly well with its operating system, Android 2.0, so it’s hard to talk about one without the other. I decided the best way to really discover the capabilities of both by taking the phone on the road and use the Droid for everything and really push it to the limit.

We had no idea where we were going, but we knew what route we wanted to take, so we packed a lunch, hopped in the car, plugged the Droid into the stereo, and created a station for The Kills on Pandora.

Navigation
The Motorola Droid on Verizon is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation. It’s a completely free service that offers 3D maps with voice guided turn-by-turn directions. The VZ Navigator available on most Verizon Wireless phones costs an additional $10 a month for use. A decent turn-by-turn direction App on the iPhone sells for a one time fee of nearly $80-$100. On the other hand Google Maps Navigation is entire free and is offers a lot more.

Our journey through Sacramento was a familiar one. Kristen (my lovely driver) and I were feeling the familiar drone of the autopilot set in, and decided that a caffeine fix was necessary. The Droid features a “Car Home” mode, which offers quick access to on-the-road navigation features. I hit Quick Search and asked for “directions to Starbucks”. The voice recognition registered all the terms successfully and gave me directions to a Starbucks right off of the highway in Folsom. The navigator showed us a Google Street View of our destination, so it was easy to point out where it was upon arrival. If I had the official dashboard mount, the Droid could have easily replaced my current GPS.

The drive through El Dorado National Forest is beautiful. There were lots of trees and mountains that probably should have thrown off the GPS or at least our streaming soundtrack, but both remained strong. We lost GPS signal once while weaving through mountain roads, but that lasted less than five seconds, and the only reason we noticed was because the navigation voice started to give us alternative directions. After seeing a couple small rivers running along side the highway, we had the urge to go find a waterfall. With the GPS and Pandora still running, I searched for “nearby waterfalls”. The browser remained fast even while driving through a forest with the other programs running in the background. I was given results relative to our location – our new destination was Vikingsholm in South Lake Tahoe.

• Navigation Interface – 5/5
• Accuracy of Directions – 5/5
• GPS Accuracy – 5/5

Camera & Camcorder
The Droid sports a 5-megapixel camera. It produces images with a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels. The scenic road through El Dorado was a perfect place to give the camera a shot. With 16GB of memory on the included Micro-SD card, I wasn’t afraid to keep snapping. The camera took some great shots, though I did find that the automatic stabilization function needed the camera to remain still for a few extra seconds to work properly. The digital zoom produced some pretty grainy pictures, as expected. The flash kicked in at appropriate times and improved pictures taken in darker environments. Plus the geo-tagging feature marked coordinates of where those photos were snapped. With a program such as Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto, you can easily import and view your photo library on a visual map.

The Droid’s large screen is great for reviewing photos and videos, though I was most impressed when I played back the captured videos on my laptop. Videos are shot at an impressive 720×480 pixel resolution at 24 FPS. The quality was excellent and it didn’t jitter at all. Android also supports sending images and videos via MMS, email, or uploading to services such as Facebook and YouTube. The Droid’s camera won’t be replacing a traditional camera anytime soon, but it’s a big step up from other camera phones.

• Photo Quality – 5/5
• Video Quality – 5/5
• Camera Interface – 5/5
• Media Sharing – 5/5

Notification System
Android has a centralized notification system to keep track of the things happening on the phone. By simply dragging down the top toolbar, you can view alerts for new emails, texts, missed calls, finished downloads, calendar reminders, and voicemail. On the other hand, the iPhone simply places a number above Apps that have an alert, but that requires swiping through multiple pages to check on them. The BlackBerry Storm2 probably has the most similar ability with its built in news feed. Simply organizing those updates into one place makes thing easy and responding to those alerts is just a single click away. The system also provides a simple interface to access applications that are running in the background. For example, it will show what song it playing on Pandora. It’s definitely going to be hard to go back to other systems after giving this a shot.

• Notification System – 5/5

Speakers & Headphones
The Droid uses a standard 3.5mm audio jack and has no problem putting out high quality sound. It sounded just as good as my iPod Touch. But using headphones on this trip would have been selfish, so I cranked up the volume of the external speakers so that Kristen could listen in. The speaker’s sound quality was absolutely fantastic; they sounded better than my three-year-old Macbook’s speakers! The speakers would not put out much bass, but surprisingly they did not garble the rest of the audio. From ten yards away with a river running in the background, Kristen was able to clearly comprehend Jack White’s lyrics.

• Speaker Quality – 5/5
• Headphones – 5/5

Media Player
While listening to Pandora, I came across a song I really liked by the White Stripes. I clicked on the “Buy” button in the menu and it took me straight to the song’s page on the Amazon MP3 store. I bought the song and opened up Music for an encore. The purchased song was added into my music library with the existing songs from the White Stripes album. Although the phone’s media player offers all the basic functionalities such as browsing by Artist, Album, Genre, or Songs it does have a few issues. For example, you can’t view all the songs by a single Artist, but rather have to jump back and forth through the Albums by that Artist one at a time. Edit: The media player does allow you to view all songs by a single artist, but it was a little tricky to figure out how (touch and hold the desired artist, select “Play”, and hit the “Playlist” button to view all songs). It’s a well developed player and includes Album Art, a shuffle and a repeat feature. Although it could use a few tweaks, it’s a completely viable alternative to purchasing a dedicated MP3 player.

• Music Player – 4/5

Syncing
Before my road trip, I manually copied a few hundred songs from my computer to the phone with the included Micro-USB cable. The phone appeared as a mass storage device and didn’t require any software. Android automatically recognized the music and other content. Although people despise the bloated iTunes software, it offers an easy syncing relationship between a computer and an iPhone/iPod. Unfortunately, neither Motorola nor Verizon suggest nor include a tool to manage your media. Edit: Scratch that, Motorola just released a tool called Media Link which easily lets you manage music, photos, and videos. Computer geeks will find a solution that suites their needs, but others will be left in confusion.

• Library Management – 4/5

Battery Life
The battery was at about 75% when we left Davis. After four hours of multitasking, the Droid was just about finished with a little bit of juice left to take a few pictures, exceeding my expectations completely. The official specs claim 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and about 11 days of standby.

As we headed to the car to start our trip home, after four hours of heavy multitasking, the Droid gave me a low battery notification. It wasn’t just a standard, single-line message; it brought up a panel that displayed the power consumption of each running application. Right at the top of the list were my power hungry applications. I knew where we were going, so with 5% battery left, I closed all applications and put the Droid on standby. It stayed on for another hour, which was both unexpected and impressive, though I would recommend purchasing a car charge if trips like these are a regular occurrence. It only took about three hours to completely charge the phone once we got home.

• Battery Life – 4/5
• Power Management – 5/5

The Bottom Line
So that brings us to the big question, “Would you recommend the Motorola Droid over the Apple iPhone?” Yes and No. In terms of technical specs, yes the Droid is better. Yes, the Droid does have more features. And yes, I would absolutely recommend that you check it out, but in the end it is a matter of preference. I don’t believe the Droid will be the mythical “iPhone-Killer”, but there’s a good chance the Android platform will. For example the HTC Hero which we reviewed last week and the upcoming Samsung Moment on Sprint both run on the Android platform. This means all the same set of applications downloaded through the Android Market, similar to the iTunes App Store, will run on any of those devices. Unless Apple drops a bomb in the near future with some major changes to the hardware and opens up the software, Android has a clear shot to take out the iPhone.

If you’re convinced and ready to buy a Motorola Droid, it’s going to hit Verizon Wireless stores this Friday, November 6th, 2009. Due to high demand, Verizon is opening all it’s stores earlier than normal at 7 AM. It’s not that expensive either considering the powerful camera, GPS Navigator, and 16GB MP3 player it packs inside. It will only set you back about $199 after signing a new 2-year contract and sending in a $100 mail-in-rebate. If you’re an existing customer who’s eligible for an upgrade, you should be entitled to an additional $50 or $100 discount based of the price of your current calling plan.

Links: VerizonWireless.com Motorola Droid

Note: This review was edited by Sahas Katta.

Novatel MiFi 2200 Specifications:

• Network: Verizon Wireless CDMA
• Wi-Fi Mode: 802.11b/g
• Security: VPN & WEP/WPA/WPA2
• Size / Weight: 3.5″ x 2.3″ x 0.4″ / 2.05 oz
• Connector: microUSB
• Battery Life: 4 hours use / 40 hours standby

Hardware: 5/5 stars
The MiFi 2220, developed by Novatel, is about the width and height of a business card. It’s 3.5 inches wide, 2.3 inches tall, and just 0.4 inches thick to be exact. While weighing just about 2 ounces, it packs both a CDMA and WiFi antennas inside. There’s a power button on the top that lights up green when it’s on. A microUSB connector, for charging the device, resides besides another green LED indicator that displays WiFi activity. On the bottom, there’s a sliding back door that reveals a battery pack. Other than that there’s not much else to say. It’s light weight and compact enough to take with you.

Setup Process: 3/5 stars
For someone who doesn’t know much about technology, the idea of this device might be confusing. It’s essentially a 3G modem that has a WiFi router built in. So instead of having to connect it to your computer with a cable, it broadcasts a WiFi signal. Just find the access point on your computer, connect, and behold: the internet! Sounds easy right? Unfortunately not. Although our unit was pre-configured since it’s a sample review model, a normal user will have to go through some mess. Unlike phones where you just dial a number to quickly activate, MiFi owners will either need to do it over the internet or at a Verizon Wireless Store. To get it done over the web, you’ll have to download and install some drivers for your computer to recognize the device. Unfortunately that ends up defeating the major selling point of the device: not having to install crappy software.

Features: 5/5 stars
Anyways once you get it activated, there’s a lot this device offers. Just connect to the hotspot and key in the IP address to access the web interface of the device. Just like a standard home Linksys or D-Link router, it offers a panel to change settings. I was able to pick a new SSID, change the security to WPA2, and pick a new pass-phrase. I was quite impressed that such a small device was even capable of offering such options. The local web interface even displays 3G signal strength, data usage, and your IP address and plenty more. Plus since up to 5 of your devices can join in on your network, it even displays the number of connected users. Considering this first model has so many options and capabilities, I’m quite excited to see what’s in stock for a future version.

Network Speed: 5/5 stars
The most important aspect is the data transfer speeds the device offers. To give this a shot I decided to use the SpeedTest.net application on my iPhone to test the speeds when connected to the MiFi over WiFi. Yes, I have Verizon on my iPhone, through WiFi. Speed test recorded throughout the San Francisco Bay Area consistently averaged at about 1200kbps down and 700kbps up. Every time I ran a test on the MiFi, I also tested AT&T’s 3G speed on the iPhone. The results disappointingly averaged at about half of what the MiFi offered: 650kbps down and 250kbps up. I also used the Verizon MiFi to access the internet through my Dell Mini 9 netbook. The speeds were speedy enough to browse most webpages, check emails, or instant message. Streaming rich media such as Hulu or YouTube just isn’t too practical. It works and sometimes well when signal is really strong, but requires waiting for a lot of buffering most of the time. Plus with data caps, I wouldn’t recommend using up precious bites.

Battery Life: 5/5 stars
According to the specifications, Verizon claims four hours of use and 4o hours of standby with the 11mAh battery. After testing for short periods over a period of few weeks, I can agree that the claims are about right. Although the power saving feature, which turns itself off when there’s no activity, is sometimes annoying; it offers plenty of hours for the average user. Plus charging it is as simple as plugging it into either a computer with the included microUSB or a power outlet with the AC Adapter. The device takes about 2.5 hours to replenish and can even be in use while recharging.

Conclusion:
Overall the Verizon MiFi is a new and interesting technology that is simply great. Other than the weird setup process, it makes life on the go truly convenient. Transfer speeds are great. Battery life is probably enough for most users. The only issue comes in with data caps. The plans are just ridiculously overpriced. A 250MB usage plan costs $40/month and a 5GB plan is $60/month. That’s more than what most people pay for unlimited high speed internet at home. And while the hardware lets you easily share internet access with a friend traveling with you, the data caps makes you think again. Other than that issue, the rest is great and I highly recommend it. If you are interested, the device is available for purchase for $99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate with a new 2-year contract.

Deal Alert: Verizon MiFi For Free [with contract]
Links: VerizonWireless.com MiFi

I had some time to handle the device and mess with the interface. My first impressions were quite positive. Everything from Verizon’s marketing to the quality of the hardware to the Android 2.0 software are stunning. Ian Thackston will be publishing an in-depth review of the phone in the next couple of days, prior to launch. This should give you guys some time to read the review and decide whether it’s the right phone for you before you pick one up. In the meantime subscribe to our RSS Feed, Email Subscriptions, or on Facebook/Twitter to get notified when the review is up!

UPDATE: Read Our Full Review!

Link: Verizon Wireless Motorola Droid

BlackBerry Storm2 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless UMTS/HSPA & EDGE/GPRS/GSM
• Displays: SurePress 3.25-inch 360×480 pixels touch screen
• Camera: 3.2 Megapixel Camera w/ Auto-focus & Flash
• Music: MP3, M4A, WMA, & AAC/eAAC/eAAC+
• Video: MPEG4, WMV, H.264
• Memory: 2GB (internal) | 16GB microSD included
• Dimensions: 4.43″ L x 2.45″ W x .55″ D
• Battery: GSM: 5-6 hours talk time | 270-305 hours standby
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1 | 3.5 mm Audio Jack | Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g

The Body: 5/5
The Storm2 is a bit of a heavy phone just like the original Storm, but there are plenty of changes that make it fantastic. For one it simply just looks sharp and feels like an expensive device. The front is completely glossy, the sides are covered with a chrome trim, and the back has a brushed metal look. Instead of having separated physical buttons for the send, menu, back, and end keys, they are all integrated onto the bottom of the SurePress touch screen. The speaker is now located on the bottom portion facing the user for undistorted quality instead of on the back. The voice command key and the micro USB port are on the left side of the phone. From the top to the bottom on the right side, there’s the 3.5mm headphone jack, volume rocker, and the camera shutter. The top of the back side has the 3.2 mega pixel camera and a LED flash right above the plate covering the battery pack, SIM card, and microSD card. The play/pause control and power button that also locks the phone is on the top. Everything is within fingers reach and the grip feels great.

The Display: 5/5 stars
The original BlackBerry Storm had plenty of issues with the touch screen. For one it was too hard to press and was too slow to type on. The Storm2 features a new SurePress display that supports multi-touch and multi-clicks. The display is much more responsive and feels better. When browsing through applications or typing on a keyboard, you can lay your finger on the screen without worrying about it accepting that as a click. It will simply highlight the item your finger is on until you physically press the display. If you’ve used any other touch screen display such as the iPhone before, this is a very different feel. Although it takes some getting used to, it brings back a bit more of the feel a traditional QWERTY keyboard offered. The accelerometer has also been vastly improved and the display can quickly switch between landscape and portrait for anything including the keyboard. For everything from the home screen, text, images, or videos, the display has excellent colors, is bright, and crisp. Although slightly more difficult to use in direct sunlight, it looks stunning indoors.

The Keyboard: 4/5 stars
Moving on, since the Storm2 doesn’t have a physical keyboard, it offers multiple types of virtual ones. The simplest one is the QWERTY mode that works in both landscape and portrait. It’s a bit too crammed when in portrait, but is the landscape version is the best way to type. The MultiTap method most resembles typing on numeric keypads on old flip phones. It’s slow and tedious, but still works. The most interesting mode is an improved version of SureType which was also present on the original Storm. It pairs two letters on a single key in the portrait view. Without having to double-click to access the second letter, it second guesses the word you are trying to type. And it impressively actually worked most of the time. There’s almost no lag in between key presses and it appearing on the display. I only wish they made the keys for the QWERTY landscape a bit larger since there is some extra screen estate available. Typing isn’t slow either since it can accept two inputs at almost the same time. The original Storm had a delay, since you would have to wait for the screen to pop back up after a click. Plus with an improved auto-correct feature, it’s faster to type as it fixes typos for you. The default dictionary learns new words and names quite quickly. Plus there are plenty of custom settings to adjust tap interval, hover period, and swipe sensitivity to meet your needs. Even though it lacks a real physical keyboard, the Storm2 manages to make typing easy, fast, and even fun.

Operating System & Interface: 4/5 stars
The Storm2 runs on the BlackBerry 5.0 OS. It’s a big improvement over 4.7. For one it’s much snappier and has faster animations and transitions. It’s interface is user-friendly and even looks good. The home screen is completely customizable from choosing backgrounds, to rearranging icons, or even creating folders for group applications. And as with any BlackBerry, you can customize font size, color, and type. The OS also supports multitasking unlike the Apple iPhone and lets you easily switch between running applications by simply holding down the menu button until an Windows-esque ALT-TAB menu appears. The OS is also more open to 3rd party applications than the iPhone. Storm2 owners will be able to fetch new applications from Verizon’s Application Center, through BlackBerry App World, or download one from a web page in the Browser. App World has a great interface and large selection of both free and paid applications. The phone comes pre-loaded with chat clients, social networking programs, and a few others tools. Plus with 256MB of RAM, double of that on the original Storm, everything is faster and more things can be running at once. The only issue I found was with the Web Browser. Despite a fast network and WiFi, it is still slow when it comes to rendering pages. It lacks a tabbed interface and still has issues displaying pages properly. It also lags quite a bit when zooming in or out. And when it comes to applications, there are plenty of good ones available, but many standard BlackBerry apps don’t run so well on the Storm2 since they aren’t designed for a touch screen display. Rather than those issues, the rest of interface and OS has been vastly improved.

Call Quality & Features: 5/5 stars
I don’t think this phone could do any better when it comes to making or receiving calls. The reception was beyond excellent. Call quality was crisp and clear on both ends. And that’s great since the phone aspect is the most important part of this smartphone. I had no dropped calls either. After pressing the send button to launch the phone application, the dialpad appears. It looks elegant and has large keys, making it easy to dial numbers quickly. Getting to either the call history or contacts page is only one click away. The phone even helps “guess” the number while you are typing by cross referencing your address book. During a call, there’s a menu with keys for the speaker, mute, flash, and “add participant” button. The phone also has a proximity sensor which turns off the display when it’s held up to your ear during a call to save battery life and prevent accidental key presses. The voice-dial function has its own dedicated hard key and recognizes names quite accurately even amongst a couple hundred contacts. The Storm2’s new OS also allows accessing other components of the phone during a call including your calendar, email, and browser making life a lot easier.

Multimedia: 5/5 stars
The Storm2 still isn’t as great of a media player compared to other devices such as the iPhone, but it’s a step closer. It has 2GB of on-board memory and a 16GB microSD is included for extra storage. I was able to sync my phone using the included microUSB cable with both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04 easily. I was able to quickly drop media onto the card and the Storm2 automatically detected and indexed everything immediately. It even played back HD shows that was recored in Media Center 7 after being automatically converted to a compatible format by Windows Media Player. The last phone I reviewed, the Samsung Rouge, had horrible speakers, but the ones on the Storm2 exceeded my expectations. There was barely any distortion even with the volume turned all the way up. The phone allows browsing music by artists, albums, or genres. It even displayed the album artwork that was embedded into my MP3s perfectly. I was also thankful to find that my music could be used as ringtones, which even the iPhone doesn’t allow without going through some roundabouts. Video quality was also excellent, it didn’t jitter or lag as some other phones do. If OpenGL gets thrown into a new OS update in the future, it will make media playback, animations, and transitions much smoother.

3G & WiFi: 5/5 stars
The BlackBerry Storm2 makes excellent use of Verizon’s 3G network. I found it to have faster network speeds and it better signal strength just about everywhere I went compared to the AT&T iPhone another Skatter Tech writer had. Emails, Chat Messages, and other notifications were almost instant. And plus with WiFi thrown in, things get even faster. The WiFi setup is simple and even allows those push button pin setups some new routers support. It’s compatible with the latest WPA2 encryption and corporate security protocols too. I don’t know why RIM hadn’t spent the time to integrate this in the original Storm because there’s no question that WiFi is an essential part of this phone.

Camera & Camcorder: 5/5 stars
The 3.2 megapixel camera takes great pictures up to a max resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The phone has a built in LED Flash, auto focus, and image stabilization. With those three features, images looks wonderful. It still shows signs of “graininess” in low light situations, but that’s expected for a device with a small lens. The camera application now loads up in under 2 seconds and can switch from landscape to portrait almost instantly. It’s a vast improvement over the original Storm. The phone also uses the GPS module to Geotag where images are shot. Importing them into programs such as Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto can arrange them on a world map appropriately. There are no image editing capabilities built in by default, but I’m sure some Apps are available for that purpose. Plus with a large 16GB microSD card, I can take plenty of images and record videos only limited by free space at a 480 x 352 pixel resolution. It even allows turning the flash into a flashlight to record video in the dark. There are effects such as black and white, sepia, and a few others included for both images and video recording. To top that off, the phone even supports uploading high resolution images to webs services such as Flickr or Facebook.

Email & Messaging: 4.5/5 stars
After the phone component, email and messaging are probably the second most important aspect of a BlackBerry. And the Storm2 handles that quite well. There are pre-configured settings for services such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Live Mail included. If you have your own corporate email, there’s even a wizard to walk you through the setup process. If you’ve used a service like Facebook, you know about the news feed. The BlackBerry 5.0 OS has it’s own news feed for everything that’s happening on the phone. This includes everything from missed calls, emails, instant messages, and even Facebook alerts to appear in one centralized location. The only data it didn’t include in the stream for some odd reason is SMS and MMS. There’s even a centralized way to compose a message. And as I mentioned before typing takes some getting used to, but becomes fast. The Storm2 is truly a powerful messaging device and will definitely meet or surpass your needs.

Conclusion:
This is hands down the best phone I’ve ever had. Sure there are plenty of other device such as the Apple iPhone that claim to be the god of smartphones. Even so, the iPhone lacks many business features that the Storm2 offers including a powerful search, a robust email client, security features of all sorts, and finally the freedom to use any application you wish. Plus the Storm2 comes with the Verizon Wireless network that has the best overall coverage in the nation. The phone can make calls in another 220 countries and even has data access in 185 of those. There’s no question that this is one of RIM’s best BlackBerries to date. It’s a night and day difference compared to the software and hardware problems customers faced with the original Storm. I will definitely be disappointed to let go of this phone once this review gets published. If you are a business customer and also want to get in on the touch screen action while not loosing any of the enterprise and corporate features the BlackBerry offers, the Storm2 is for you. Plus with the unique SurePress screen technology, it’s something to show off. And even if you are a college student, it’s got plenty of entertainment features including a great media player, social networking, powerful texting platform, instant messaging, and even a web browser. If you need a new phone the BlackBerry Storm2 is available as of today for $179.99 with a new 2-year contract. If you are an existing customer eligible for upgrade, you should be entitled to another $50 or $100 discount based of your current calling plan.

Links: VerizonWireless.com Storm 2 | BlackBerry.com Storm 2

We’ve been testing the device for the past few hours; so far so good. Other than the phone, the packaging includes a headset, microUSB cable, and an AC Adapter. Akshay Aanabathula will be publishing a full review of the phone within the next day or two, so subscribe to our RSS Feed, Email Subscriptions, or on Facebook/Twitter to be the first to read it!

Samsung Rogue SCH-U960 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (1.9 GHz /850 MHz CDMA)
• Displays: 3.1-inch 800 x 480 pixels & 18 bit colors
• Camera: 3.0 Megapixel Camera w/ Autofocus, Flash & Image Editor
• Music: MP3, M4A, WMA, AAC/eAAC/eAAC+
• Memory: 512Mb (internal) / 16GB microSD (external)
• Dimensions: 4.29″ L x 2.17″ W x .65″ D
• Battery: 280 Minutes Talk Time & 300 Hours Standby
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1 | 3.5 mm Audio Jack

The Body: 4/5 stars
The Samsung Rogue shares the same form factor as the Samsung Glyde, a sliding keyboard under a touch screen, but it has a new look. Although this phone is taller than the Glyde, it is thinner and has a more streamlined finish. The face of the phone is very simple. Underneath the 3.1″ touch screen, there are three “brushed metal” buttons: send, clear, and end. The back of the phone has a rough bronze-colored texture, which offers a decent grip. The speaker, a 3.0 megapixel camera, the flash, and a tiny mirror for self portraits are on the back. The position of the camera causes one small issue. Each time I picked up the phone, I had a tendency to place my index finger directly on the camera lens. I found this to be annoying since it was a pain to continually have to clean the lens, but then again, this might be an issue only for me. The volume controls and the USB connector, used for both charging and data transfer, are on the left side of the phone. On the right side there’s a screen lock, voice command, a zoom in/out button for the camera, and a camera capture button.  The lower portion of the right side features the 3.5mm headphones jack and the microSD expansion slot.

The Keyboard: 2/5 stars
Verizon Wireless advertises the Samsung Rogue as great phone for texting. Therefore, I expected it to have a great keyboard, unfortunately, it was a big disappointment. There are four lines of keys instead of having a additional symbol function. This makes things easier to find and faster to type. The keys are not small or cluttered, but are neatly spaced out. Unfortunately the problems begin with the layout of the keys. Some buttons are too far off to the left and others are properly centered. Even though the keys feel great to type on, their locations don’t feel natural. They feel as though they are a bit jumbled and not placed in traditional keyboard format.

The Display: 5/5 stars
I was impressed with the 800 x 480 pixel (AMOLED) touch screen display. With a higher resolution than Apple iPhone’s 480 x 320 pixels, the Samsung Rogue’s display looked beautiful and had rich colors. Even with a mid-range brightness setting, the display was fairly visible even in direct sunlight. The Rogue also has haptic feedback. Every click results with a small vibrating pulse in addition to audible feedback. A built in accelerometer changes the orientation of the display automatically from portrait to landscape and vice versa. A proximity sensor automatically turns of the display when the phone is held up to your ear to save battery life.

User Interface: 4.5/5 stars
To lock the phone, there’s a physical side button. To unlock it, just press any button so the display turns on, then click the on-screen unlock button. The home screen is quite customizable, you can change the brightness, the banner, change the text font, the wallpaper, and even the clock format. There is a collapsible side bar that holds all the supported widgets. You can easily drag the ones you use the most on to the home screen by simply dragging them over. There’s an analog and  digital clock available as a widget as well.  On the bottom of screen, there are two rows for actions. The first row is for notifications for missed calls, voicemails, text messages, calendar, alarm clocks, and more. The second row contains four buttons for the phone dialer, contacts, messaging (text, picture, email, etc.), and  the full menu. These two rows are static and can’t be customized. It would be a great idea if they offered the ability to dock other programs such as the web browser or media player to that menu. In general, the user interface is clean, simple, well designed, and works!

Call Quality & Features: 4/5
The call quality was excellent, plus there were a few extra unique features added in. For example if you are in a library or a lecture hall and have to whisper, there’s a mode for that! Just click the “Whisper Button”  and it amplifies your voice so it sounds almost normal for the person on the other end. For the most part, the regular voice quality was excellent on both ends, no complains. The only reason the phone didn’t live up to a five star rating was because of the speaker phone. The speaker wasn’t loud enough or clear enough. It works fine if you are in a truly silent room, but it’s quite difficult to hear when in a car. If you normally use a Bluetooth headset, you won’t need to worry about this.

Messaging: 4/5
Just like most phones today, the Rogue supports text, picture, video, and voice messages. Text conversation history is saved to keep track of everything that’s been said. You can compose a message with either the pull out QWERTY keyboard or the on-screen digital keyboard. The digital keyboard isn’t in a QWERTY layout, but a normal alpha-numeric keypad.

Voice To Text: 1/5 stars
This was a feature I was truly excited for. It theoretically allows you to say a phrase to your phone, which should automatically be converted into text. Unfortunately this feature barely worked. Even after training my voice, I only had successful results about 25% of the time. The rest of the time, the program types in something completely incorrect. For it to work, you’ll have to speak very slowly and clearly, emphasizing each word. For example, I said “This is a cell phone review” and the program typed in “This is itself under view”. It doesn’t accept slang too well either. Another example, I said “Let’s go see Zombieland at 10 o’clock” and it typed in “Left to see some reliant@koch”. To wrap it up, this feature is a great idea, but needs a lot of work. For now it’s not worth using; it’s faster to type the message yourself.

Camera & Camcorder: 4/5 stars
The camera on the Rogue has all the standard features you would expect: zoom, flash, and focus. There are alternate image options such as mosaic, frame, panoramic, and multishot. Image resolution and brightness are also modifiable. After you take a picture, you can edit it with some fairly cool effects. In addition to the standard effects such as sepia and black & white, some other effects such as sketch, emboss, soft-elegant, and fright are thrown in. For the most part, the camera takes excellent photos. The only issue I faced was a small lag from when you click the capture button to when it actually takes the image. If you make any sudden movements, it looses focus. That results in blurry image quality.

The camcorder mode can record video only limited by the available space on the memory card. However you can only MMS clips that are a max of 30 seconds. It records at a 640 x 480 pixel resolution. There are five recording effects, similar to the ones for the camera. Quality looks fairly good for a phone, but gets choppy at times. It obviously isn’t comparable to a decent camcorder or even a Mino Flip.

Music Player: 3.5/5
The Samsung Rogue was designed to be a full MP3 player with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. The media player has a search function and lets you browse your library by Artists, Genres, and Albums. During playback, the album art isn’t shown on the full screen, but rather as a thumbnail. Other than that, the interface is quite nice. Controlling playback, such as play/pause, next track, and so on, are easy to use and work without any problems. The media player has a shuffle and repeat mode. The audio quality with headphones was great and it didn’t cackle when turned up too high. The speaker on the other hand was an issue. They just weren’t loud enough and wasn’t clear. Another major issue is the lack of multitasking. You can’t do anything else while playing back music. Phones such as the LG enV Touch allow browsing the web, texting, and doing other things while the music player runs in the background. This is a major drawback and needs to be addressed.

Other Features: 4.5/5
There are a lot of other features that this phone offers. Some built-in tools include a calculator, a tip calculator, and a unit converter. The Rogue also syncs to your computer with the included USB cable to transfer music and data. The media player also supports playing video files, however quality isn’t too great and supported file formats are limited. The web browser was impressive. It still isn’t on par with a browser such as the one found on smart phones such as the iPhone. But for the most part it has all the essential features such as navigation, favorites, and zoom. It rendered most pages fairly quickly as well. The VZ Navigator works really well. The GPS module tracked my location very precisely. I do feel that the navigation interface could use a bit of a face lift. The program also offers voice turn-by-turn directions, but once again the poor speaker quality was an issue. Another truly unique feature is the business card reader. All you have to do is take a close up image of a business card in a fairly well lit location. It automatically scans the card and creates an entry in your address book with all the information from the card. It worked really well with just about every card I tested it on. The final feature I’d like to note is the document viewer. It supports viewing Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, and Power Point) and PDFs. The interface allows scrolling and zooming for all files. To get files onto the device you can simply copy them onto a pre-created folder on the microSD card or sync them over using the data cable.

Conclusion:
After spending a little over a week with this phone, I was fairly satisfied. I was impressed with some of the rather unique features such as the voice-to-text and the business card scanner. The largest drawbacks were probably the odd layout of the slide-out QWERTY keyboard and the quality of the speakerphone. Other than that, the phone performed quite well. The home screen is one of the best parts of the user interface experience. The phone excelled in the most import aspect, call quality. I suggest going into a Verizon Wireless store to handle the phone before buying it over the phone or online. If you are ready to buy it, the Samsung Rogue is available online for price of $99.99, with a 2 year contract.

Buy: Samsung Rogue for $99
Links: VerizonWireless.com Samsung Rogue

LG enV Touch VX-11000 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (1.9 GHz /800 MHz CDMA)
• Displays: 3-inch 800 x 480 pixels & 1,600K colors
• Camera: 3.2 Megapixel Camera w/ Autofocus, Flash & Image Editor
• Music: MP3, WMA, Unprotected AAC/AAC+
• Memory: 250Mb (internal) / 16GB microSD (external)
• Battery: 260 Minutes Talk Time & 408 Hours Standby
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1+EDR | Stereo Speakers

The Body: 3.5/5 stars
There is no doubt that the enV Touch is a large phone; 4.5 inches tall, 2 inches wide, and over a half inch thick. Despite being a tad bit too large, it actually looks a whole lot more attractive than the Voyager and the Dare. The back of the phone features a soft rubberized texture with a unique engraved pattern which offers a decent grip. The left side has the camera trigger, volume toggle, and the display lock button. A 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD slot can be found on the right side. On the bottom you’ll find the microUSB connector which serves two purposes: charging and data transfer. The face of the phone has a large 3-inch touch screen and three “brushed metal”-looking physical buttons at the bottom: send, clear, and end. The clear key seconds as the voice command button when on the home page and initiates voice memo recordings when held down. When you flip open the phone you are introduced to another 3-inch display, stereo speakers, a full QWERTY keyboard, and a navigation D-pad. Compared to the Voyager, the keyboard now has larger keys and remains well spaced at the same time. LG has finally placed repositioned the “space bar” to the center of the keyboard instead of two “space bars” on the bottom left and right as they were on the LG Voyager, LG enV2, and LG enV. Overall, though the enV Touch isn’t the most compact phones I’ve had for what it offers, but remains functional and isn’t too large to fit into an average sized pocket or purse.

The Displays: 4/5 stars
We were quite impressed with the resolution and the colors of the displays. The enV Touch’s 800 x 480 pixel display has a higher resolution than the iPhone’s 480 x 320 pixel screen. Both photos and videos look great on both screens. The external display also uses a sensor that dims out the screen as you hold it up to your ear, but I found this to be sometimes problematic since it often didn’t turn back on if I were to try to use the interface during a call. The only way I managed to get the screen working again was to either flip open the phone or by placing my finger over the sensor for a second and then moving it away. Other than that small annoyance, the displays are bright, sharp, and even looks decent outdoors.

User Interface: 4/5
The enV Touch has a similar interface to the Voyager and like its predecessor, duplicates features on the external and internal display. However, not all features on the external work from the internal, and vice versa. For example, photo editing only functions on the external touch screen. To unlock the phone you must slide up an overlay on the screen or press the lock/unlock button on the side of the phone. The home screen has 5 permanent icons on the bottom: messaging, dialpad, menu, phonebook, and favorites. The favorites menu allows you to set 10 favorite contacts for quick access. In addition 3 “widgets” can be placed anywhere the main page; memo, calendar, and clock. The memo is very similar to a sticky note on a Macs. On the right side of the home screen there is an arrow which links to the shortcut menu, which manages all application/utility shortcuts. Mostly any tool on the phone can be placed in the shortcut menu or can also be placed as an icon on the homepage. The interface on the internal display has a more traditional interface, familiar to that most Verizon Wireless phones. The D-pad can be customized to launch various applications when on the home screen. One major problems I ran into occurred when an application on the internal display then closing the phone would exit out of the application and return to the home screen instead of moving to the outer display. Overall, the interface is very intuitive and for the most part it works seamlessly between the two displays.

Messaging: 5/5 stars
After many iterations of the enV lineup, LG has mastered the messaging feature of this phone. The physical keyboard does not need much of an explanation, it works as it should and feels great. The external display also supports messaging, with support for both a portrait and landscape virtual keyboard. The virtual portrait keyboard does the job just fine for quick responses, but is a bit impractical for typing long messages. The horizontal virtual keyboard works a whole lot better than the portrait and is a viable option. The interface enlarges the letters you hit as they are typed and provide haptic feedback as well. The size of each virtual key and spacing helps the usability experience as well, however the internal physical QWERTY keyboard is by far the best solution for messaging.

Camera & Camcorder: 5/5 stars
The enV Touch has an extremely feature packed camera and camcorder interface not found on other phones. The 3.2 megapixel camera can take photos up in various resolutions up to 2048×1536. It features an unusually bright LED flash, which can automatically turn on in low-light situations. The camera uses the auto-focus setting by default, but can be switched to macro for close-up images as well as a manual focus option. The camera has white balance, brightness, color effects, and self timer settings. In addition to these settings the camera has a couple of “goodies” that you will not see in the typical phone camera. One would be the panorama mode, where the phone will actually guide you through the process of snapping a panoramic photo with on screen instructions and then stitching them together. Another would be the smile detection, where the camera will only snap the photo only once the subject smiles to get the best picture. My favorite by far was the NameCard reader, which lets you snap an image of a physical business card and it uses OCR to extract the name, email, and phone number into your contacts. A built in image editor allows cropping, draw on the image, and adjusting the brightness of the photo.

The camcorder can record clips with a max resolution of 640×480 and offers custom white balance, brightness, and color effects. Most phone’s camcorder functions are rendered useless in the dark, but not the enV Touch. The camcorder can switch on the LED flash during a recording which turned out to help a lot. Finally, the enV Touch does a great job with video editing. One of the much hyped feature on iPhone 3GS was video trimming and this plus much more can be done on the enV Touch. The trim feature allows a simple crop, after choosing a start and end point. But say you wanted to cut together multiple parts of a video, that’s where the multi-trim feature comes in. You can cut together up to 3 different parts of a video (3 different start and end points) and the phone will merge these different parts together into one video. The camera in the enV Touch really stands out because of the depth of options presented and puts it clearly ahead of many other phones in the U.S. Market.

Music: 3.5/5 stars
The enV Touch was designed to work as a full time mp3 player with a set of  internal stereo speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The music player is organized by Artists, Genres, and Albums. It can also display album artwork which looks good in its sincere imitation of “cover flow”. The player can create on-the-go playlists and manage music storage between the microSD card and internal memory. Music playback supports shuffle and repeat modes. For listening options, the Dolby settings allows you to toggle between preset equalizers, such as bass booster and classical. Audio playback on the speakers was clear with no crackle, even when turned up all the way. One of the features I liked the most was that music application can run in the background. Performing other tasks such as look up a contact or texting is possible without having to exit the music player. I decided to use my enV Touch when I went for a jog. I found it extremely difficult to use the external display to navigate through songs. In addition to the poor visibility due  to sunlight, it was difficult to even manage to click the next button or pause my music. Some external controls for music would have gone a long way. Overall the music player felt solid, keeps getting better, and usable but not polished, it needs to be put back in the oven for a bit longer.

Syncing: 4.5/5 stars
The enV Touch uses a standard microUSB port to connect to a computer. It can be used in data mode, which shows up as an USB Mass Storage Device on a computer and allows you to manually transfer photos, documents, and music to the microSD card. The other option is to use the phone in music mode, in which it can be synced with the Verizon V Cast Music with Rhapsody program or with Windows Media Player as an MP3 player. The charger is also modular, the AC adapter is actually a USB charger. The same cable needs to be disconnected and is used to sync with your computer. One small quirk I noticed was the fact that the phone significantly heated up while charging. It wasn’t too hot that I’d be concerned about the phone getting damaged, however constant heat isn’t good for batteries, meaning a reduced lifespan.

Document Viewer and Other Features: 4.5/5 stars
The phone offers many other features including the now standard world clock, tip calculator, and alarm clock. The one feature that stood out the most was the document viewer, an application not usually found on a non-smartphone. The viewer can read, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xslx, .ppt, .pptx, .pdf, and .txt files. The documents loaded fairly quickly and were fairly readable once zoomed in. I found using the Document Viewer more pleasurable than the iPhone. Mainly since I could simply copy them straight over to the phone’s storage or microSD, rather than having to email them to myself as you have to do on the iPhone.

Conclusion:
After using the enV touch for a few weeks, it has left us with a very good impression. I would say as of now, it is the best non-smartphone on the Verizon Wireless network. It has an amazing display, two displays to be correct,  and excellent media features. It supports a full HTML web-browser, VZ Navigator, V-Cast videos, voice commands, and text to speech. If you are looking for a new phone and just can’t justify paying those required high rates for data plans associated with smartphones, the enV Touch is a no brainier. It has a solid set of features that just about everyone from a casual consumer to a tech-junkie can appreciate. It is available online and in Verizon Wireless stores now for $150 for new customers. Existing customers eligible for upgrade should be able to knock off about $50 to $100 based of the type of calling plan they currently have.

Buy: $99 for LG enV Touch
Links: Verizon Wireless

Ever since Apple released the “revolutionary” iPhone, competitors have been trying to imitate and create a better phone. LG has been fairly successful so far. They released the LG Voyager through Verizon Wireless last year, which we reviewed but weren’t too happy with. Fortunately their latest phone, the LG Dare, has surpassed our expectations and can truly be considered an iPhone competitor especially at its price point. It also has plenty of unique features that impressed us.

LG VX9700 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (CDMA 850MHz / 1.9 GHz)
• Form Factor: Full Touch Screen Candy-Bar
• Display: 3 inch, 240×400 pixels, & 262k colors
• Media: MP3, WMA, & AAC(+)
• Imaging: 3.2 mega pixel camera with flash & auto focus
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, GPS, & microUSB
• Others: microSD, ambient light, & accelerometer
• Size / Weight: 4.1″ H x 2.2″ W x 0.5″ D (inches) / 3.8 oz
• Battery Life: 4.7 hours talk time & 360 hours standby
• Price: $200 with a new 2 year agreement

The Body – 5/5 stars
The LG Dare is quite compact and can fit into even a tight pocket. It is actually about 16% smaller in volume than the iPhone 3G. The phone looks quite sleek with a silver trim on the front and a black colored back. Unfortunately since it is a touch screen, it is also prone to attracting finger prints. The front of the phone contains the send, clear, and end buttons in addition to the display. Although not too visible, when looking carefully at certain angles the ambient light sensor can be seen at the top blank portion above the screen. The left side of the phone contains the screen lock button, the microSD card slot, speaker phone key, and the microUSB charger/data port. The volume increase and decrease toggle and the camera/camcorder capture button can be found on the right side. The backside of the phone merely contains the digital camera with flash, the speaker, and a battery cover lid. Finally the 3.5mm standard headphone jack can be found at the top of the phone. Overall the entire design is a success.

Display – 5/5 Stars
In reference to the brightness, contrast, and color representation, the display was top notch. Probably one of the better displays I’ve seen in a while. The Dare’s three inch screen can display images at a max of 240×400 resolution which seemed to fit the needs of the phone just fine. The ambient light sensor is a great addition as it automatically dims the screen when in darker situations and brightens it up in broad daylight. The phone also has a neat sensor which automatically turns of the display during a call when the phone is held up to your face. It immediately turns back on when it gets further away. These two features assist heavily in conserving more battery life whenever possible.

User Interface – 5/5 Stars
The LG Dare’s user interface is quite intuitive. The interface seems to have LG Voyager ancestry, however much has improved since then. The sensitivity is just right, however it can be adjusted. The phone’s screen is quite responsive without delay and all transitions are smooth and everything flows smoothly. The home screen features a clock, the date, and two notifications bar. Five items will always available on the bottom of the home screen: messaging, dial pad, menu, address book, and favorites. Although, this quick access bar cannot be modified, shortcuts can be added to the home screen from the shortcut menu. This shortcut menu can be accessed by clicking on the arrow on the main screen. The eleven default items can be customized to show any of the over fifty items in the phone including downloaded applications. The Main Menu displays the standard nine items found on any Verizon Wireless phone: Contacts, Messaging, Recent Calls, My Music, Media Center, Browser, VZ Navigator, V Cast Video, and Settings & Tools. Navigating through just about any part of the phone was simple and self-explanatory. The LG Dare also addresses the issue plaguing many touch screen devices which is the lack of tactile feedback. This phone solves that issue by releasing small vibrations below the screen each time something is clicked. Sound effects can also be enabled to indicate that a command has been accepted. The Dare also automatically locks itself after a certain period of inactivity. The screen can be activated by pressing the unlock key on the side or pressing the unlock button on the screen.

Messaging (Email, IM, & Text) – 5/5 Stars
Text messaging addicts will not be disappointed by this phone as it supports text, picture, and video messaging. Since the phone has tactile feedback it is much easier to type on this phone than I had expected. The keyboard also turns into a QWERTY layout when the phone is turned sideways thanks to the accelerometer. The keyboard was also quite accurate and the predictive text also helps speed things up. Although nothing beats a real keyboard, this wasn’t as bad as other phones I’ve used. The LG Dare also features Verizon’s Mobile Email client which has built in support for Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, and Verizon.net. If you use other services the phone also allows configuring your own POP3/IMAP servers for incoming mail and SMTP for outgoing. (SSL Security Supported!) The phone can automatically check and notify you when immediately when a message reaches your inbox. The client isn’t too great for reading messages with graphics; however is plenty for reading text in emails. Finally the LG Dare also has a built-in instant messaging client that supports the AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger clients. You can log into all three at once and view your full contact lists. Overall the phone has not forgotten about the messaging side of things even while the emphasis of the phone might be the touch screen.

Web Browser – 5/5 stars
The built in HTML web browser excels just as most other components of this phone has. It begins on the Verizon Wireless Portal offering quick links to news, weather, movies, and more. The homepage can be customized to a site of your choosing. To visit a webpage, just press the WWW button and enter a URL to navigate to any webpage. Just as the keyboard did previously, the entire browser switches over into landscape mode when the phone is rotated. The volume toggle can then be used to zoom into or out of a page. A Full Screen option is available in the menu to allow the webpage to take up the entirety of the screen leaving no wasted space. The back/forward, refresh, home, and other keys will only appear as overlay when in the full screen mode. The major drawback would be the lack of flash, however most simple JavaScript works. And since most people will probably have this question, YouTube does work perfectly. The bookmarks are also a thankful to have feature saving having to retype URL. The only other issue I faced was that links were sometimes hard to click and I would have to zoom in to get to them. Large web pages sometimes are slow to move around, however I would still have to say this is the best browser found on a Verizon Wireless phone.

MicroSD + Syncing – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which is great for those planning to use it as their music playback device. 8GB cards have also come down in price and can be purchased for as low as $30 through some major online retailers. When you connect your phone to your machine using the included microUSB to USB cable, you can enter the data or sync music mode. The data mode will turn the microSD card into a mass storage device so you can add or remove content directly onto it. The sync music mode will allow syncing media with Windows Media Player 11. Unfortunately Vista users will have no choice but to install the horrid VCast Music Manager to get the phone working with WMP11. If files are placed directly into the music folder, the phone will manually re-index them the next time the music player is started. So to put all of that together, the phone can be synced as a media player device, a mass storage device, or by using a microSD card reader.

Speakers + Headphones – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare’s speaker is fairly decent. It isn’t as loud as I hoped when being used as a speakerphone. It does sound decent for music, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It might have been better if they had been able to stuff a set of stereo speakers into the phone. Fortunately one of the big pros of this phone is the fact that it has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Those who plan to use this as their music device will have the opportunity to use their standard headphones without having to deal with using messy adapters. The headphones quality is plentiful for most consumers, audiophiles not so much.

Media Playback – 4.5/5 Stars
The LG Dare supports playback of MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+. Verizon recently made a deal with Rhapsody, so music purchased there is completely compatible as well. Controls are fairly intuitive to use. The touch screen makes navigating through songs quite simple. The library can be browsed by a full song list, custom playlists, artists, genres, or albums. The phone also contains preset equalizers. Album art is displayed while playing back music. LG has hilariously included a cover flow type of view when the phone is turned sideways. It doesn’t look too good or function too well, so I would just stick with the standard view. The best part of the Music Playback component is probably the fact that player can be turned into a background process. This way you can begin to browse the web, email, chat, or even send messages while listening to music. Overall this is probably the best music player I have seen on a Verizon Wireless phone to date. As for video playback, although I didn’t have a chance to test it, according to the specifications it supports playback of WMV, MP4, 3GP, and 3G2.

Digital Camera & Camcorder – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare has a Kreuznach 3.2 mega pixel camera which also doubles as a camcorder. Photos can be captured at a maximum resolution of 2048×1536 pixels, while videos can be recorded at a maximum resolution of 640×480. The camera allows for many different options such as a self timer, white balance, face detection, multi-shot, panorama, slit, and frame shot types, and a variety of scene modes. LG has also implemented face detection to focus on people in a shot. The camera allows manually setting the ISO, for those who are interested. The camera also launches within a second unlike most other phones that take a while to startup the application. The Dare’s camera is quite a strong point of the phone as it even includes built-in flash and auto focus. The camcorder offers plenty of neat features including a high frame rate option which will record video in slow motion.

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR – 5/5 stars
Bluetooth pairing is unbelievably easy; the phone gives instructions as to how you need to go about pairing the phone. The instructions are simple and easy enough for any person to understand how to do it. It automatically pairs itself with the Bluetooth headset once you have completed the steps, no need to enter a password or anything, very convenient. The Dare fully supports use of stereo Bluetooth headsets, which is welcome addition that the iPhone lacks. The phone also supports sharing calendar events, contacts, or printing photos to a printer, although most probably won’t ever use them.

GPS VZ Navigator – 5/5 Stars
The VZ Navigator has become the strongest point of Verizon Wireless phones in recent times and is also a strong point of this phone. The software allows getting voice turn-by-turn directions and even is aware of traffic congestion. It now also has an improved local search that can find movie timings, gas stations, local events and much more. Just like the browser, the app runs in landscape mode when the phone is turned sideways. The GPS was accurately able to find my location just about anytime I tested it.

Extras – 5/5 stars
One small feature which I loved was the power supply that was included with the phone. Instead of providing an addition data cable, the power supply is actually a USB cable in disguise. The cable can be unplugged from the head and can be plugged into a USB port to charge or sync data. No other hardware is included with the phone. As for the software the Dare has voice commands, a basic calculator, tip calculator, a powerful calendar, alarm clock, stopwatch, world clock, notepad, voice recorder, and a drawing pad. I also wanted to mention that the Notifications bar is an actual menu on this phone instead of just being meaningless indicators. When clicked on, information about missed calls, messages, and events will be displayed. The extra components were also though through carefully.

Conclusions
The LG Dare is the best Verizon Wireless phone I have yet to review. I would have to highly recommend this phone for those interested in a new device. It has been well throughout and is a very worthy competitor to the iPhone. Although it may lack the huge application store that Apple offers, there’s still plenty to keep you busy. Everything from the large touch screen display, the camera, the browser, and music player are all solid. The reception was one of the better ones I have seen as well. The phone is available for purchase already through Verizon Wireless stores and online. The LG Dare will cost $200 with a new two year contract. Those of you who are eligible for upgrade should be able to get an addition $50-100 knocked off the price based off your current calling plan.

Links: Verizon Wireless – LG Dare
Buy Now: LG Dare for $137 with New 2-YR Contract (via Amazon)

LG VX-8610 Specifications:

• Service Provider: Verizon Wireless (CDMA 800/1900MHz)
• Form Factor: Slider with attached Bluetooth headset
• Display: 2.2″ 262k Color QVGA TFT, 320×240 pixel resolution
• Imaging: 2 Megapixel camera and camcorder
• Media: MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1 & microSD (8GB max)
• Dimensions: 4″ H x 2″ W x 0.7″ D (inches)
• Battery Life: 3.8 hours talk time & 330 hours standby
• Price: $180 with a new 2 year agreement

Body: 3/5 Stars
The LG Decoy looks sleek, with only four buttons (two programmable buttons, a “Speaker” button and a “Clear” button) and a joystick on the front. The back of the phone houses the Bluetooth headset, which makes a bulge, and to the right of the headset is the 2MP camera. The right side of the phone has a camera button, microSD slot, and a 2.5mm headset jack. I have no idea why they added a 2.5mm headset jack considering that one would purchase this phone to use with the Bluetooth headset. A 3.5mm jack for standard headphones would have been a better choice. The left side has two volume control buttons and a microUSB port. The only other folly might be that it is difficult to slid open the phone to access the keypad. There is no way easy way to slide the phone open without touching the joystick in the middle or touching the screen, unless you want to get more fingerprints all over it.

Display: 2/5 Stars
With regard to the brightness, contrast, and color representation, the display is excellent. The Decoy’s 2.2″ screen can display a 320×240 pixel resolution, which has been approximately the standard for the past few years. Unfortunately due to the high amount of “glossy-ness” of the whole front of the phone, the display becomes extremely difficult to read in direct sunlight. In addition, you’ll find yourself constantly wiping down the phone since it is literally a fingerprint magnet. But with regards to the display, if you are in doors, you probably won’t have any problems.

User Interface: 4.5/5 Stars
The LG Decoy has a slick user interface, the menu has only nine categories, however, you can dig down into the sub-categories and change and settings, send messages, media playback, recent calls, etc. The menu also has a nice feature where even after you’ve dug into a certain category you can change to a different one simply by moving the joystick left or right. The transitions to additional options when trying to, say, add another recipient to an SMS message, are subtle but create an overall better experience.

Media Playback: 3/5 Stars
The LG decoy supports the following codecs: MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+. Controls are pretty simple to use, with the joystick controlling most of the functions, such as play/pause, fast forward, rewind, next song, and previous song. The volume is controlled by the two side volume buttons, which are also used for increasing call or ringer volume. Sound quality is not exactly great when listening through headphones, but is better than the speakerphone quality. Though I would not recommend this phone as your primary music player, when on the go and nothing else is available, it will suffice.

MicroSD + Syncing: 3.5/5 Stars
The LG Decoy supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which should be more than enough space for the majority of users. Syncing music onto the phone is easy; just drag the files onto the card. You can either use a micro-USB cable and sync content using a program such as Windows Media Player 11 or use a microSD card reader to copy content into the automatically created folders on the card. The phone will automatically index the added content before beginning playback.

Speaker & Bluetooth Headset: 2/5 Stars
Looks like LG dropped the ball on the speakers for this phone. They start to crackle at about 60% volume and voices become high pitched at 100% when using the speaker phone. It was much worse than I had expected out of a phone. The Bluetooth headset, which is pretty much the defining point of this phone was utterly atrocious. It is extremely difficult to get the earpiece to fit comfortably in your ear. If it fits you’re lucky, however if it does not you are out of luck since no extra sized earpieces are included. The quality wasn’t exactly to great either. Overall the entire implementation was poorly execute. Another thing to keep in mind is that there’s a big ugly hole on the back of your phone when the headset has been removed. It looks as though something broke off your phone.

Digital Camera & Camcorder: 3/5 Stars
The LG Decoy has a 2 megapixel camera which doubles as a camcorder. Photos can be taken at a max resolution of 1600×1200 pixels, while videos can be taken at a max resolution of 320×240. The camera has many different options such as a timer, white balance, a night time mode, and even color effects such as negative mode, sepia, and black & white. There is about a five second delay from when you hit save and when you can take the next picture, so you’ll have to wait if you want to take lots of pictures in a row. The camcorder can record up to an hour of video on the microSD card, however only 30 second clips can be sent.

GPS VZ Navigator: 5/5 Stars
The VZ Navigator is probably the coolest feature of this phone, despite not being unique to the Decoy. The interface for the VZ Navigator, now on version 4.11, is simple and intuitive. The performance was surprisingly fast; it found my location in about ten seconds. It could even locate all the movies playing at every theater in my area and even show traffic conditions. The VZ Navigator also offers turn-by-turn directions with voice overs so it can be an extremely useful tool while driving.

Messaging (IM, Email, & Text): 3/5 Stars
This is not the best phone for texting since it does not have a QWERTY keyboard, but people will manage to use it for that purpose anyways. Mobile IM supports AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. Regrettably the web email function only supports MSN Hotmail, AOL Mail, and Yahoo Mail. The lack of Gmail support was disappointing. The phone lacks the Mobile Email client which most Verizon Wireless phones now have. Despite all that this is a pretty basic phone for messaging. If you are a heavy texter, you might want to consider another phone.

Conclusions:
This is a fairly mediocre phone and I wasn’t too impressed by what it had to offer. I do give them credit for begin implementing the concept of integrating a Bluetooth headset into the phone. The idea was great, however more effort should have been placed into making this a better phone. In addition a higher quality Bluetooth headset, possibly with noise cancellation, would have turned heads towards this product. For the price of $200 you can get a phone such as the LG Dare which has much more to offer in just about all aspects. My recommendation, however, would be to purchase a better phone and quality Bluetooth headset that fits your ear separately. If you are seriously interested in a phone with a built-in headset, this is the way to go. This phone is now available on Verizon Wireless’s website and in Verizon Wireless stores for $180 with a 2 year contract.

Buy Now (Limited Time): LG Decoy for $99 with 2 Year Contract (via Amazon)
Links: Verizon Wireless LG Decoy

LG VX9100 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (800MHz / 1.9GHz CDMA )
• Form Factor: Laptop-like w/ QWERTY keyboard
• Internal Display: 2.4-inch 320 x 240 pixels
• Media: MP3, WMA, AAC plus WMV, MP4, 3GP
• Imaging: 2.0 mega pixel camera and camcorder
• Other: Bluetooth, microSD (8GB max), stereo speakers
• Battery Life: 320 Mins Talk-Time or 520 Hrs standby
• Dimensions: 4″ H x 2.13″ W x .65″ D (inches)
• Price: $130 after $50 rebate plus a 2 year contract

LG enV2 Body: 4/5 stars
The enV (VX9900) was a more compact version of the LG V (VX9800) and now the enV2 is even smaller. The phone is quite small and can fit in just about any pocket. It’s a bit heavier than I had imagined (4.23 oz), but it’s still lighter than the enV. The enV2 is a whole lot shorter and thinner than the enV, however it is slightly wider. Both the front and back are pretty flat and all edges are smooth and rounded. It’s a pretty good looking phone and is easy to handle as well. On the front you’ll find a tiny display at the top and improved numeric keypad right below. The backside of the phone has the removable battery and the 2.0 megapixel camera. The right side of the phone has the 2.5mm headphone jack and microSD card reader/writer while the left side has the volume toggle keys and the camera button. As for the inside of the phone, the top portion features the 2.4-inch display with stereo speakers on the sides and the bottom portion has the QWERTY keyboard. And finally a micro-USB port can be found on the bottom under a socket cover for charging and data transfer. The only thing that I found disappointing was the extremely small screen on the front which has been rendered almost entirely useless. I feel that there would have been more to gain by making the keypad a bit smaller and by adding a larger screen.

The Screen(s): 4/5 stars
In terms of brightness and colors, both the internal and external displays are top notch. The internal screen is much bigger and brighter than the one on the enV. It looked quite good especially when I was able to view images I had taken in a full screen mode, which the enV didn’t allow. Watching videos on the internal display was quite decent as well. The external screen is now a rectangular strip which doesn’t offer enough room to perform most tasks. The external display on enV was more of a square and it’s menu system was quite fulfilling. Both screens were bright enough to be visible in direct sunlight.

User Interface: 4/5 stars
After messing with the internal interface of the phone I’ve got to say there’s a lot of improvements. Everything was quick and easy to learn and use. The interface will be quite familiar for previous enV owners. The phone also offers a layouts for messaging or multimedia, in case you plan on using one or the other more. I personally opted for the standard menu interface. Some of the stylish curves seems to have eaten up some screen estate which could have been used for displaying more information, however it wasn’t a problem. Overall the internal interface has been improved and works smoothly. The main fall back of the phone would have to be the external interface which I feel is a disaster. First off to get into the interface you’ll have to unlock the keyguard using the OK button. Next since there are no true soft keys, the up and down buttons launch the your contacts and message, respectively. The clear key which is usually centered on most phones has been placed at the top right which was quite awkward to use. The top left button is now the ‘Music’ button which should have just been one of the two customizable soft keys. The contacts list can only display two contacts at a time, however you’ll survive since it has a search function. The phone allows sending a text messages from the tiny front display, however the interface is confusing and slow. Even viewing ‘recent calls’ was quite tedious. If LG had offered a larger display and Verizon had built a better interface this would have had potential.

Media Playback: 4.5/5 stars
The interface for playing back music on the enV2 is pretty much the same as what it was on the enV. There doesn’t seem to be too many changes. I do however feel that it is about time that the player got a new look. Despite that caveat, the has and continues to player run without any problems. For those who have not used the interface on a previous phone, it allows searching or browsing by Songs, Albums, Artists, or Genres. It supports MP3, WMA, and AAC formats. It’s good news for both iTunes Plus and Amazon MP3 customers since all that content will be compatible. The V CAST Video also has been improved, streaming seems to function smoother than before and there wasn’t as much frame rate drops as there was on the enV. If you want to add your own video clips onto the phone, you can do so easily using 3rd party software and converting the content into WMV, MP4, or 3G2 formats.

MicroSD + Syncing: 5/5 stars
The LG enV2 doesn’t have too much room for storing content on it’s internal memory, however it has a microSD expansion which solves the problem. The phone now supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which should be plenty for the majority. Syncing music onto the phone is also a cinch. You can either use a micro-USB cable and sync content using a program such as Windows Media Player 11 or use a microSD card reader to copy content into the automatically created folders on the card. Even those with limited computer knowledge should be able to figure it out easily!

Speakers & Headphones: 5/5 stars
LG has once again improved the speakers on the enV2, making it better than those on the enV. I’m glad they improved on this, I was worried after I heard the speakers on the expensive LG Voyager. The speakers are clear at even full volume and manage without beginning to crackle. The sound great both for listening to music and when used as a speaker phone. If you plan to use headphones you’ll need to purchase a 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter to use with standard headphones. Listening with headphones will satisfy the average consumer, however don’t expect top notch music playback out of this phone.

Digital Camera: 4.5/5 stars
The main improvement in the digital camera on the enV2 would probably have to be the speed it takes pictures at. The enV constantly lagged and it often took forever for the camera to focus, snap, and save the image. The enV2 acts almost instantaneously. There are few disappointments with the enV2 such as the loss of the build in flash, which made a big difference for closeups taken in under-lit situations. The camera is also still a 2.0 mega pixel which was the same as what was on the enV, so no improvement there. And finally the lens cover has also been removed leaving the camera exposed. The video mode functions smoothly as well, there were no problems there. The front screen can be used to take photos and can also be used for self portraits when flipped open, however due to the small screen size, only a small strip of the full image will be visible. Overall the enV2’s camera functions as it should with some speed improvements, however the camera hasn’t been upgraded and there are no new features.

GPS VZ Navigator: 5/5 stars
I have to mention this feature, since it is one of my favorite part of Verizon Wireless phones. The VZ Naviagor, now on version 4, now includes tons of new features including traffic alerts. The interface is quick and easy to use and the phone can detect your exact location in a matter of seconds. It’s actually much more accurate than the locater on the Apple iPhone. The application will be an addition to your monthly bill unless you have a premium plan. The maps offer live turn-by-turn directions with voice overs which actually state the street names. Address can be saved into the phone. The local search can help find businesses or restaurants instantly. The program also displays the phone number of the address and can dial the number for you. And finally it can lookup movie showtimes near your location and assist in booking tickets. The new version also locates the cheapest gas in near your location.

Messaging (IM, Email, & Text): 5/5 stars
This is a great phone for those who message a lot. It’s got a built in chat client which supports AIM, MSN, and Yahoo!. The software now allows viewing your full contact lists, which was previously limited. The new Mobile Email client supports Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, and Verizon. If you use another provider, you can just enter the POP3 or IMAP servers and it should work perfectly. The Email Client also can be setup to notify you each time an email arrives in any of your inboxes. The text messaging component is vastly the same, but there are some improvements. The inbox and outbox is no longer limited to 50 messages. (In addition the phone can now hold 1000 contacts.)

Conclusion:
This is a great phone for those who love to message others wirelessly since it has a QWERTY keyboard. The phone is also a great improvement to the enV with a whole new look and a compact design. I wasn’t too fascinated by the maroon color, but I found the black version to look a whole lot better. It does lack some features such as a flash, a lens cover, and auto-focus all for the camera. It also doesn’t yet have a HTML browser. The main complaint I have would have to be the tiny external display, but if you set that aside the rest of the phone is quite impressive. The phone is also quite affordable and will be of interest to many Verizon Wireless customers looking for a new phone. The phone is now available on Verizon’s website and in Verizon Wireless stores for $130 after a $50 rebate and 2 year contract.

Limited Time Deal: LG enV2 for $50 with a 2 Year Contract
Links: Verizon Wireless | Data Sheet (.pdf)
Related: LG VX9900 Review | LG VX10000 Review

“We know the texting audience wants a mobile device that is compact enough to slide easily into pant pockets and handbags without compromising the integrity of the phone’s features. The slimmed-down enV(2) offers everything consumers loved about the enV with the added benefit of a larger, more spacious internal screen with large easy-to-text keys.” said Ehtisham Rabbani, LG.

The enV also has a built in Email Client and a Instant Messenger Client (AIM, MSN, & YAHOO). It is a fully functioning MP3 player and can support holding up to 8GB on a microSD. The enV2 is about .4 ounces lighter and about .10 inches thinner than the LG enV. The front of the enV2 is reminiscent of the Samsung UpStage, which was partially a disappointment. Overall the enV2 has a entirely new look compared to the enV, however it doesn’t seem to have any new features. The phone will be available next month for $130 after a $50 mail-in-rebate and a two-year contract.

Links: Verizon Wireless

UPDATE: Full VX9100 enV2 Review Here!

The phone everyone’s been waiting for is finally here. The LG Voyager, which is also known as the LG VX10000, is an upgrade to the popular LG enV (VX9900), which we reviewed around this time last year. Skatter Tech was lucky enough to get a hold of this unit, courtesy of Verizon Wireless, and I’ve been putting it to the test since I got it last week. Just for a quick overview, the Voyager features a touch-screen display plus an internal wide-screen, a full HTML browser, a QWERTY keyboard, Mobile TV, and a ton of other new features. Although LG seems to be taking their communicator series in a whole new direction, I would still say that Voyager is definitely a worthy upgrade to the enV.

LG VX10000 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (1.9GHz / 800MHz CMDA)
• Form Factor: Laptop-like w/ QWERTY keyboard
• Dimensions: 4.64H x 2.12W x 0.71D (inches)
• Battery Life: 240 mins talk time & 480 hours standby
• Screens: 480 x 240 pixel TFT external & internal
• Digital Camera: 2 megapixel camera and camcorder
• Storage: ~185MB internal + microSD (8GB max)
• Special: external touch screen and mobile tv
• Others: Bluetooth 1.2 + Stereo Speakerphone
• Price: $299 with a new 2-year contract

LG Voyager Body: – 5/5 stars
The VX10000 is a bit larger than your average phone, but no one should be complaining once they see what it has to offer. The phone stands 4.64-inches tall, is .71-inches thick, and 2.12-inches wide. The Voyager retains the same height as it’s processor, the enV, but is slightly wider and thinner as well. The phone should fit into most pockets, but might be a bit of a stretch for tight jeans. On the front of the phone, you’ll find the large touch screen display followed by the SEND, CLR, and END hard-keys lined up at the bottom. On the left of the phone, there’s a camera button, a spring-loaded hold key, and a toggle volume control. The microSD card expansion and the 2.5mm headset jack are the left side, while the charging port, which doubles as the USB connector, is on the bottom. You can charge your phone via USB as well! Other than that, there’s a two mega pixel Camera centered at the top on the back and a battery pack right below it. One the inside of the phone, there’s another display located between two speakers on the top portion and the illuminated QWERTY keyboard on the bottom. The keys are well spaced out are are large enough to type quickly, making it possibly the best keyboard I have seen on a phone to date. Also, unlike the enV, the Voyager actually sits flat on a surface, so no wobbling!

The Two Screens: – 5/5 stars
The biggest disappointment in the LG enV was the extremely small external display. All that has now changed since the LG Voyager’s 2.81-inch touch screen display takes over the entirety of the front and even replaces the numeric keypad. The phone’s internal display is also 2.81-inches diagonal, but isn’t a touch screen. Both the screens have a resolution of 400 by 240 pixels and a color depth of 262K. The quality of both displays were excellent. They were bright and clear enough to view in direct sunlight. The accuracy and responsiveness of the touch screen display was great, but some buttons and items were too small and hard to reach, so interface could use a bit of work.

Music Player: – 4/5 stars
I had a great experience with the Music Player on the enV and was hoping for a big upgrade, but it seems as though there hasn’t been any chances. The main complain would be that the interface for the player is completely different on the external and internal displays. The interface for the outside portion has been designed for use with the touch screen and works fairly well. It actually looks quite neat and allows browsing by Songs, Albums, Artists, or Genres. You’ll have the ability to purchase music from the mobile store, shuffle your music, and search your library. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the internal interface. The music player on the internal display is still using the standard theme found on the enV and a plenty of other Verizon Wireless phones. In addition the developers have managed to make such as simple program actually look worse and just for starters it doesn’t even utilize the full display. Instead the program has been cropped to a 320 by 240 pixel frame with black borders. Despite this, the playback functions work quite smoothly and the player didn’t have any other major flaws. For supported formats, the Voyager can playback unprotected MP3, WMA, and AAC files in addition to songs purchased through the phone. (Will work with Amazon MP3 & iTunes Plus!) Overall the player is functional and even displays Album Artwork for a nice touch, but it could have been better.

Speakers & Headphones: – 3.5/5 stars
One reason I liked the enV and its predecessor the LG VX9800 (aka “The V”) was the fact that they all had built-in stereo speakers. The LG Voyager carries on that tradition, but there’s a problem. The speakers in the LG Voyager sounded quite horrible and began to crack terribly even before we got close to reaching full volume. (No bass as well.) I would have expected for an even better experience, but these speakers prove otherwise. Since the LG Voyager is also a music phone, I would have also expected them to implement a standard 3.5mm headset connector. Instead, the Voyager maintains a 2.5mm headset jack meaning that you’ll need to purchase an adapter for use with your regular headphones. As Bluetooth headsets are becoming so cheap and barely anyone uses wired headsets anymore, I wonder how long it will take for manufacturers to phase out 2.5mm jacks and replace them with 3.5mm ones. Fortunately, listening to music with headphones on the VX10000 was a much better experience than with the speakers, but quality was still no where as good as on the VX9900.

Digital Camera & Camcorder: – 3.5/5 stars
The LG Voyager features a 2.0 megapixel camera, which also functions as a camcorder. Photos can be taken at a maximum resolution of 1600 by 1200 pixels, while videos can be recorded at a max of 320 by 240 pixels. No improvement for either of those functions have been made since, as those were also the maximums on the enV. The camera and camcorder allow setting the white balance and choosing color effects for captured content. The external display can be used to take self portraits when the phone is flipped open. The camcorder can record up to 1-hour videos, however only clips under 30-seconds can be emailed. On the other hand, images of any size can be emailed. The camera also has an auto focus function, which drastically improves the quality of your photos. The part that was quite disappointing was the fact that LG has removed the retractable cover, which protected the lens, and the built in flash, which was quite handy in low-lighted situations. Overall, the image quality seems to have actually degraded.

microSD + Syncing: – 4.5/5 stars
LG has taken a big jump with microSD technology, now supporting 8GB cards. That’s a fairly good increase considering that the enV was limited to 2GB microSD cards. Although 8GB cards might be a bit pricey at this point, you should be able to purchase a 4GB microSD card online for under $40. As for syncing music, it was as simple as it could get. Your computer will recognize the Voyager as portable media player (mass storage device), so no additional drivers were required. You will, however, need to pop in the CD and install the drivers if you do wish to use your phone as a data modem. Once the device was recognized I was able to use Windows Media Player to transfer the music onto the Voyager. If you prefer to directly copy files onto the phone using the file explorer, that works smoothly as well. Mac OS X users, unfortunately, will have to use an SD card adapter to copy their music onto the microSD card since USB drivers are not yet available. Even Windows users will also end up having use a SD card reader/write occasionally, since it isn’t possible to access your photos and videos when using USB.

Bluetooth: – 4/5 stars
There hasn’t been exactly too much improvement with Bluetooth technology either. The LG Voyager continues to use Bluetooth v1.2, which the enV already had. Most new phones including the LG Muziq, which we reviewed a few months ago, and the Apple iPhone now boast a Bluetooth v2.0 platform with Enhanced Data Rate. Despite this, the LG Voyager was still able to work perfectly with my Samsung WEP200 headset, which uses Bluetooth v2.0. The VX10000 also supports using Bluetooth for use as a dial-up modem, with wireless stereo headsets, for transfering phonebook/calendar entries, and sending images to your computer. So it should still be able to do just about everything important.

HTML Browser: – 5/5 stars
First off, let me say that this is in no way comparable to the Safari browser on the iPhone and iPod Touch, which is amazing. This is, however, a HUGE improvement over the standard BREW browser found on most Verizon Wireless phones, which could only handle WAP pages. The browser is simple, easy-to-use, and works with both the external touch screen and the internal display. Even large web pages (ex. digg.com) loaded eventually, but using it was not practical since it took too long to load or navigate. The browser doesn’t support flash or ajax, but was sufficient enough for viewing text, images, and links. Most of the websites we tested it with worked surprisingly well. When using the external display you’ll be able to drag the page around with a finger, otherwise you’ll have to use the four-way navigation pad. Additional “screen optimized” and “text only” views are available along with the zoom function. The Voyager also delivers the web content over a 3G network which is faster than the iPhone’s 2G.

The Interface: 4.5/5 stars
The LG Voyager external interface is probably the most attractive interface I’ve seen on a phone from Verizon. To use the screen, you’ll have unlock it first by either clicking on the un-lock key on the screen or by pressing the hold key on the left spine. At the bottom there are four quick access buttons: Messages, Dial Pad, Menu, and Phone book. Clicking anywhere else on the screen will bring up a shortcut menu with even more icons to different apps. Just about all the phone’s features including the music player, navigator, web browser, V Cast Videos, camera, and text messaging is use able through the external screen. There are some applications including Mobile Email and Get It Now programs that can’t be used through the external display, so you’ll have flip open the phone. Another neat hardware feature implemented into the Voyager is tactile feedback. When something on the touch screen is clicked, the phone emits a vibrating impulse indicating that an action has been detected. The internal interface has received a clean makeover, but will remain very familiar to enV owners. The enV’s “Email Key” has now been replaced another shortcut menu, offering easy access to plenty of functions. Although the interface wasn’t perfect, it looks good, was usable, and was quite impressive.

GPS Navigator: – 5/5 stars
One feature I did truly did enjoy was the built-in GPS Navigator. The program, which costs $9.99 per month, gives subscribers access to maps, turn-by-turn directions, and local searches. The part that I like the most was that the voice narration actually read out street and highway names instead of simply stating “Turn left ahead” or “Make a right turn”. For example, actually reads out “Turn left onto Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road,” “Exit freeway on the right for San Francisco,” and “Keep right on Mission Blvd.” Most navigators I’ve used including those built into Lexus/BMW cars and portable Garmin/Magellan, couldn’t do this. The one’s I’m talking about were over an year old, so I’m sure new ones can read out names and do much more. Purchasing a decent navigator can cost a few hundred dollars, so spending $120 for a year of subscription isn’t too bad. In addition, if you don’t want subscribe and don’t use your navigator that often, you can pay a one-time fee of $2.99 for 24-hour access. Overall navigation tool was well polished, worked on both screens, and will come in handy if you’re ever lost.

Messaging: – 5/5 stars
In addition to text, picture, and video messaging, the VX10000 also has an easy-to-use email client which will work instantly with your Yahoo! Mail, Live Mail, AOL/AIM, or Verizon accounts. If you do happen to have your own server or use another mail service such as Gmail, you can even enter in your own POP3/IMAP and SMTP servers. The only downside was that the functionality was quite basic and didn’t even allow opening links in messages. Despite this, it remains a good way of getting a sneak peak of your inbox, replying to messages, and composing new ones when you’re away from your computer. The phone also has a built in Instant Messaging client which will work with AOL, Windows Live, and Yahoo! protocols. The program runs smoothly on both screens, allows viewing your buddy lists, and participating in multiple conversations at once. Both the Mobile Email and Mobile IM clients have the ability to run in the background and display notifications when new content reaches your phone.

Other Goodies: – 5/5 stars
The LG VX1000 comes with a bunch of extra tools including a calculator, calendar/date-book, alarm clocks (3), stopwatch, world clock, notepad, tip calculator, and a voice recorder (1 hour max). The address book can hold one thousand entries with five numbers and two emails per contact. Unique ringtones and photos can be set for each contact as well. The voice dialing feature allows making calls by reading out names in your address book or dictating numbers to dial. The final extra feature we’d like to touch on is Mobile TV. We would have reviewed this feature, but there was one problem. What’s the problem? There was no coverage in our area. The service only works in three cities in California and a total of 25 cities through the entire United States.

Despite my minute complains over speaker/headphones quality, the music player, and camera, the LG VX10000 is still probably the best phone offered by Verizon Wireless. In my opinion this will be a big seller for the holiday season and will probably be difficult to get a hold of. I strongly recommend this phone if you plan to actually use the features it offers, otherwise going with a more compact phone will suffice. Verizon Wireless has even been kind enough to throw in a USB cable so you don’t have to purchase a Music Essentials Kit to sync your music. If you plan to purchase this phone it will be available online and in stores on November 21st, 2007. You should also be able to pre-order the phone by calling Verizon Wireless or visiting their website. The LG Voyager will run you nearly $299 after signing a new 2-year contract and submitting a $50 mail-in-rebate. If you are eligible for upgrade, you should be able to get another $50 or $100 kicked off price based on your current calling plan. Overall the phone will take a bit getting used and even though it’s a bit on the pricey end, you are bound to enjoy what it has to offer.

Deal Alert: LG Voyager for $199! (with new 2-year contract)
Links: Verizon Wireless | Voyager Data Sheet (.pdf)
Related: LG enV VX9900 Review | Voyager Video Walkthrough

We just got a hold of the brand new LG Venus (aka VX8800), which I though I’d unbox before we publish our review this week. The phone will be available online and in Verizon Wireless stores later next week. As for this phone, it very compact compared to the LG Voyager and it’s loaded with a ton of features. The phone has two screens, the bottom one is touch sensitive. The phone has a dedicated button to start playing your music, a 2 mega-pixel Camera/Camcorder, Bluetooth, and microSD expansion. Plenty more details, information, and our full take on the phone will be included in our review this week. Keep reading for more unboxing pictures of the LG Venus.

In the box you’ll find a CD with drivers and software for transferring your music library onto the LG Venus, a quite large User Manual, a Quick Start Guide, and the Power Cord.

The phone was a whole lot shinier and smaller than I though it would be! I like it!

A neat little pouch for protection and a USB cable are also included with the LG Venus.

I couldn’t think of anything better to compare it to, than the hot new LG Voyager.

I haven’t played with this phone too much just yet, but I’ll get you guys the full scoop within a day or two. So sit tight! Also if you do happen to have specific questions, ask them in the comments and I’ll do my best to include it in the review! Meanwhile check out our LG Voyager Preview.

So far it has been looking pretty darn good. It’s no iPhone for sure, but its still got a lot of other neat features including Mobile TV and microSD expansion to offer. We also received the LG Venus yesterday, so check back for some un-boxing photos of that phone in addition to our full LG Voyager review today!

The LG Voyager:
The Voyager by LG also known as the VX10000 features a large external 400×240 pixel touch-screen and a full-functioning QWERTY keyboard (plus another regular screen) once flipped open. Instead of the standard BREW browser found on most Verizon Wireless phones, the Voyager will feature a true HTML browser. They haven’t specified what type of browser the phone has just yet, but hopefully it will be on level with the iPhone’s Safari browser. The VX10000 also supports VCAST Mobile TV, plays music (mp3/wma/aac), takes photos with a 2.0 megapixel camera, has high-speed broadband access, microSD expansion (8GB max!), bluetooth, stereo speakers, and plenty more. (check back for a full review)

The Venus by LG:
The Venus is a unique phone since it has two displays right on the front. The upper screen shows data, while the smaller square screen below is touch sensitive (has vibration feedback!) and is used for navigation. The phone itself remains a slider revealing a physical keypad below. (similar to the LG Chocolate) The LG Venus also supports microSD expansion, plays music, has Get It Now features, and even has a 2 megapixel camera. If you are wondering if this a replacement for the fairly new Chocolate, as far as we can tell, Verizon seems to be planning to sell both devices.

The Samsung Juke:
The Juke has been primarily created as a MP3 player phone and it would be fair to give it that title since it has 2GB of built-in flash storage. If I’m correct, this is Verizon’s first phone with built-in memory. As for the music files it will play mp3, wma, and unprotected aac files. (supports iTunes Plus and Amazon tracks) The phone itself looks unusually long, and “flicks” open like switchblade to reveal a keypad. In addition it sports a VGA camera with NightShot, supports the bluetooth stereo profile, works as a navigator, and is available in blue/red/teal. This will likely be the most sold of the four.

Blackberry Pearl 8130:
The new Pearl from RIM features full wireless EV-DO broadband, GPS-based Navigation, music playback, stereo bluetooth for wireless headsets, a 2 mega pixel camera, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and a new improved interface. Although too much information hasn’t been provided just yet, but it is expected to be a major improvement to the current Pearl.

As of now, no pricing or exact date has been set by Verizon, however they are guarantying that all four of these phones will be available by Thanksgiving (Nov. 22nd)! We’ve got a short little video below with a quick view of each of the four phones. We are trying to get a Voyager unit for review, so check back!

Links: VerizonWireless.com/next

If you are a long-time Verizon Wireless customer, you should be quite aware that you have the ability to upgrade your cell phone every two years. Normally customers were offered a total of $100 towards a new phone if they agree to sign another two year contract with Verizon and had maintained a monthly plan of $30 or more. However this is no longer the case. With Verizon Wireless’s “New Every Two” plan, pretty much everyone with any sort of contract has to pay more to upgrade to a new device.

The new plan goes as follows: If a customer has had a monthly plan of $35 or more for 2 years , they then now qualify for only $50 towards a new phone after signing another 2 year contract instead of the previous $100. To receive a total of a $100 towards a new phone, as it was before, the customer must be paying at least $80 or more for their monthly plan for the entire two years or the last three months before becoming eligible to upgrade. Even though some may be eligible to get a $100, they will still be stuck with a new contract. In addition those who are thinking because of their family plan, everyone can new phones, WRONG, only the primary line will be eligible.

Verizon, in their defense, claims that the cost of cell phones has been “drastically” dropping over the last 10 years. I have to agree that prices of any electronic gadget does drop over time as it becomes cheaper to produce. BUT when the price of the new popular Motorola RAZR 2, which will be a hit during the holiday season, is on sale at a price of $250 with yet another 2 year contract, I have to disagree. What do you guys think? Is Sprint, Cingular, or T-Mobile handset upgrades any better?

Links: Verizon Wireless New Very Two | FAQs