LG F9100 American Idol Phone (AT&T)

by LG

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.5 x 1.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0007N1Z8G
• Item model number: L1400
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #325,735 in Cell Phones & Accessories (See Top 100 in Cell Phones & Accessories)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

At first glance, the LG F9100 looks like just another candybar style handset. A slide-out QWERTY keyboard and advanced features like support for wireless internet and advanced messaging make this phone far from ordinary, though. Users who want to craft text messages will find much to like in this little companion.

Design
The F9100's face features a large, 65,000-color screen with 128 x 160 pixels. The full QWERTY keyboard slides out of the right side of the phone, which automatically flips the display to read horizontally. Secondary selection buttons above the keyboard allow the phone to be operated in this horizontal orientation. Other design features include a standard jack to accept universal hands-free headsets and a five-way center button that controls most of the phone's on-screen menus. An internal antenna keeps the F9100 sleek and compact.

Calling Features
The phone's internal phone book can accommodate up to 255 contacts for quick retrieval of numbers, email addresses and other info. The phone supports polyphonic ringtones, as well as vibrating alerts. Voice dialing lets you call your favorite contacts by simply speaking their names. A ringer ID function allows you to set specific ringers to certain callers.

Messaging and Internet
Support for basic text messaging and robust multimedia messaging are built into the F9100, as are client applications for AOL Instant Messenger, YAHOO! Messenger, and ICQ. There's also a built-in web browser for Cingular MEdia downloads and mobile web browsing. Cingular's MEdia service lets you receive and send emails, read news headlines, get weather updates, download games and ringtones, and more. Traditional text messaging, as well as picture and sound messaging are also supported by the phone. T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit-- a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.

A number of handy tools ship with the F9100, including an alarm, a calendar and a calculator with currency converter. There's also a voice memo application for recording quick notes or numbers.

Imaging and Entertainment
Because the F9100 supports Java applications it is compatible with many Java-based games. The MEdia service offers a wide range of game and Java application downloads. Downloadable ring tones, screensavers and wallpapers are also available.

Vital Statistics
The LG F9100 operates on the GSM 850/1900 MHz frequencies. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 4 hours of digital talk time, and up to 12 days of digital standby time. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.

What's in the Box
F9100 handset, lithium-ion battery, AC charger, user's manual.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars LG + Cingular + F9100 = BAD PHONE, August 3, 2005

By 

Christopher G. Rywalt (Wood Ridge, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LG F9100 American Idol Phone (AT&T) (Wireless Phone)

I've had my LG F9100 for about a month now and I am getting increasingly annoyed with it and Cingular and LG. All of them together have made this phone an absolutely terrible buy.

When I went looking for a new phone after many years on Verizon, what I wanted was simple: Either a phone that could play MP3s, or a phone with a keyboard. Years ago I had a Sharp Zaurus and I loved typing things in -- ideas, to-do lists, stories, whatever -- but the Zaurus had a lot of limitations. A phone with a keyboard would solve a lot of problems.

As soon as I saw the LG F9100, I was in love. It seemed an elegant and excellent solution: An electronic device which can be a true multitasker and still fit in my pocket! Just what I wanted.

Wrong. My first disappointment was discovering that the keyboard doesn't work with anything other than text messaging over SMS, IM, and putting numbers in the phone book. Using Google over WAP: No keyboard. Using MapQuest: No keyboard. Even using the built-in calendar or memo applications: No keyboard.

Well, okay, I thought. Text messaging is pretty cool, and there's an SMS-SMTP gateway so you can send e-mail from your phone to any address on the Internet.

On a long trip in Atlantic City I decided to use the text messaging to tell my friends about amusing things happening on my trip. They were short messages -- but not short enough. Every message I sent got cut off.

My research on this showed that SMS only supports 160 characters per message. Okay, SMS is for SHORT messages. But -- and here's where I started to get annoyed -- if I send an SMS message to another PHONE and it's over 160 characters, the message gets split up and then reconstituted at the other phone -- SEAMLESSLY -- so I can send long messages, up to slightly less than 1000 characters. So the 160-character limit CAN be worked around. But, for some reason, NOT for SMS-SMTP. Which is pretty stupid, considering that my wife's phone is a crappy little Motorola and the Cingular SMS-SMTP gateway server is probably a big ole Unix box somewhere.

So I called Cingular customer support. It took me over an hour and I never found anyone who could even understand my problem, much less fix it. I finally got an SMS text message -- oh the irony! It was LONGER than 160 characters -- explaining that SMS is limited to 160 and they couldn't do anything about it.

Fine. So maybe I should be using MMS, which is the successor to SMS, to send my messages. MMS doesn't have the 160-character limit.

Too bad the F9100's KEYBOARD doesn't work with MMS.

Fine. Well, the phone also does Java. I'm a programmer. So I figured maybe I could write my own program which would allow the keyboard to be used to send e-mail. Except how to access the keyboard from Java? I sent a message to LG to ask. I received this reply: "Our equipment is not compatible with the applications you mentioned."

So I wrote back again asking what applications their equipment WAS compatible with. I mean, clearly the keyboard CAN work -- it works with the text messaging, and that was programmed using some language or other. I got this back: "Our phones are designed according to the service provider's specification. As such, the functionality of your phone is the mere design result approved and accepted not only by your service provider, but by the FCC. The F9100 was mainly designed for text/SMS messaging usage. Therefore, the keyboard usage is limited to such. In addition, LG is not in a position to provide any more information than what you have been given concerning the internal coding as that is considered proprietary information."

Which I translate as "Any boneheaded design decisions aren't LG's fault, and furthermore we have no intention of fixing any of them, no matter how much it angers our customers, so go stuff an eggplant where the sun don't shine." In fact, a later message from LG made it clear that Cingular is LG's customer, not me. I guess I hallucinated that little LG logo on my phone and the box it came in.

Okay, fine. So I'll just keep my own little messages on the phone, using the keyboard to type in SMS messages which I'll just save and never send out. I can still use it for to-do lists and stuff.

Except for the final flaw: Every so often, the phone eats parts of saved messages. They just turn into gibberish, and if you try to read them, the phone's text messaging application crashes.

And I have yet to get the phone's Yahoo Messenger feature to work.

Way to go! Guess I now know what the F in F9100 stands for.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NO email, bad bad User Interface, rattle-tastic slide, March 10, 2005

By 

M. Champion (austin, texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: LG F9100 American Idol Phone (AT&T) (Wireless Phone)

so i have had this phone for 4 or 5 days now, and i am *trying* to like it, but i am know i am going to send it back.

i can live with no camera, memory slot, bluetooth, etc. i txt quite a bit, dont really mobile IM, but figured maybe i would start, and it seems NOT A STRETCH AT ALL, that i would use THE most popular application on the Internets.. its called Email... maybe some of you have heard of it?

well, apparently not the folks somewhere between LG/Cingular/f9100 marketing and decision making teams. i have had phones for years that do email. doesnt need to be a full-blown app like outlook, but email on a mobile, especially one that does mobile IM seems pretty no-brainer as likely to be wanted. if you were thinking that a phone with 4 protocols of mobile IM capability and a slide out freakin keyboard would have included some email ability, even in the form of a pay-for 3rd party app, to do email you would be wrong. True, i can send email as [e-mail], but thats no use to me, or i suspect, the billion people whoalready have an email address.

i also have a moto mpx220 from cingular, and it comes pre-configured for like 5 major ISP's email, and a great wizard to walk you thru a outlook/imap/pop3 account. i used it all the time and thought "great, now i can use a keyboard for simple stuff like email, and not have to drop $400 on a treo."

also, the slide rattles, opens in your pocket, there is NO WAY to turn off alert tones, poor font choices so it looks like a cheapo computer from 1991, you CANT use the keyboard on all the phone's INCLUDED applications, like its openwave WAP browser!!! surely someone between LG and Cingular could have added a middleware to hook the keyboards APIs to the Openwave text input APIs so that i could type in URLS with the INCLUDED keyboard rather than than tripple-tapping the phonepad.

sorry Lucky Goldstar, i want to like this phone, but please hire an Interface Designer, not just engineers. example, how about the Inbox saying "Inbox(2)" when i have messages instead of saying "Inbox" all the time. my phone from 2000 did that!

physically, the phone is pretty alright (despite the slide issue), so maybe there will be a firmware upgrade that just starts over from a software point of view and evolves this thing from barely ok (if txt and IM are all you ever use, and i KNOW that that is not true of even 17 year olds) to a pretty rawkin little txter/IM'er/emailin' sidekick fighter,

but thats just me lookin on the bright-side.

-mario

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars So near, Soooooooo FAR...., February 21, 2005

By 

T. D Laedtke (Oak Park, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LG F9100 American Idol Phone (AT&T) (Wireless Phone)

Looks very cool and exciting at first glance. Great color display. I've had this phone for about a month now, and wish I hadn't forked over the $150 bucks.

The phone keys are too small... you have to push with the very tip of your finger to operate them. The screen is great as is the slide out keyboard... but forget about any simple email or web browsing using the slideout keyboard. It is not supported !! How dumb is that? This great sliding keyboard, but it is only used for IM and data entry for the phone book. Anything else and you need to use the old multiple key pressing for alpha characters.

Oh yeah.. the documentation... stinks, there are several pretty icons that show up on the screen for which there is no legend. And especially around the use and setup of different networks, where good documentation would be helpful, it is non-existant.

Add this to the annoyance of having it sliding open all the time in your pocket, or while you are using it...there whould be some way of locking it shut. well, I am sorry I purchased this phone.