Customer Reviews

LG 600G Prepaid Phone with Double Minutes for Life (Tracfone)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

i havent had a dropped call yet, the reception is good, includes the bluetooth feature and you can transfer ringtones, pictures and wallpapers from your bluetooth to the phone. this is the first phone from tracfone that allows you to do this, and the camera takes ok pictures but not the best quality, it does not have a flash. the internet browser works but tracfone has crippled it so it will only let you go to the tracfone sites and will not let you go on any other url such as [...]. overall if you just want a phone for emergencies or occasional use and really dont require the many features then this is the phone for you.

I've been using Tracfone for years and I initially wrote a harsh review because adding minutes to the phone via the website was a nightmare. All that has changed now and adding minutes couldn't be any easier. No more adding lines of numbers over and over again. You basically just enter your serial number and keep clicking on continue. I recently upgraded my phone to this model and transferring my telephone number from my older phone was very easily (again I did it on the website). I find this model to be much better than my older phone. The volume and sound quality is great and I the flip case. The double minutes feature is also great. Tracfone also does nice things like give you free minutes on your birthday. I've been very pleased with the phone and the service.

I switched to Tracfone a couple of years ago to save money, and at that time, I bought the Motorola V170, which was a downgrade from the Samsung phone I used with Verizon. I assumed that's what I'd be stuck with as long as I was with Tracfone, so I was surprised to see this phone appear on the market with a pretty nice set of features. I have purchased this phone for both my wife and I and ported our old numbers and minutes over (no problems there, but make sure the tech you talk to knows how many minutes you currently have). This phone is pretty slick. The sound is great, the screen is nice and big, bluetooth integration is great (I've paired it with my car's integrated system, my laptop, and another LG600g), and the features are surprisingly robust. Two nits: (1) The camera kind of sucks. If there's any kind of motion, the picture will be blurry. (2) Ringtones can only be in midi or amr format. The sound quality on amr is lousy--mp3 would have been nice.

All in all, it's a better phone than I ever hoped to get when I switched to Tracfone.

I bought the LG600g as an upgrade to my Motorola V120c that I had and used for about 4 years with no problems except the occasional call drop all people I talked to never knew I was on a mobile. My purchase was made from HSN with a package that included a 1 Year card and Bluetooth head set.

The good points of this phone are the sleek styling, nifty features, the color screen was a treat! Bluetooth, compact and affordable.
I can hear everyone very clear on this phone, better than the old one. However, the outgoing signal got me so many complaints. It's not static, but a wavy, reverberation sound that others hear. I call customer service and they sent out a replacement... same model but reconditioned. I still have the same problem. So, I wanted to switch it all back to 600g #1 and the web site told me I needed a new SIM card. THe girl I talked to understood and sent it out. I tried to do the transfer from the reconditioned to the 600g #2 online and something went wrong. Now my phones are rendered inactive and the person I got on to talk to had a language and understanding barrier with me. I have yet to resolve and return to cell phone sanity. I am disappointed after years of satisfaction.

But in doing research, I found that my LG600g is a GSM and my old Motorola was a CDMA. The GSMs work on TMobile or AT&T SIMs. (If your SIM card number starts 890141 and a bunch of other numbers, you have AT&T sevice. An interesting point is that the Tracfone models with c in the model code are CDMA and work on Verizon. These signals are better in rural areas, like mine. I heard a little rumor that Tracfone may come out with an LG 231c phone that is loaded with cool stuff. I will endure the flaws of this 600g until that one comes out. By the way, the g tells you that it is GSM.
A good site for all things Tracfone, Net10 is [...]
He reviews and give info on all the phones, that Saint!
Please send a message my way with questions or comments.

the good things:
small, lightweight, compact
keypad feels good and has a satisfying click to it
t9 predictive texting - makes texting very very easy. and fast.
voice/audio recorder - kinda random, but it might be useful sometime, i guess.

there's a small two part button on the side that you can use to adjust your ringtone volume, or set your phone to vibrate or silent. (instead of having to navigate through a really long menu). if you're in a call, it will adjust the call volume. its very convenient.

external display - if you just want to check the time without opening the phone, you can just press a button on the side, and you can see the date, time, signal strength and battery level on the outside screen.

the things that annoy me:
when you go to your inbox, the sender isn't in the title of text messages - it only shows the date and first few words of the message. really stupid, imo. also, when you get a new text, you can't tell who it's from until you open it.
camera is really low quality


other things:
the internet access is crippled, so don't expect to check your email from this phone or anything.
bluetooth, however, isn't crippled, and was very easy to setup and use (at least with a mac). its especially useful if you plan to take pictures or use the voice recorder, because it doesn't cost any minutes to transfer them to your computer using bluetooth. you can also transfer ringtones this way.
battery life seems pretty good, i haven't tested it but it goes down to 2/3 charge after about 2 days, so it could probably last a week on one charge.

stuff about tracfone in general:
activate your phone over the internet, its much easier than calling them. none of their representatives speak english very well, and the internet activation process is much easier anyway.
USE BONUS CODES!! search on the internet for them. i added a 400 min, 365 service days card and got 350 bonus minutes. so with double minutes for life, that comes out to 2 * 400 + 350 = 1150 minutes for 99 dollars = 8.6 cents per minute. which = a good deal.


if you're choosing between this and the motorola w376g -
(this is all stuff i've read from other reviews on the internet. It is from reputable sources, but i don't actually own the motorola w376g. try googling "pbushx2's weblog" for lots of in-depth phone reviews)

in terms of texting:
t9 (this phone) > iTAP (motorola). i've heard on the motorola you have to press ok to auto-complete a word, whereas with the lg you just press 0 (space), which is much less awkward. also, i've read that the input is kind of slow/lags on the motorola.

call quality:
other reviews have said that the sound quality is poor on this phone (especially compared to the motorola), and you people sound like they are far away, or talking through a tunnel. I don't notice this at all, it sounds fine to me. its never dropped a call, and i've always gotten reception. (though i live in LA, so i'm not sure how the reception is out in rural areas)

bluetooth and internet:
bluetooth is crippled on the motorola, so if you want to transfer pictures, you have to send them to your email, which costs minutes.
a lot of people complain about hitting the web browser button by accident with the motorola, and then getting minutes deducted.
the button isn't as inconveniently placed on this phone. i've never once hit it by accident.

other stuff:
i'm pretty sure the motorola has a scroll wheel, which would make navigating the menus much easier, but i'm not certain.
the external display on the motorola doesn't show the date and time

so yeah, overall i would say this a better choice than the motorola w376g, and the worth the extra ten dollars.

The LG600G is an excellent phone!

Transferring my minutes and phone number from my old TracFone was painless using Tracfone's website, and I didn't have to wait days for the transfer to be complete. It was done just as soon as I was finished on their web page!!

Bluetooth works excellent! I easily paired it with my GPS, earpiece, and laptop.

I've been using it for a few days now, and have not experienced any dropped calls, always good connections. The camera is very basic, but I already have a camera, and I didn't buy this for the camera.

It comes from Tracfone with free double minutes for life, and if you can afford to buy large blocks of minutes, Tracfone usually has good bonus minute deals. So far, with the package I got through HSN, my costs have been less than $0.08 per minute!

Everyone I have spoken with over this phone say that my voice is nice and clear. And they sound good to me! All in all, the LG600G from Tracfone has been a very good deal for me!

Great phone with great reception. Also, with this phone you can get the weather on radar.

Bought this for the double minutes but has been a good phone as well. Easy voice mail etc, however, cannot figure out how to backspace through misspelled names. Not a single dropped call and I live in the sticks.

Bought this phone from Tracfone web site two months ago [Jan 2010] as a "upgrade" to an older Nokia. Tracfone requires that you designate the area code in which the phone will be used primarily [San Jose, CA]. Fair enough -- calls from other area codes are than charged as roaming. Also, I want to use the phone in San Diego and in most areas of San Diego and other areas of California the phone works. However, there is an half mile area, more or less, around my office where the phone does not work -- "emergency calls only" with five bars signal strength. How do I know this? I walked in various directions from the office, checking the phone performance every 1-2 blocks until I could actually dial out.

Thus, for my purposes, the phone is useless in San Diego.

I have two other Tracfones [an older Nokia 1100 and a Motorola V170] -- both work just fine in all areas of San Diego.

Now for the customer review part: When in San Diego, I called customer review and was told that I must call from the primary use area to resolve the problem. When I returned to San Jose, I was told that I must call when in San Diego to resolve the problem. I was told that the problem might be that I was trying to use the phone outside of the primary area -- Why would Tracfome sell a phone that worked only in a small area of the country? So far I have spent over three hours on the phone and on hold while I am shuttled from "Supervisor" to "Supervisor", none of whom were really helpful. Apt descriptions might be robotic/pleasant/lacking competency/able to read the English language script adequately.

The "last straw": When the phone is activated, Tracfone includes 20 minutes and sixty days of air time. The air time on this phone will expire March 15 -- I am not going to be in San Diego until March 19. Since the last message was that I had to call from San Diego to help them "research" the problem, I asked for an additional 10 days of air time [not minutes]to March 25...didn't feel like buying more air time and throwing good money after bad. Another 30 minutes and more supervisors later, I was begrudgingly granted another five days of air time -- to March 20. The likelihood that the issue will be resolved is minimal.

Comments: When the Tracfones work, the price is reasonable. When they don't work, be prepared to spend hours of frustration and aggravation.

Just purchased the phone. I haven't had the phone a month yet. It's easy to add time and am getting offers for addtional minutes. I have no dropped calls and the phone is crystal clear. Well satisfied with the LG600G