Customer Reviews

LG Shine CU720 Phone, Silver (AT&T)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I waited about 3 weeks for this phone but it was well worth it. I was overdue for an equipment upgrade via AT&T but I really couldn't find a phone with style and function until I came upon the Shine. It's not a very popular phone and I decided to take a chance.

I know it's hard to tell the size by just looking at pictures but to give you a comparison, I had the first gen black razor. The shine basically has the same width, and height dimensions only it's a wee bit thicker but not by much at all. I was so used to the compact size of the razor that I didn't want a bulky smartphone.

This phone has some weight to it, which by my standards gives me the feeling of a quality phone and not made of cheap plastic. Hopefully this will last me at least until my next upgrade.

Navigation with the joystick takes some time to get used to, but the good thing about it is, you do really need to give it a firm push downwards to select. I haven't come across an issue where I wanted to go left, right, up or down and the joystick input it as a mistake "push/select."

I wish you could come up with your own quick options with the joystick instead of what is pre-programmed already. i.e. toggle up and you get a new message for texting. That really doesn't make sense because you have to slide open the phone? Go right and you get your AIM/Yahoo Mess. log on options. I will probably never use this feture. Down is your phone book and left is "my stuff." You do have control to customize 12 quick access options with the soft key on the right which somewhat makes up for not being able to customize the joystick.

One issue I read was the mirror finish of the screen during the daytime. Yes, it is harder to see and to read your screen in direct sunlight but cupping your hand to shade the screen shouldn't deter one from such a flaw. I had the same visibility issues with my razor as well.

When your phone rings you don't need to slide it open, you can just press the soft key on the left that says "accept." The problem I have is after I finish with the call, I feel somewhat lost in a sense that I'm used to either 1. closing the phone to end the call or 2. pressing an 'end' button. The shine's display turns off after a few seconds and it's a mirror finish so when I'm done talking I look at the phone and think, "How do I end this call??" Basically, I have learned you just let the other person end the call and you do not have to do anything.

AT&T's media is okay but the screen's resolution isn't that great at all. I think it's a good option to have if you are bored in a waiting room or to kill some time, but the picture quality isn't anywhere near that of an iphone. It's very choppy. Browsing the web on G is pretty fast for checking sports scores. I found that it came in handy.

I would highly suggest a clearshield or some sort of cover/protector to prevent scratches on the screen and the back metal plate. I have heard that if you get scratches on the front screen it shows up A LOT with the mirror finish.

Ringtones absolutely SUCK. I find that ringtone volume is loud enough. The vibe feature is very strong. Cool feature -- you can opt to have a lady SPEAK the numbers dialed instead of beeps. Something a little different. The keypad is cramped and I do hit several buttons while texting.

Even though I pointed out a lot of small flaws with this phone, I still like it A LOT MORE than my razr. Would be awesome if it had a qwerty keyboard as well. Overall, a solid phone. Can't beat it for the price either.

The Shine is just plain sexy. Stainless steel, small, mirror screen, feels good. For me though function does sometimes trump great form. All the features of the phone are slick except the battery life. That is unfortunately a huge factor for me as I hate having to recharge all of the time. I get about 2-3 days between charges. My crappy old nokia 6100 got about a week between charges. I may switch to the Sony Ericsson 580i given its long rated battery life. If you don't care about battery life though, I do recommend the Shine.

Despite the fact that AT&T is the carrier and it has a few drop calls once in a while, I am very happy with the LG CU720 Shine phone. Not only is it a handsome phone, it has a lot of useful features: It's a 3G phone which allows me to connect to the internet, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, IM and email ready. So you can connect to those directly if you already had an account. I can do video calls with any 3G phones (though I have yet done that), it has a great 2.0MegaPixel camera, has a mp3 player (tried and sounded great in fact). It is XM radio ready (need separate subscription for 8.99 I think). It can play video too, I mean music videos, movie trailers..etc. It has a beautiful, large screen (screen protector is recommended, it costs me maybe like 7.99 for two pieces online -- Clarivue). It supports SDMicro card too. So, you can expand the memory easily. So if iPhone costs $400 with 2 years contract, I has got this Shine phone for free with 2 years contract. I have made a really good deal!

There are numerous type of connections that I know of: GSM / GPRS / EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA, which literally means I can connect to the internet everywhere. What it makes so convenient about the phone with internet, apart from checking email, is that I can find a restaurant phone, a local map easily. I use it almost like a GPS. I have even downloaded the google map, and I can search for directions.

Games: I don't play a lot, but I am surprised to see that I am surprised to see the games available on the phone - Pacman, Tetrix - I also downloaded Bombsweeper (the anicent window game), Snake, Hangman, Video Poker, Bomber...etc (for free online - Getjar). I am in my 30s, it's just cool to see all old school games!

A lot of useful tools came with the phone, like world time, tips calculator, measure conventor, notepad...etc. Can also download a lot of other application for free at Getjar.

At first, I thought maybe I am just over-excited with this handsome new phone because of its look, but lately I do notice I am using the features it offers as well. That's more important. I don't wanna change my phone for a while.

Background: Over the past two months, I have spent a great deal of time debating between whether to get the Sony Ericsson W580i or the LG Shine CU720. After making numerous threads at various forums regarding this question, reading countless reviews, watching many videos, looking at hundreds of pictures, and mapping out the pros and cons of each one multiple times, I have settled on the Sony Ericsson W580i. Since my family just got a family plan with ATT (3 lines/550 minutes shared) and one of my sisters got the Shine, I was able to do a comparison between the phones.

Battery Life: The claim that Sony Ericsson has poor battery life, in short, is complete bull ****. Those that say they had short battery life... you just got a lemon (or are trying to reason yourself out of the fact that buying a shine was actually a poor decision). My OTHER sister, who also got a Sony Ericsson, also gets great battery life with hers. Rather than the claimed "3-4 day charge" that many people on this forum and others are claiming, I have found that the phone will last over a week (11-13 days). The LG Shine, which is said to have poor battery life, disappoints: its battery life is indeed very short. The papers that the LG Shine comes with claims that battery life is around 3 hours of talk time, up to 240 hours (10 days) of standby time, is standard marketing bull ****: through a test of 10 different charges with three different batteries, the phone has lasted no more than 3 days before it required a charging.

SE: 10/10 Shine: 3/10

Durability: People say the LG Shine has a stronger build than the Sony Ericsson, but if you actually compare the two, you find that you cannot actually compare the two... Why? The SE is a plastic phone; the LG shine is a plastic phone with metallic components. One thing that is not usually noted is that the Shine actually has VERY little metal in its body; it's only the battery cover and some of the front. The LG shine doesn't really feel that much more durable than the SE. If you drop the shine, you will certainly damage the screen, and/or scratch the body, and/or break the phone. With something plastic, eg. Sony Ericsson, a drop will do no more than give a few scratches. Regarding the slider mechanism, the LG Shine's "snaps" when you open and close it, whereas the SE's slider is not as snappy. Due to the difference in the way that the phones slide, it isn't really accurate to say that one feels more durable than the other. Since the durability was one of my biggest concern in getting the phone, I did a test of each phone upon cracking open the box: I opened and closed each phone 300 times. Results: The LG Shine's slider remained the same; the SE's slider got smoother after the test.

SE: 9/10 Shine: 6/10

Fingerprints/Scratchability: The claims that the Shine is a fingerprint magnet could not be more true. The Shine cannot stand to be touched at all. Walking around with the Shine put in my side jeans pocket for a day, the Shine went in looking stellar and came back looking pretty poor. The back plate had obviously been rubbed on, the front plate exhibited small, but noticeable scratches. I'm sure you could prevent the Shine from getting scratched by getting a screen protector and/or case, but the hassle of one is not something that I'd want to deal with (not to mention such protection would take away the "beauty" of the Shine). The Sony Ericsson, as one may predict, does not scratch easily. Same jeans, same walk, and the SE still looked great after. There was something that looked like a small scratch on the front screen on the SE, but nothing a wipe could clean off. Speaking of which, with the LG Shine, you cannot wipe the phone with any shirt; it will scratch if the fabric of the cloth/shirt is rough. A BIG reason people get the Shine is because it looks good. Well, if you don't take care of it like a newborn baby, it's going to look like **** and ipso facto, it was a poor decision to buy the phone for its looks.

SE: 9/10 Shine: 1/10

Keypad: People always complain about the keypads of the Sony Ericsson and the LG Shine and say how small they are and how difficult it is to text with them... Most of these complainers are complaining from hearsay (they repeat what they read/hear from others, not from their own experience). The problem of cracking keypads is also a huge concern for potential buyers of the SE. First, to address the keypad. The size of the keypad is very usable for texting and other usage. I have 6'2" and have large hands and I can still manage to comfortable use the phones' keypads. Texting with both is very easy (albeit not as easy as texting on a RAZR). The SE's keypad is not as responsive as the Shine's, meaning the click down are not as solid, and that the row of numbers are connected so that one press on a number slightly depresses the row, but nonetheless, it is very solid. The LG Shine's keypad is like a smaller version of the RAZR. Regarding the cracking keys on the SE, I performed a test to see if this rumor was true. Over a period of 2 days, I had the phone off and during my spare time (which is a lot since it's summer), I've been clicking away at the keys (with a good amount of pressure I might add), and the keys exhibit no sign of cracking. Clearly the cracking keys is an issue with older phones (which you could potentially still buy if the reseller of your phone has old stock).

SE: 9/10 Shine: 9/10

Navigation: Those that say navigation on the Shine is difficult are clearly retarded: physically or mentally. The joystick on the Shine takes no practice to nail. It is very easy to use, and is not too small. The SE, with no joystick, as imagined, is also very easy to use. My only caveat with the SE is that there's no dedicated end call button like my old Nokia. The numbered menus in the Shine are very easy to use.

SE: 9/10 Shine: 9/10

Reception/Sound Quality: I live in Northern California in a well populated city, and everywhere I go, I get 5 bars with the SE and from 3 to 4 bars with the Shine. I have found the number of signal bars that you get has a big impact on the call quality (as it should)... The Shine frequently echoes what the other person says, and a background static seems to be present in all calls. To ensure that I didn't receive a lemon shine, I tested a friend's shine and sure enough, it was the same. My friend told me they didn't notice the static (he probably got use to the poor call quality)... The SE's reception and sound quality it top notch. No complaints whatsoever here. Even with 3 bars (in a tunnel), the call was still strong.

SE:10/10 Shine: 5/10


Features: SE wins hands down. Read the features at each phone's respective website; I won't waste your time here. The LG Shine is the most basic of phones. The only thing its got over the SE is 3G. The Shine is all looks.

SE: 10/10 Shine: 2/10 (absolutely pitiful for a phone be so lackluster in features)

Other concerns and notes:
- The speaker on the SE kills that one which is on the Shine
- Both phones have ringtones are loud enough to be heard
- Both phones can [be modified to] receive games and , but with the SE, you have more options.

After four months of light usage, the battery efficiency drops. A full charge lasts barely 24 hours. A friend in battery sales told me this problematic battery right after I got the phone. I thought it was an isolated incident but now it's happening to my phone. Stay away from this crap. Fashionable design is nice but that's not the main purpose of the phone.

I had been dying to get the Shine for a while and finally got it a few days ago. I was so excited - until that night when I tried switching the pictures and music from my old phone to the Shine. My "old" phone is a Samsung A727 and has the feature of copying or moving multiple files at once, which is what I did to get it on my boyfriend's microSD card. But to get my files off his card and onto the Shine I had to scroll down to the object of choice, copy it, and then scroll down again to paste it in my phone. VERY tedious and a complete waste of time.

LG put many cool features into the Shine and made it look absolutely sexy, but to me they forgot about some basic features like multipy-copy or -move. It does have a multi-select feature but it can only be used to delete multiple items. Users also cannot customize the shortcuts that can be accessed by the joystick. For example, pushing right with the stick leads you to "IM". I *never* use IM on my phone, and thus I should be able to replace it with a shortcut I actually use. But the Shine doesn't have that option. It does have an "Option" page right off the main screen where you can customize any 12 (I think) "shortcuts" you want, to be fair, but I want something that I can access practically immediately.

The speaker phone also wasn't very good. It cut out often. There was also an annoying beep in the background every few minutes whenever I talked to someone. The associates at AT&T couldn't figure out why. Of course, that was probably just my phone. My screen seemed durable, but after 3 days I had a small scratch on the back plate. I am not hard on phones whatsoever, so those who are need to be especially careful. Another basic feature that I'm pretty sure was missing was that when you text and want to use a symbol you can only do one at a time. I know for certain that this is true when you push the star button to open the symbols page, but I can't remember if it's like that when you choose options and then symbols (or whatever the titles are called).

I ended up returning the phone today. Even though I loved the camera, some of the texting features (not the keys though, those took getting used to cuz they are so small), and the look of the phone, I refused to pay $[...] for a phone I wasn't completely, or near completely, happy with. Hope this helps.

I have no idea why some people say the battery life is decent. I went through THREE brand new SHINE cu720's and every single one was the same. The battery lasted if I was lucky with minimal use one day TOPS! and that was hardly even using it. I hadn't played any music with it, or used the text feature or any video games etc etc. How could three brand new phones be bad? Is that possible? I doubt it. Outside of that I love the phone but such horrible battery life takes so much away from a real nice phone. What good is it? I have to put it on the charger every day without fail.
I conditioned the battery properly by fully charging it as the battery instructions indicated I should do. Don't be fooled if the battery says its charged after a cpl of hours. Its a false reading. Thats what it says in the directions for the battery.
The first few times you should charge it for 24 hours and run it down between charges.
Also the first few times you do this do it with the power OFF. With that said..the battery still couldn't be any worse.
I've been looking around for a second battery but the least expensive I can find a OEM Lithium Ion 900mAh battery for the Shine cu720 is about $35-$40. Bummer.

The other thing is the ring volume is insanely low and the ringtones are seriously lame.

The sound quality is real good while speaking and listening. The camera is pretty good as well and it does zoom but not on the top two resolution settings. The flash does work nicely for what it is.

The look of the phone is really nice and it feels solid and well built.

All the features I found easy to use and I'm pretty pathetic when it comes to puters and electronics so it better be easy out of the box.

I gave it low stars for the ring tone volume but mostly the horrendous battery life!!

I don't do much texting so I can't comment on that.
I do have large fingers and using the keys for dialing is no problem for me nor is scrolling around with the scroll button.

If I could find a second battery for a lot less money I might be a bit happier about owning this phone.

Sooo

i got this phone 2 days ago

to replace the Lg Fusic that my padre ran over :p

so anyways

this phone is quite cool looking.

and the mp3 ringtones sound good,
but you can't record your own ringtones.

and you can't change the ones for new text messages and whatnot.

the camera is nice.

but the video recording can only record for 1 minute and 1 second before you have to press the button again.

joystick isn't that hard to use.

the buttons are small but that bugs me because my hands are big :p.

you can also browse through the rest of the phone while the media player is playing by minimizing it.

the vibrate is long, and loud, so i wouldn't recommend keeping it on vibrate if you go to school and use it in class.

oh it can also use .GIFs as wallpapers

...

but the ringtones and any noises you want to use that you put on the phone must be in mp3 form and 250kb or less.

or else it will say "File too large to be used as -insert noise thing here-"

and i think i mentioned this somewhere back there but you can't record your own.

so you will actually have to buy your ringtones unless you want a part of a song thats like 9-10 seconds that you have to like cut yourself.




the sound is clear when talking.



you can only select up to 10 people to send one text to at a time.





Sooo.

that's it.


out of 10 i'd give this phone a 7 or a 6

mostly because of the complicated ringtone thing


and the short videos

the LG Fusic i had before this had more features.

still this phone looks awesome :D.

but it's just unable to do stuff it should be able to do.

1. It is a very pretty phone-- assuming you don't scratch it.
2. It is a little heavy, but it is small which is nice.
3. The speaker phone is terrible.
4. Reception has been great and I work in a room that has cement walls on all 6 sides (I average about 2-3 bars in my lab).
5. Camera is nice [2megapixel with a pseudo (led) flash] however, you have to hold impossibly still to get a decent picture.
6. The navigation button requires some getting used to.
7. My wife got the Sony Erickson slider and she seems to like that phone a lot better than mine. It is a little smaller, a lot lighter and has better 'software.' The only thing it doesn't have compared to this phone is an aluminum case and the LED flash.
8. If you're dead set on getting the LG shine because it is so pretty, you may want to hold out for the LG Glimmer (essentially the same phone however it has a touchscreen).
10. This seems like a lot of negatives but, it is miles better than any other phone I have tried. It consistently works and I rarely get dropped calls. It is a good, solid phone and I'd recommend it to anyone that is looking for a free upgrade that just wants to make calls and take the occasional picture.

My last phone the samsung SGH-a737 decided to take a swim and died so I got this phone about 2 weeks ago. It doesn't even hold a charge for a day let alone 3. Cell phone reception is poor even when im by a window. For the 85 dollars spent on this piece of crap Id have to say it was a waste of time and money. Got a replacement battery from AT&T and within a day it died again. Other than that my phone has decided to disconnect during hour long calls alot so I am finding myself having to call people back.

Currently trying to get this phone replaced. Wish I could of gotten a samsung rugby or another samsung SGH-a737 instead. This phone has confirmed what friends tell me about LG. Dont buy it

Pros.
Voice command is ok but it's not correct most of the time
It has a tip calculator and alarm on it (very nice features)

Cons.
Battery Life (1 day most standby)
Ringtones aren't real good
Poor signal (most of the time 1-2 bars inside)
Disconnected while making phone calls (usually if its longer than a hour)
Cannot setup the user interface like you want
World time feature is incorrect
If the battery is low you cannot use any applications on the phone