Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best phone I've owned., May 8, 2007
I've owned many phones, with many carriers, and this is the best phone I've ever owned. It is by far the best looking phone too. It's just a great phone. It isn't perfect, but I've never seen a phone that was. Here are some quick observations. The sound quality is very good, but not as loud as some other phones. The speaker phone is average. Not the best, not the worst. RF is very good. Battery life with the standard battery is good. The inside screen is the nicest I've ever seen, although tough to see in direct sunlight. The Flash UI themes are much better than the standard Verzion UI. Ring tones are not very loud. Loud enough for me, but some people wish they were louder. Charge port is on the side and not the bottom. This makes it a little more difficult to talk and charge the phone at the same time. No external MP3 controls, and playback on external speaker is fair at best. Camera is excellent. Amazon's current description states the camera is 1.3MP, but it is 2.0MP.
...11/13/2007 Note: A new firmware update has been released, and it is supposed to fix some issues. It is available at most Verizon Stores.
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great appearance, mediocre functionality., October 25, 2007
As a longtime user of the LG VX8000, I was looking forward to this phone and ordered it the day it came out. Finally I could get rid of that brick I was carrying around and get something that looked much cooler. When it arrived, I noticed how smooth the brushed metal was and how slim it is. 6 months later, I still think the phone looks great, but it has several design flaws that prevent it from being a truly great phone.
PROS:
Appearance - The phone is very slim and stylish. I think it looks much better than the razor. The buttons are mostly recessed so they don't protrude from the phone. The brushed metal looks great, and I really like the keypad. I thought the keypad would be difficult and awkward to use at first, but I've had no problems with it (and my fingers are probably larger than average). When this phone is in my pocket I don't even feel it, and you can't tell it's there. My previous phone bulged out of my pockets. I have had no real problems with fingerprints and I never really notice them. The ones that do get on there wipe right off.
Sound quality - I've never had a dropped call or had any problems with the sound. I live in a medium-sized town, and I very rarely have anything less than full signal. Reception is very good.
User interface - Fortunately, Verizon doesn't force you to use their UI like you've had to with previous models. In addition to their UI, there is another UI you can choose from, which is nice to have some more options. One day, after leaving my phone in the car in 100+ degree heat, I came back and noticed it had shut off, but there was some crazy message about a "heat sensor warning" on the outside display and it displayed the outside temperature (109). I have no idea what this was and have never seen it again, but it was pretty cool and it looks like it is designed to shut off in excessive heat so it doesn't damage the phone.
Camera - The 2.0 Megapixel camera is one of the highest resolution cameras available at this time and it is great. There is NO FLASH on the camera however, so forget about taking pictures in low-light conditions. This isn't a problem for me though since none of LG's flashes have ever worked very well anyway. Cell phone flashes have to develop better technology before they become anything more than just a novelty. The camera includes some filters, such as black and white, sepia, aqua, and negative that will allow you to take pictures with different colors. Pretty pointless but kind of fun. It also includes some ridiculous voice files to use when taking pictures, such as a bunch of kids saying "say cheese!" right before you take the picture. You probably have to hear it to understand how creepy it is. Fortunately you can turn them all off.
Battery length - Not too bad. I can go maybe 4 days without having to charge it, although I only use the phone about 10 minutes a day. The included charger takes forever to full charge the phone though. Maybe as long as 45 minutes or an hour.
CONS:
Appearance/Design - The brushed metal will scratch. I keep this phone in a separate pocket from my keys or anything else. I like to think I take care of it fairly well, however it does have dozens of very tiny scratches all over the back of it. These scratches are very small and I don't really notice them at a distance, but if you look for them, they are numerous and I could never sell the phone as "new" condition. This phone WILL scratch. If you are hard on your phones it will probably scratch more than normal ones. As I said though, mine is 6 months old, and the scratching isn't enough to bother me since you have to be close to see them. I wouldn't advise anyone not to buy this phone because of it, just to be more cautious of it. What LG Should do is sell replacement covers to simply replace the back with. As others have said, the memory card is underneath the battery, meaning you have to remove the battery and power off the phone to take it out. This doesn't bother me at all since I never take the card out, but if you remove it a lot it could be a hassle. However, I would rather have them place the memory card here, where it is out of sight, than on the side of the phone where I have another slot to detract from the smoothness of the phone.
Alarm Clock - This is something that LG should fix with a firmware update. The alarm clock on this phone absolutely sucks. It has three customizable alarms. You can set an alarm to go off every weekday at a certain time or only on the weekends. It would be nice if I could customize each individual day, but I'm okay with not being able to do that. What I'm not okay with is the lack of a "quick alarm." Previous LG models had a quick alarm, where you could set a short alarm for 30 minutes, an hour, etc. You could program it very fast and I found it especially convenient. It's not on this model though, which makes no sense because they didn't add anything, they just removed it.
Speaker Phone - This also sucks. There is a dedicated button on the phone for activating the speaker phone. Only problem is, you can only activate the speaker phone while you're in a call. Who decided this was a good idea? You have to call someone, wait for the phone to start ringing, then you can press the speaker phone button. Once activated, it will stay on until you turn it off, meaning you don't have to activate it for every call. However, if you want to turn it off, you have to make another call, since you can't turn it off if you're not in a call either. This is the stupidest thing I've seen designed on a cell phone. I never use the speaker phone anyway because the quality is not very good at all. I have to have the phone at least within a foot of my face for anyone to hear me using the speaker phone.
Camera - The only problem I have with the camera is that there is a delay between hitting the camera button and taking the picture, as much as 1.5 seconds. This is fairly unacceptable to me in a camera that is great otherwise. If you're trying to catch something that isn't stationary, you have to factor in this delay and hold the camera still an extra 2 seconds after you take the picture. Everyone hates digital cameras that do this so why make a cell phone camera with the same problem? It is fairly frustrating.
UPDATE 11/29/07 - I am changing my rating from 4 to 2 stars. I took out the battery to replace the SD card, and when I put the battery back in, I was greeted with a message saying "use authentic battery," implying that I am not using an LG battery. My phone battery now lasts about 4 hours in standby, and replacing it does not good because apparently this is a problem with the battery contacts on the phone itself. Verizon will not recognize this issue under my warranty, despite other people having the same problem on the Internet. So now I am left with a $300 phone that is very difficult to use since I have to jiggle the battery all the time to get it to work.
UPDATE 12/29/07 - Took the phone to Verizon and it was a problem with the contacts on the phone not meeting the battery. They replaced the entire phone and it works great again, although I have heard from others who have had this problem. I would definitely recommend some type of screen cover for it.
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31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good phone... kind of, June 3, 2007
I owned an LG VX6100 before this one and was happy with it. I've had this new 8700 for about a week, and I'm probably going to return it. I'm thinking of going with an LG VX5300. This phone isn't for me. I want phones that conform to the shape of my hand. This phone does just the opposite. My only complaint is really the overall design of the phone. The metallic shell is beautiful, but it's a bit prone to smudges. The external screen is extremely difficult to see in the sunlight and I can barely check the time. Its SD card slot is located behind the battery, so that's a huge pain to handle. Also, this keypad is horrible. Obviously, it was designed so the phone could be thin. I can barely text message without pressing wrong keys and making mistakes.
On a lighter side, the phone has a tremendous amount of features like bluetooth, USB mass storage, mp3 player, 2.0 MP camera etc. But, it's still hard for me to handle, and I prefer a more rounded phone with well-shaped keys and an easier-to-use menu.
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