Customer Reviews

LG VX5200 (Verizon Wireless)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is my first ever cell phone and after one month of usage I really do not have any major complaints unlike some of the other reviewers.

So let's see what's good about this phone:

1.Nice and sleek design. For the price, its not cheap at all.
2.External screen lets you see the date, time, battery power,connection strength and caller ID when the phone rings
3.User friendly menus
4.Touchpad is decent, without hurting your fingers when you dial numbers.
4.Camera. Dont expect the quality to be great as it is for emergencies only and not for serious photography !
5.TXT messaging, ability to change wallpapers, email

So as you see it has everything you would want in a nice and simple phone. It is not fancy but it works just as well. Now let me try to give my take on some of the complaints by other reviewers here:

1. The chiming sound it makes during turn on and turn off is really annoying. But guess what you can turn it off! Yes just go to settings and tools->sounds->power on/off, and hola its off! So this one is settled.
2. The other complaint was that the voice quality is sometimes average. It is true that sometimes the voice from the other side sounds feeble and sometimes its blaring. But its not that bad that you cannot comprehend what the other person is saying. I make a lot of international calls and I am quite satisfied with the voice reception.
3. I have had no problems with signal/reception quality so far.
4. About the phone going dead within few weeks of buying, just tell me which electronic items are fail proof. I have seen laptops, digital cameras, flash drives etc all go dead. Sometimes you are lucky to get a fail proof item and sometimes you are not. There is nothing one can do about those things. All you can do is pray !

So in short if you are looking for a nice , compact, inexpensive camera cell phone , I would recommend this phone.

Overall, this phone functions OK. The reception is good, and voice quality (both ways) is good. However, this phone is only useful if you set all volume controls to maximum. Even then, the volume levels are just "adequate". It's more full-featured than any handset I've ever owned. Having THREE fully programmable alarm clocks is especially useful. I also like having multiple phone number fields for each ONE contact, though I don't understand why there are two "mobile" phone fields and only one "home" phone field. (the opposite would be more useful) Talk time is about two hours and "standby" is 3-4 days, in actual use. Both LCD displays are good quality, but it really needs a brightness control, as black shows up as light gray (brightness is too high and can't be adjusted). It does have a contrast control, but white level is fine, so the contrast control is kind of useless. The LCD displays themselves seem to be really high quality, so it is disappointing that they are improperly adjusted. (the image quality COULD be outstanding, if properly adjusted) I don't like that a whole section of the menu is devoted to "Get It Now", though Verizon probably insisted on those useless money wasters. (can't fault LG for that) Other than that, the menu system is pretty easy / less cluttered than some handsets I've used.

The camera functions OK. The quality of pictures is terrible, but about the same as any other camera phone. If you want pictures, use a digital camera! I mainly like the camera portion of the phone for emergency use. For example, it is a good idea to carry a disposable camera in the car for car accidents. But if you have a camera phone, that's just as good. (emergency use) And if you are ONLY going to send photos to other camera phones, the photos will look good. Forget about using them outside the camera though, as they are low resolution and low quality (just like all camera phones) One nice thing about this camera is that it has a built-in flash (if you enable it), but it would only be good for really short distances, like 6 feet or less.

One major gripe I have about this handset is that there is no external indication that the phone is actually ON. There is an LED by the antenna, but this only lights up during phone conversations. (WHY???) If the little LED was on all the time or blinking, it would not affect battery life at all (that you'd notice, anyway). You can set the backlight of the front LCD display to "ALWAYS on". That would give you an external indication that the phone was on. But if you did that, you'd have to charge the phone about twice a day. (!)

My wife bought these phones (two of them) and we'll probably keep them. If I'd have known what I know now though, I'd have probably picked something different. The handset has buttons RIGHT where you hold it on BOTH sides of the phone, making it very difficult to hold. And if you are left-handed (I'm both), you simply can not hold this phone, as the buttons (which are ACTIVE during phone calls) are right under your thumb. What a stupid design. If there's going to be buttons on the side, it should be on the side of the flip-up part, NOT the part that you hold!!!

A basic phone -- fine for calls and text messaging -- got it directly from Verizon Wireless as part of a two-year two-phone sign-up plan. The plan was for two vx5200s, but upgraded one to a vx6100 for a modest fee. Would have upgraded both phones to vx6100 but the deal at the time only allowed one upgrade. No problems with the phone -- feels a little flimsy compared to the vx6100 -- volume not as good either. Verizon coverage in our area is good. Unfortunately, the only way to find out if a particular phone and a particular carrier will work well in a given area is to find someone with that particular combination in that area -- so it isn't suprising that some reviewers have more problems than others in a particular area and/or with a particular phone. Can't emphasize it enough -- definitely ask friends/coworkers about their experiences with particular phones and carriers in your area before buying -- for example I had one friend who only got good reception around work and home with T-mobile. Good luck -- finding the right phone and the right carrier can be challenging.

I have had this phone since September 6th, and I must say it does everything that I bought it for, and more. Both screens are vibrant and easy to see in almost any light. Incredible reception, I haven't had a single dropped call yet. Camera is average (as far as cell phones go). If you're complaining that the camera is bad, then why did you buy a camera phone in the first place? One problem I noticed with this phone is the speakerphone. You can only use it in a completely silent place. It is even hard to hear the other person on very windy days. Another flaw is the fact that you can't use your recorded sounds as ringtones, and I have heard many owners of this phone complaining about this. Apparantly, Verizon did this so that you would have to buy your ringtones directly from their Get It Now service. Good for them, bad for us.

I'm 14 years old and I got this phone a few days ago.. I love it.
The camera quality is great compared to other camera phones that I have used. You can choose color effects when you're taking a picture including, negative, black and white and sepia.
You can access AIM, MSN, or Yahoo IM from the phone too.
I love how the screen on the front of the phone is colored, and you can change the wallpaper of it, or take pictures with it.
Text messaging is easy, and the messages send quickly.
I haven't figured out how to use the speakerphone yet, if there is one.
The only thing that I dont like about this phone is... actually, I have no complaints.

This is a great phone and I reccomend buying it if you are a teenager looking for your first phone. The price may seem high but it is worth it.
I hope this review helped you with your purchase!

I purchased this phone on September 1st at a nearby Best Buy, and thankfully there was a 30 day return policy--because on the 25th, it completely locked up. After turning off the phone for about two hours because I wanted to be completely distraction free, I turned it back on--it started up and went to the menu screen, like normal, but any button presses after that did absolutely nothing. I couldn't even turn it off. I removed the battery, re-inserted it, and turned it back on, and it wouldn't get past the "Verizon Wireless" startup screen. I hooked it up to the charger and waited about an hour and tried again, and still no dice. I had never dropped the phone before or otherwise mistreated it, and in fact right before I turned the phone off I was using it to browse ringtones, to this was entirely unexpected. Fortunately Best Buy didn't prove to be overly difficult with their exchange policy, even though I didn't have a receipt, box, manual, or charger.

Otherwise, the phone was unremarkable. The camera was what you'd expect (bad) and hearing other people was somewhat difficult, although it had no problem holding a signal. Probably an okay middle-range phone, but there are far better options. I'll be wary of ever buying an LG phone in the future.

(...)The phone itself SHOULD be great, it had a lot of great features and looked really nice. Had a camera phone, voice activation, nice graphics, etc. However, about 75% of the time, I could barely hear the person on the other end. The other 25%, they were blaring through. Plus, every time I used the phone, I could hear these very faint, high pitched beeping noises (like when you go take a hearing test...). It was very distracting and annoying. The main purpose of a cell phone is to be able to talk to other people, so when you can't even do that, it's not worth it. Other than that, I liked it very much. I ended up exchanging it for the LGVX4650, which although is not nearly as pretty, is much, much better in terms of functionality.

Got this phone three weeks ago because of the special deal for new subscribers with Verizon. How disappointing! Like others, it emits an ANNOYING high-pitched noise. The person on the other end sounds like they're standing in a metal box (hollow), and I always hear my own comments echoing back a second or two later. The phone does not hold a charge long, either. I don't talk on it much, yet I'll take it out of my purse to make a call only to find it dead! My family got three and they are all the same. Stay away from this phone!

This phone is great--sometimes. When it's not, it's a nightmare. The 1st time I bought the LG VX5200 camera phone (December 2005), I had it for 4 days and it crashed irreparably. I got a new one. Now, about 6 months after I bought the second one, it did the same thing. And my sister's did the same as well. What happens is the screen goes to white with the Verizon logo and it stays that way. Only taking the battery out turns off the phone. But when you put it back in and try to turn the phone on, it just goes to the white screen. I even tried replacing the battery. I have also read of similar things happening to others with this phone, so I don't recommend this phone at all.

I just recently replaced my old LG with this one and from a practical standpoint it delivers. This model is lightweight and fairly compact. Reception has always been good. Has some basic color themes which really a variations of red, yellow and blue themes. Not exactly the most customizable phone out there.

There were some issues I had with the design immediately. On the outside there is a button which activates the camera, so sometimes after I tuck it into my sidepocket I accidently take twenty pictures of lint and keys. Its annoying to delete these pictures, so I suggest getting a holster if you can.