The LG VX10000 Voyager ($299.99 for Verizon, with two-year contract) is Verizon’s answer to AT&T’s iPhone. If you are on the Verizon network, the Voyager is your best choice if you are looking for a multimedia smart phone.
The Voyager’s claim to fame, if you will, is that it has both a touchscreen and a regular QWERTY keyboard. This choice is LG’s statement that touchscreens (and therefore the iPhone) just don’t cut it for full-scale typing. This may be true, but it is certainly true that the Voyager’s touchscreen doesn’t cut it for full-scale typing. I do like the haptic feedback—the phone gives a little vibrate each time a touch-key is “depressed,” making it feel more like a real key, but it is still not as accurate as it could be. Plus, you really can’t do that much with the touchscreen. It lets you dial calls, send texts, take pictures, and access many of the other programs on the phone, but for many (such as the calendar), you are going to want to flip it open to type, as typing on the screen is a pain.
This is sort of the Voyager’s secret. It flips open to reveal a full keyboard: a good idea. Here, you can type out e-mails (if you go through the chore of setting up the program) and play games, for example. The keyboard is a nice touch, but I have to say, it isn’t as easy to type on as it could be. Usually cell phone keyboards suffer as a result of being too small, but the Voyager suffers from its width. It was just a little too wide for my thumbs to comfortably use the middle keys. It also makes a stupid whine when I open it up, which I’d imagine is coming from the screen backlight, and is just loud enough to hear and be fairly annoying.
There is also the fundamental question of “What can I do with the keyboard?” If you are a big texter, you will probably enjoy the keyboard functionality, but due to the maddening Verizon software they insisted on putting in this thing, not much else is feasible. Everything is proprietary and poorly designed. To do e-mail, you have to download a special e-mail reader, to chat, a special chat program…you get the picture. They do include a general Internet browser, but it doesn’t work well. This is because it has to translate many websites to a special mobile format. Opening up the browser is slow, and because of this translation, browsing websites is slow (and ugly) even though the phone is on Verizon’s theoretically speedy EV-DO network. The phone doesn’t even take advantage of Verizon’s better service; call quality on my phone was subpar, especially for a largish phone that could include a better speaker and mic. Also, supposedly the Voyager can take advantage of the faster network to get V Cast Mobile TV, but I was unable to activate this feature on my review unit.
This gets at the basic problem with the phone. The hardware is designed relatively well, filling a need for those who want a full keyboard and a relatively slim phone. But Verizon still insists on putting their unintuitive software on the phone. I understand why. They want V Cast and Get-it-now (ringtone, games, etc.) downloading software, which is a major source of revenue. And because they have a monopoly on Verizon users (at least for the duration of their contract), they can get away with this. Soon, however, Verizon will open up their network to outside phones, which will let developers write better software for phones or other devices (like computers or gaming systems) that will be able to get onto Verizon’s network. That doesn’t really fix the faulty software of the Voyager, but it does bode well for the future of Verizon and its customers.
You might be wondering why little mention has been made of the iPhone yet. I wanted to treat the Voyager on its own terms before subjecting it to feature-by-feature comparison with the iPhone. The Voyager is clearly meant to compete with the iPhone, in fact, many of the icons even look the same. In this it fails, but truth be told, that does not make it a bad phone. Sure, if I had to pick, the iPhone is the winner—no doubt. But if I had Verizon, I would probably go with the Voyager. As a multimedia phone, it is a better choice than one of the bigger Blackberries, which kind of makes you look like a tool unless you really need good mobile e-mail, which you don’t. Playing music on it isn’t bad, and I do like the video recording feature. This is a phone somewhere in between a basic unit and a full-blown smartphone, and in that, it does its job well. It could, of course, learn a lot from the iPhone: make software more intuitive; use the touchscreen as more than just a gimmick; and, if given the choice, go for the simple over feature-rich.
I wasn’t expecting to like the Voyager, and overall the phone does leave a lot to be desired. But for what it is, and the network it’s on, the Voyager beats its competition, albeit a competition that is better compared to a broken old man than the supple young thing that the iPhone is. So if you are looking for a phone that does its job and lets you thumb-type to your heart’s content, take a few party videos, and play a rousing game of “Call of Duty 4” when you are supposed to be paying attention in class, then look no further than the Voyager.
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