Full Review: The LG VX10000 (LG Voyager)

I have had the LG Voyager for just shy of a full week now and I've uncovered several things I haven't seen in any review so far.

Let's get this out of the way.
Things about the PHONE that suck:

• The phone is soap bar shaped, there are buttons on only one side. Unfortunately if you're not looking for these it's too easy to hold the phone upside down. In 6 days I have done this twice. Despite the slickness of the phone, it's hard to look cool when you're jabbing the speaker.
• The speaker. The speaker is pretty good for regular calls, when speakerphone is off. The speakerphone speakers (Yes, two...AMAZING) are on the inside of the flip. The first time I turned speakerphone on I didn't even realize it, the volume was still so muted. Honestly, who opens their phone to talk unless it's SUPPOSED to be a flip-phone?
• They only have a mini-jack, not a 3.5mm
• I wish they put a slide cover over the camera lens. Not really a big deal but I keep putting my fingers on it when I hold the phone when it's flipped open.

Things about the PHONE that are sweet:

• I gotta say I really like the unique interface. The 2 screens, the flip, the full QWERTY keyboard.
• Slide out antenna for mobile TV to improve reception. It makes it look like one of those old battery powered handheld TVs.
• The touch screen is very good, so is the keyboard. I can type pretty quickly on both. The locations of the spacebars on the full keyboard is a little eh, and differs from the on-screen one...you have to learn 2 different layouts to use 1 device. But the keyboard is still sweet.

Things about the PLATFORM that are sweet:

• Relatively responsive.
• Custom shortcuts.
• VZ navigator has gotten quite a bit better since I last used it 2 years ago when I got my RAZR.
  
• The keyboard does sometimes self-correct if you shuffle across a key very fast or put in 2 letters very fast that make absolutely NO sense. Or at least it seems that way. The haptic and audibly feedback is good stuff, too.
  
• The mobile IM app is nice, in the fact that it supports both screens.
• The contact list is layed out really well.

Things about the PLATFORM that suck:

• The mobile email app sucks out loud. It only runs in the inside screen, it's slow. Scrolling sucks. It won't pull URLs from messages, but sometimes finds phone numbers hidden in them.
• The mobile IM app is ugly as sin and hard to use from the touch screen. If you open the phone to type a message using the real keyboard (since it's a little easier, and you can see IMs other people send when you're typing.) then close it again, the application quits. Also it has a "SENDING" screen when you send an IM...not very instant, is it? This app also seems to have a HELL of a time connecting sometimes.
  
• There is an application, RemoSync, which costs $10 to install and allows syncronization with Microsoft Exchange. This is worse than staring at a horse's ass for a protracted period of time. It syncs calendar, but to its OWN application not the phone's main calendar. It does this BADLY. When I tested it missed half my recurring appointments and a few standard ones. It also only pulls the last week of email. Also for some reason I had to turn the application's SSL off to work with RIT's servers. This was odd since we use SSL on our servers for MAPI and OWA.
• The phone can't multitask at all. If you close the phone while something's running, the app will close. You can't do ANYTHING while the music player is running. There is no rhyme or reason as to which apps require you to open them. Most of them are obviously hacked up ports from the standard platform to the dual-screen/touch screen paradigm.
• The SMS app seems to be the only application on the phone that doesn't allow the wide touchscreen keyboard to be used. You're stuck texting your friends on your pimpass touchscreen phone using a touchscreen keyboard that's faking your old 10 button phone keyboard.
• The Obligo browser is a piece of junk. Don't even pretend.

I've enjoyed having the phone, but I intend to take it back in another week. It definitely isn't worth the $410 I paid to get it without a contract.

What I would love to see is a phone with the unique physical attributes running something like LiMo or Android. An open platform that the development community can make stop sucking. I daresay that the extra screen would make a linux phone on the Voyager sweeter than the Instinct or the iPhone.

As a closing, I'm sure I missed something here someone wants to know about the phone...I am always available on AIM or by e-mail for questioning regarding anything I write about.

--- PXA