LG Fathom – Feature rich phone

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Solid construction, bright display, Windows Mobile 6.5.3, roomy QWERTY keyboard, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, supports GSM and CDMA networks.

Thumbs Down:

Resistive touch screen is a sluggish performer (capacitive touch screen would have been better), accelerometer is slow in changing the screen orientation, bulky design.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: CDMA 1900/800 MHz, GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Band: GSM/CDMA

Phone design: Slider

Caller ID: Yes

Other features: GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3.5 mm headphones jack.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

LG Fathom has a 3.2 inch resistive touch screen display with resolution of 480×800 pixels. The rated battery life of the phone is seven hours for talk time and stand by time is about 475 hours. 3.2 megapixel camera with features like Scenes, ISO control, Panorama, Self-timer, Effects, Multi shot, Night mode, Macro mode, Digital zoom, and Auto

focus. Supported video formats are 3GP, WMV and MPEG4. Supported audio formats are MIDI, WMA, AAC, MP3 and AAC+. The phone runs on Windows Mobile Professional 6.5.3 OS and has a 1000 MHz processor. Inbuilt RAM is 256 MB and ROM is 512 MB. For WiFi connectivity there is 802.11b/802.11g/802.11n interface. PIM features includes Notepad, Calculator, To-Do/Tasks, Alarm, and Calendar

Razzle Dazzle:

This phone looks a lot like LG Ally in terms of design. Both have a big touch screen and both have a slide out QWERTY keyboard and a big touch screen. The handset is 0.7 inch thick, 4.5 inches long, 2.2 inches wide and weighs around 5.4 ounces. The phone feels solid in the hand and the sexiest part of the phone is the front bezel’s stone texture.

Inside Dope:

Windows 7 is already announced by Microsoft but they are still making Windows Mobile 6.5 phones for the market. The latest device to join the 6.5 OS family is LG Fathom. It runs on 6.5.3 version of the OS and it has a dual more CDMA/GSM chipset. This means that you can put in an international SIM card when traveling abroad. Because of this feature, we would recommend this phone more to globe trotters. The handset has a resistive touch screen display which doesn’t feel as good as iPhone. However, there is a full fledged QWERTY keyboard, an alternative to the touch screen display. This phone costs $149.99 and you have to sign a two year contract after $100 mail in rebate.

LG Fathom has a 3.2 inch resistive touch screen and it gives you a resolution of 800×480 pixels. LG hasn’t given us a capacitive touch screen for the display so don’t expect iPhone like screen. However, we did appreciate that there is an alignment wizard for improving the tap accuracy. Also noteworthy is the fact that you need a stylus for a resistive display, finger taps are never that accurate.

We liked the display, it is really good, the graphics look vibrant and colorful. The text too is crisp and legible. The backlight can be adjusted and the built in accelerometer automatically changes the screen orientation from portrait to landscape mode when you tilt the phone. The accelerometer can also be turned off.

LG Fathom runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 and the home screen is simplified. You can tap the information bar, at the top, for opening the applications. There is no S-class interface here, like the LG Expo though. Unique to this phone is the gesture feature. For launching an application, just draw the relevant letter. For instance, drawing ‘i’ launches Internet Explorer. Email and messaging options are typical on this phone. You have support for Microsoft’s Direct Push technology which works along with your company’s Exchange server and it lets your sync Outlook tasks, e-mail and contacts. IMAP and POP3 connectivity is supported as well. There is also Verizon’s own Mobile Email Interface, it makes logging in to services like Yahoo and Gmail a bit easier. But you have to pay extra for it and hence we don’t recommend it strongly.

There are other apps on the phone including Verizon’s turn-by-turn navigation service, MSN Weather, Bing, Adobe Reader LE, MSN Money, Mobile IM, Windows Live and VZ Navigator. You also get VZ Navigator Global which has preinstalled maps of more than 20 countries. If you need more apps, just download it from Windows Marketplace for Mobile. This phone is compatible with UMTS/HSDPA 3G and quad band GSM networks. But these can be accessed only outside the US. For the US, you have Verizon Wireless service. There is also Bluetooth 2.1 along with A2DP functionality wireless and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.

LG Fathom has a music player and supported formats are MIDI, WMA, AAC, MP3 and AAC+. Supported video formats are H.264, WMV, H.263 and MPEG4 videos. Files can be transferred to the device through USB or memory card. The card slot can take in up to 16 GB cards.

Finally, we tested the LG Fathom for call quality and it was quite good. Our friends were heard quite well and there was no distortion. But they said that our voice was a bit tinny. Otherwise, the call quality was really good on both the sides. Volume too gets loud enough and you won’t have problems talking in environments with high noise. Speaker phone quality is not that good but we hardly get phones in our labs with stellar speakerphone quality so we won’t complain about that here. Both parties could hear each other quite well and that is all that matters in terms of speakerphone.

LG Fathom has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor which makes sure the phone can withstand anything that you throw at it. We tried multitasking on this phone and there were no hiccups.

Nitty Gritty:

We loved this feature rich phone but the performance is sluggish and can be a turn off for impatient users.