LG Vu Plus review – With live mobile TV
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Good gapacitive touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard, 3.0 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, GPS, AT&T mobile TV
Thumbs Down:
Lacks 3.5 mm headphones jack, buttons on the keyboard are quite close to each other, photo quality could have been better.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: GSM/UMTS
Band: GSM quad band phone capable of global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), UMTS dual band American 3G (1900/850 MHz)
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Camera, full QWERTY keyboard, music player
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
LG Vu Plus has a three inch display with 240×400 pixels resolution. There is a three megapixel camera along with auto focus. The supported audio formats are WMA, AAC+, AAC and MP3. The 950 mAh lithium ion battery has a rated talk time of three hours and the standby time is 288 hours. Phone book features include caller groups, multiple number per contact, picture ID, and ring ID. PIM features includes calculator, to-do/tasks, calendar and alarm. The phone has 50 MB internal memory along with a microSD/SDHC card slot.
Razzle Dazzle:
You might think that the LG Vu Plus looks similar to its predecessor but there are a few differences. This gadget is 4.31 inches long, 0.6 inch thick and 2.1 inches wide. It is a bit thicker and longer as compared to the original Vu. The thickness of the phone is due to the QWERTY keyboard and it is also a bit heavier at 3.95 ounces. The phone still feels comfortable in the hand.
Inside Dope:
When AT&T came up with Mobile TV, one of the first devices to have that feature was LG Vu. It had a big three inch screen along with a TV antenna for improving the reception. We reviewed the phone back then and everything except the design went well with us. LG has now come up with its Vu Plus, and we are glad to see that the antenna has been chucked off. It also has a slide out QWERTY keyboard now. The camera has been upgraded along with HSDPA/3G speeds. This phone costs $149.99 and you have to sign a two year contract with the service provider.
LG Vu Plus has a three inch display, just like the original one, but this now capacitive. The screen is made of plastic which feels a bit cheap. We wish for an iPod like sturdy glass. The phone lets you add haptic feedback to the touches. The intensity and length of the vibrations can be adjusted too. The screen looks really beautiful and crisp. The resolution is 240×400 pixels along with 262,000 colors. You can adjust the size and color of the fonts along with backlight and brightness.
Most of the touch screen phones lets you customize the home screen and you get that feature on LG Vu Plus as well. There are 3 customizable home screens on this phone. One is for the widgets, one for favorite contacts, and final one for the application shortcuts. The widgets can be removed or added from the bottom screen tray just like Samsung’s TouchWiz interface.
On the home screen’s bottom, you have the shortcuts for main menu, in box messaging, phonebook and phone dialer. The latter has a roomy and large virtual keyboard along with shortcuts for the new text message and speaker phone. There is the virtual T9 keyboard for typing out your messages but we found the physical keyboard more comfortable. The main menu structure is similar to other LG touch based phones – it is divided in to four parts – Settings, My Stuff, Multimedia and Phone.
There are three physical buttons beneath the display – Power/End key, Back/Clear key, and Talk key. Slide the screen to the right and you will have a full QWERTY keyboard of four rows. The buttons are adequately raised above the surface but there is not much spacing between the keys. We had to use our fingernails while typing. The keys are also a bit stiff. There were a few mistakes while typing but on the bright side, there is a dedicated .com key.
On the left side of LG Vu Plus, there is a task manager and volume rocker button. On the right, there is camera key, screen lock key, and microSD card slot. The charger/headset jack is located on the top and on the back, there is LED flash and camera lens.
LG Vu Plus has a 1000 entry limit phone book and a single entry can take six phone numbers, messenger ID, three e-mail addresses, postal address, Web address, anniversary date, birth date and memo. You can make groups of your callers and attach a photo too. There are 20 polyphonic ringtones and alert tones to choose from.
LG Vu Plus’s basic features include vibrate mode, multimedia and text messaging, speakerphone, calendar, alarm clock, world clock, notepad, tasks list, calculator, stopwatch, unit converter and tip calculator. There are advanced features too, like voice command, voice recorder, file manager, GPS with AT&T Navigator, HTML Web browser, Bluetooth along with A2DP stereo support and instant messaging (Yahoo, Windows Live, and AIM). LG Vu Plus has a 3.0 megapixel camera but the picture quality doesn’t live up to the tag. There are five options for resolution, the highest being 2,048×1,536 pixels.
Nitty Gritty:
There are a few flaws with design but we will still recommend you this phone owing to its live mobile television feature.
