SmartPhones

 

The Verizon Voyager (aka: the LG Voyager VX10000) is the best LG multimedia and messaging phone yet. It combines many of the coveted qualities of the BlackBerry and the iPhone into one tidy package.

The design of the Verizon Voyager is a typical and familiar LG enV except with a 2.8" touch screen where  the numeric keypad on other LG models are located. The touch screen is one of the key cutting-edge features of the LG Voyager's design, boasting haptic feedback which emits a small buzzing sound every time the screen is tapped, signaling to the user that whatever action they just took was registered.

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But just because it has a cutting edge touch screen, it doesn't mean the makers of the LG Voyager skimped on their keypad at all. On the contrary, it's a large and effective keypad that can be used in seamless concert with the touch screen. Some users complain that the keypad is too flat for their tastes, and that the widescreen touch screen QWERTY-keyboard can't be used for all functions (like SMS messaging), but it is still ahead of most of the competition (including the iPhone) in the keypad and touch screen keyboard departments.

Messaging otherwise works well with the LG Voyager, so long as you use the actual keypad rather than the touch screen. The Voyager supports Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN instant messaging services, and users reported being able to set up Gmail (not one of the built-in services) with no difficulty.

With the LG Voyager, Verizon has improved vastly on the layout of menu buttons over their usual VZW phones with, for example, the web browser and VZ navigator now appearing on the main menu instead of stuck inside some other secondary screen. The email application, however, is still buried in secondary menus and cannot be used to send pictures, unfortunately, though the phone can receive video messages and picture messages both just fine.

Call quality on the Verizon Voyager could be better, and the new technology introduced with this new LG doesn't offer much in the way of new features capitalizing on that technology. Conference calling was noticeably absent, though speaker-independent voice dialing worked great.

Battery time on the LG Voyager is reported to be about 4 hours, while using V Cast Mobile TV decreases that duration to more like 3 hours or under.  

Music and video on the LG Voyager are both fantastic, with help from the V Cast Music Store and V Mobile TV, of course. The phone comes with 2.5 mm headphone jack rather than the 3.5 mm headphone jack familiar to iPod earbud lovers.

The GPS navigates wonderfully, even going so far as to locate users indoors. It loads and scans quickly, though only delivering two-dimensional maps (3D would be nice). Incidentally, the GPS is one feature the LG Voyager has that the Apple iPhone does not.

If there were any complaints about the LG Voyager VX10000 it was that its camera is lacking in some fundamental options, such as WiFi and a flash. As the touch screen technology is still relatively new, it's not as smooth and easy to use as it probably will be a few cell phone generations from now. Also, the speed of the EV-DO connection and the quality of streaming video were inconsistent and not always reliable.

All that taken into consideration, however, the LG Voyager still has one of the most extensive feature sets of any phone on the market, gives some of the greatest performance, and all packed into a sleek and stylish design.