LG VX8500 Chocolate

Permalink: LG VX8500 Chocolate by Franz Bicar

The LG VX8500 Chocolate phone is probably one of the most anticipated phone by the general public. With its promotions and advertisements, a lot of people are expecting great things from this handset. However, once you do use the phone, you will find out that it’s not all that good.

One of the most noticeable disappointments with the VX8500 was that the touch-sensitive keypad required too much of a learning curve to master. Not to mention that its features simply did not live up to the hype. But nevertheless, given the feedback on this phone, LG will definitely try to change that with whatever successor that this phone’s going to have.

Other features of this phone include external music controls that are also touch-sensitive although you might be surprised that the keypad is not.

Of course, aesthetically, the phone indeed lived up to its hype. With its wide and flat clamshell design, the LG VX8600 is indeed sleek and elegant. It measures 3.89 by 1.93 by 0.58 inches, making it wider and fatter than the VX8500 Chocolate. However, it still retains the Chocolate’s trademark glossy black finish, and it remains quite slim as flip phones go. It is definitely elegant and sexy, rivaling that of the Motorola Krzr K1 in style and design. The one downside to such a glossy finish is that the phone is extremely prone to fingerprint smudges.

Another good thing to mention is that the phone weighs just a little over 3 ounces and feels really good in the hands. Add the fact that it feels great on your ear, then you have a perfect phone that is good to the touch and to the hands.

At the front is the phone’s 65,000-color, 1.3-inch diagonal, external screen. As most phones do, it displays signal and battery strength, the date and time, photo caller ID, and the current track if the music player is on. The external screen also acts as a self-portrait viewfinder when you activate the camera, which sits above the display.

Below all this, you will find the touch-sensitive music player controls. As mentioned, it is touch-sensitive and with touch-sensitive keys comes the problem of accidentally touching these keys causing unexpected interruption to whatever it is you are doing on your phone. This is also the case for this phone. I guess there still way to prevent this from happening with the VX8600.

On its left side, you will find the volume control while at the right, you have the dedicated camera button and a dedicated voice-command button. The charger jack is on the left spine of the bottom flap, and the microSD card slot is on the right.

Once you flip open the phone, you’ll see the beautiful 2.2-inch, 262,000-color, TFT display that is indeed as beautiful as previous chocolate models. Graphics appeared rich and detailed, and images were saturated with color. You can alter the settings of the backlight timer and the clock format, as well as the size of the dialing font.

As mentioned, this phone needs a lot to be desired, but still, it does have features that make it attractive. It has a 500-entry phone book, and each entry can hold up to five numbers, 2 e-mail addresses, a picture ID, and 1 of 17 polyphonic ring tones, as well as be assigned to a group. Basic but essential features include text and multimedia messaging, instant messaging, speed dialing, a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, voice recording, voice commands including voice dialing, e-mail, a wireless Web browser, a calendar, a calculator, an alarm clock, a world clock, a notepad, and a tip calculator. The VX8600 also has stereo Bluetooth support so that you can use stereo Bluetooth headsets to listen to your music, and VZ Navigator support, which turns your phone into a GPS navigation device.

Now we come to the VX8600. The VX8600 comes in packed with a 1.3-megapixel camera with 8x zoom that also doubles as a camcorder with 4x zoom. It comes with a slew of options that allow you to make your simple snapshots stand out. You can adjust the resolution (1280×960, 640×480, 320×240, 176×144, 160×120) or the brightness. You can choose from five white balance settings, three shutter sounds and six color effects. Another cool feature is that you can turn night mode on or off. There’s also a camera self-timer and the ability to turn the external display into a viewfinder. Camcorder options include brightness and white balance settings, and two recording times - 15 seconds for MMS or according to available memory.

On this phone, call quality was excellent. Speakerphone quality was pretty good as well. The VX8600 has a rated talk time of 3.6 hours and a rated standby time of 16 days. According to FCC radiation tests, the LG VX8600 has a digital SAR rating of 0.68 watts per kilogram.

Sources:
http://www.mobileburn.com
http://www.phonearena.com
http://www.laptopmag.com