New Phone: LG VX5300

My first (gut) impressions of my new LG VX5300 phone:

- Wow, LG is still just ripping off Samsung designs
- Amazing, they've managed to make phones BIGGER in the last two years
- This phone feels like it will shatter into a million pieces if I drop it on cement


Now, for my more lengthy review:

The last time I got a new phone was 2 years ago when my family signed up with Verizon Wireless on a family plan. The model that Verizon was giving out to everybody and their dog at that point was the Samsung SCH-A670. I'm sure you've seen them. It seems like everyone I knew had one at the time, from my friends in Connecticut to my roommates in Utah, they were everywhere. I've been a long time fan of the clam-shell type design, and the Samsung did not disappoint. It is fairly small with a color screen on the inside and outside. The outside screen displays caller ID information, (text or picture, your choice). I set it so that opening the phone picked up a call. The only likely to be useful feature that was not present was speaker phone.

Now, just so we all know where I am coming from: I am sick of everyone trying to make their phone do everything for them. I own a camera, I don't want my phone to be a crappy camera. I own an iPod, I don't want my phone to be a crappy music player. I want my phone to be a good phone. If it's not good at being a phone it shouldn't exist. Unfortunately, trying to find reviews is rather difficult if you actually want your phone to make calls. Apparently everyone else in the world wants their phone to watch tv, listen to the radio, browse the internet, play music, and take pictures-- make calls? I guess that might be useful. So, this quick review will focus on the PHONE qualities of this PHONE.

My Samsung SCH-A670 have been through a lot in the last 2 years. I've dropped it a number of times on hard (cement) surfaces. It lived (completely exposed and turned on) through the storm that killed my previous camera in Ohio. It's been up mountains, and through canyons, it's done it all and has never disappointed me. The design is nothing special, but it works. The material feels sturdy and stands up to a beating. I realize this next part may be the network, but the phone plays a part too: I often maintain service when all my friends are out of luck. So I have high expectations of this new phone.

Sadly, the LG VX5300 is larger than my Samsung. Why they ended up with a larger phone after 2 years of development, I don't know. It is slightly taller and wider, but a hair slimmer. As usual for LG it is a complete rip off of Samsung styling. In my 6+ years of cell phone usage I have yet to see an LG design that appears to be original. I guess they have the Chocolate phone now, but I can hardly bring myself to count that since it hardly focuses on being a phone, and mostly just annoys me in how obnoxious I think it would be to use as a phone.

The material used in the casing of the phone feels cheap and feels like it would be easily broken. The exterior screen functions for caller ID (text only, no picture for some reason). Picture ID shows up in the interior screen. There appears to be no option to make the phone pick up a call upon opening, instead you have to open it and then press a button (really obnoxious in my opinion).

The arrangement of the buttons makes it difficult to dial without looking directly at them-- they are separated by column, but not by row, so sliding from 1 to 4 to 7 can be hard to detect. Also, the buttons are not back lit like my Samsung meaning that dialing in the dark will be a complete pain in the butt. The green "Send" and red "End" buttons are ridiculously over-sized, and I'm beginning to get the feeling that this phone was designed for the finger-dexterity challenged population - a group that is sadly becoming the majority in America.

The headphone jack is exposed, so expect it to get gunked up over time; but I guess they're counting on you buying a more expensive bluetooth headset rather than use such antiquated means as a wired headset. For some reason it has a dedicated voice-memo button on the outside, which I guess is good if you're into that kind of thing, but I've only ever met one person that was. Below the voice-memo button is a little lightning bolt power symbol for unknown reasons, it's not near the bottom of the phone where you plug in the charger; I guess it just looks cool or something. The antenna is the external nub antenna, but does not extend at all.

Overall, I'm not very impressed, and I haven't even used it yet. A large part of me wants to wait and continue using my Samsung until it dies, or the battery life becomes intolerable. Why American consumers keep putting up with such crappy, piss-poor designs is beyond me. Who knows, maybe once I use it a few times I'll like it more, but I think for now I'm going to hang onto my Samsung.