The LG Voyager … another letdown, courtesy of Verizon
I keep seeing it on the internets, this is Verizon’s “iPhone killer”. Please, not even close.
I am currently a VZW customer who’s stuck with the original LG Chocolate (vx8500) and dissatisfied more every day. It’s not a bad phone, it just doesn’t suit my needs anymore. I have grown to need a full (qwerty) keyboard, a bigger screen, full HTML web browsing and a better camera. I am willing to pay for these features. Since I am locked into a contract for another year, I am looking at paying full retail price for ANY device I want. When the phone’s price becomes a non-issue, the playing field levels out considerably when comparing devices, regardless of carrier.
This is my personal review and partial rant about the new LG Voyager (vx10000) and Verizon. Weighing in at $469 retail, it doesn’t offer much outside of looks that other, less attractive devices like the Samsung i760 do for slightly more money without being crippled by the always disappointing Verizon interface.
The Voyager does a good job in the looks department, it’s not a bad looking phone overall with gloss black and chrome trim, large front screen and a big keyboard. The branding is muted, small and stamped in chrome, similar to the original chocolate. Most LG devices are nice to look at, which is what initially roped me into the Chocolate, my first non-pay as you go phone. It stole enough look from the iPod to make it alluring. Same deal with the Voyager, steals enough of the iPhone’s simple visual design to warrant an immediate comparison. However, the front screen is smaller than it could have been, same with the second screen once flipped open. The front screen could have stretched farther, north and south, gaining about another inch of screen real estate. Inner screen could have been a tad wider also. Both screens are low res. I’m supposed to watch video and surf the net on this thing? Hey Verizon, bump up the number of pixels! 
The overall size is smaller than I expected. It looked much bigger in photos I had seen. Then there’s the weight, it’s extremely light, which to me, makes it feel cheaply made. My chocolate phone weighs more than the Voyager and it’s tiny! The Voyager is strong on looks but skimps on quality of build parts.
The Voyager could have been all that without treading into smartphone territory, big touch screen, 2 MP auto-focus camera, html web browsing, full keyboard, mobile tv, music & movie playback and function as a mass storage device but no Verizon drops the ball again.
The touch screen is nice but it’s a gimmick. Same tired VZW UI, menus, and options. There is a virtual keyboard but you only see it when using the web browser, you can’t use it to write text messages. I have this giant screen and I have to use an alphanumeric keypad unless I open the phone? At least make using it an option. 
The HTML web browser is decent but sluggish and I can live without Flash. No java since the phone runs on BREW, which sucks. Pages render s-l-o-w-l-y and navigating by dragging your finger is a joke since the phone takes at least a second to move the page after dragging. Drag, wait, drag wait. No thanks. After adding a full HTML browser seems like a waste when you have to switch to “optimized web” in order for it to perform reasonably well. Oh, and it’s EVDO is the slower Rev.0. Why no Rev.A? I have a side business selling online so more and more, internet access becomes important but I’m not ready for a (usually ugly) PDA with a slew of features I’ll never use.
Adding VCast for unlimited data is a must to get the full functionality out of this phone but it adds MobileTV. I haven’t tried this but it seems interesting. The camera is a mediocre 2 MP with slow auto-focus. For being a flagship phone, this thing should have had 3MP minimum AND a flash. The physical keyboard is similar to the enV but I like the rubber coating present on the Samsung i760 keyboard.
Expandable memory up to 8 GB microSD is nice but means 
I have to spend MORE money for moderate storage (internal 184 MB doesn’t cut it for a media-centric device). A better Mobile Email app is nice but I would prefer to install Mobile Gmail. Oh, Verizon phones don’t do Java, guess I’m out of luck.
In conclusion, the LG Voyager may be on a decent network and look nice but it’s a half-hearted attempt at capturing a burgeoning US market that wants more out of their phone without jumping into PDA/smartphone territory. LG needs to stop buckling to Verizon and crippling their phone to the point where they are practically useless for anything except making phone calls.
After seeing earlier today that Samsung’s recent F700 is coming to VZW under the model number U940 (it’s crippled too with a 2 MP camera instead of the original 5 MP or even later 3 MP, probably VZW’s awful UI instead of the slick Croix interface.. WTF?!?!) I will probably hold out for that phone and see if it improves in any of the areas where the Voyager has failed.
People like(d) to complain about the iPhone’s price but when you’re in a spot like me and forced to pay full retail so you don’t have to get another contract, the iPhone doesn’t seem so expensive anymore. Add to the fact that and SDK will be out for the iPhone in February 2008, this is just the beginning of what the iPhone is capable of offering customers. More and more it seems the iPhone is a platform and not just a phone/iPod. It would be nice if the big carriers (I’m looking at you, Verizon!) would learn to get out of the phone makers’ way so we could see some truly innovative devices hit the US market.
30. August 2008 um 21:22
sorry but your just a hater. you said nothing but bad things and all you want to do is have an iphone. and if price is no option then switch plans. i would have to say the voyager does have some letdowns with one bring restricted by verizons crap, no wi-fi and sometimes luggish and buggy interface but this is overall a thumbs up phone and compared to your chocolate is a show stopper but you seem to find the negativity in everything.
2. September 2008 um 09:58
Though it may be true that this “review” is a little biased, it’s based on my personal needs and tastes so I’m entitled to “hate” on the Voyager if I so please. But in fact you confirm some of my issues with it when you said quote: “i would have to say the voyager does have some letdowns with one bring restricted by verizons crap, no wi-fi and sometimes luggish and buggy interface”, end quote.
I did just get an iPhone 3G a couple days after my contract with Verizon ended and in the last week I’ve been able to do more with this phone (even more after jailbreaking it!) than with ANY phone offered by Verizon, and that includes devices running WinMo and Blackberry.
Verizon phones like the Voyager, EnV, EnV 2 and the Dare are all great if all you want to do is make phone calls, text message and take an occasional photo or listen to music.
The iPhone, WinMo phones and Blackberries are targeted as handheld computing platforms, which the Voyager is not. Comparisons to the iPhone are now made on any phone with a touchscreen (see Voyager), thinking that any touchscreen/QWERTY phone is in the same league as the iPhone when the differences are vast.
Verizon knew the Voyager wasn’t an equal to the iPhone and, in less than a year, pushed out the LG Dare (which is the exact phone every Vzn rep suggested when they asked me why I was leaving Verizon and my answer was that I wanted an iPhone). The Dare fails on every aspect when compared to the iPhone, the web browsing is slow and painful (took me 20 minutes to view two Amazon.com pages on this device after multiple refreshes and waiting), the interface is unintuitive and you can’t install 3rd party software that isn’t some craptastic BREW app that isn’t worth anything, even if it were free.
I don’t find negativity in everything but Verizon offers me little to nothing to be positive about. Initially I was happy with my Chocolate phone but I quickly learned its shortcomings and that it couldn’t fill my expanding needs, and the Voyager doesn’t fill them either.
I have no brand loyalty, I only buy the product that serves my needs the best. In the realm of mobile phones, I feel the iPhone does that best.