The LG Voyager is a solid phone, but due to some cool features, it isn’t for everyone. Three big features in LG Voyager aren’t often seen elsewhere, and are rarely found together in one phone:
- A physical QWERTY keyboard
- A “widescreen” display, great for messaging or viewing web pages
- Full functionality via touchscreen
These features are very good, but they also make the phone larger than other phones not containing them. This is why the phone isn’t for everyone: it may be a little large for some, and the users who purchase it need to know this phone is specialized for messaging and web browsing.
Here’s what you get. Below is the LG Voyager in its closed position. Here, you’ve got the touchscreen for full phone usage, including a touchscreen keyboard for messaging, dialing, and other data entry.
Next, we open the phone, with the hinge on the long edge. Here, you rotate the phone sideways and use it in a “widescreen” format.
The LG Voyager is excellent for messaging – the screen size and keyboard are specifically designed for these functions. It’s above average for web browsing, though I had two problems with the LG Voyager:
1) The browser itself has a few display flaws. See below for a photo of the text of a web page.
You can see that when you have specially-formatted text (the boldfaced text in the above photo), the formatting tends to run together and overlap slightly. The text also doesn’t wrap very well – note the edges of the screen, where letters almost get cut off.
2) Touchscreen navigation may be difficult for those with non-svelte fingers. People specifically like me. Scroll bars are very thin. I have thicker fingers. It was very frustrating to scroll around using the touchscreen. At a certain place in the LG Voyager’s menu (Menu -> Settings and Tools), I wasn’t able to scroll at all, after trying for minutes with finger and fingernails. Running the touchscreen calibration tool didn’t help. It would be nice to have a hardware scroll function for this situation, like with the up/down volume toggle. However, this toggle controls the zoom ratio for onscreen display.
With the exception of the problems mentioned above, this is an excellent touchscreen implementation – response is precise and fast.
The LG Voyager has other cool features, including voice command support, Verizon’s VZ Navigator navigation service, 100MB builtin memory with MiniSD expansion card capability, perfect for storage of your V Cast music and video.
There’s a 2MP camera. Take photos up to 1600×1200 or 320×240 movies. There are many picture adjustment controls (like adjustments for brightness, delay timer, “night shots” and autofocus).
Conclusion of the LG Voyager review
I think this is a phone that’s trying to be two different cellphones, and it doesn’t have to be. As I used it more and more, I got the impression that if I kept it, I’d end up only using it in its “closed” mode – I’d happily use the touchscreen for every function. Alternatively, I can see some people being more comfortable with just using the “open” keyboard-enabled mode. It occurs to me that you could significantly flatten the phone if, say, the flip-open keyboard aspect was removed. But the result would venture into iPhone territory, and at this point the cellphone-ravenous public may not yet be eager for all typing options to be via touchscreen keyboard.
Would I use this phone myself? Not personally, but that’s because I need a “smartphone” for my line of work. And while this phone goes way above and beyond a standard cellphone in functionality, it’s not a smartphone. The people I would recommend this phone for are those who meet any of the following criteria:
- Want the ability to browse the web on a bigger-than-usual screen
- Do a lot of messaging
- Want the ability to take better-than-average photos
- Use Verizon services like VZ Navigator and V Cast Music
- Want a phone with style
A final recommendation – this is one of those phones that, depending on your personal preference, size preferences and physical attributes (like finger thickness) may or may not be right for you. Get one of these phones in your hand before deciding whether or not to purchase.
The LG Voyager is available from Verizon Wireless for $300 with a 2-year contract.