LG VX9800

DESIGN At first glace the VX9800 appears to be a chunky candy bar-style phone with a tiny screen, but spin it horizontally and the clamshell design flips open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard and a wide 320 x 256-pixel LCD with dual speakers. The hinged screen can be positioned upright like a laptop or flat down for thumbing-out text messages. The miniSD card slot and a headset jack are positioned on the side and a 1.3-megapixel camera is on the back.

FEATURES The VX9800's MP3 player is nothing fancy, but it handles those high-quality 320-Kbps MP3s and includes an equalizer. Tunes are stored on a miniSD card and are loaded through a USB cable (sold separately). For playback, the VX9800 uses the built-in stereo speakers, headphones via Bluetooth, or a 2.5mm jack. The VX9800 is built to handle Verizon's high-speed EV-DO network for downloading video clips and games and includes compatibility with AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, and Verizon's Wireless Sync solution for downloading e-mail.

PERFORMANCE Once we found the VX9800's MP3 player buried within the menus it worked well. Volume is fine, especially through the stereo speakers. The no-frills player is short a few features found on other phones. There's no dedicated Music Player button and the device won't recognize miniSD cards bigger than 1GB, even though 2GB cards are starting to hit shelves.

VERDICT The VX9800 is designed more for video than music, but handles the task fairly well regardless. Hopefully Verizon will set up over-the-air downloads via V CAST to make the service worth the $15 monthly fee.

www.verizonwireless.com
Carrier: Verizon Wireless