LG Vu: the good, the bad, and the ugly
So I’ve been using my LG CU920 (Vu) for almost a week now and - sorry for the cliché - it’s no iPhone killer!
Despite 3G support and a much nicer camera, the user experience is far from polished…
The good:
- It’s small, thin, and light
- 3G support with DUN
- Nice 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus and macro (see some pictures)
- Impressive sound quality over Bluetooth (A2DP stereo support)
- Streams 3GPP (for Internet radio)
- Video recording
- Haptic feedback
- Removable battery
- Good battery life
The bad:
- Resistive touch screen (not sensitive enough, no multitouch)
- No flash or lens cover on camera
- No gapless music playback
- No iSync support (not even via hacked plugins)
- No accelerometer, WiFi, or GPS
- No USB data cable or Micro-SD card supplied with device
- Micro-SD slot behind battery
- Proprietary audio/USB/power connector
- User interface problems (scrolling is difficult and counter intuitive, landscape setting is not saved for browser or virtual keyboard)
The ugly:
- Screen is unreadable in direct sunlight
- Crashes randomly (and hangs temporarily)
- Bad Java support (not full-screen, no virtual keypad for menu shortcuts makes it impossible to zoom in Google maps)
- No file browsing over Bluetooth (incomplete ObEx support, transfer works)
- No multitasking other than music (and this disables the camera)
- No configurable POP3/IMAP/IM client
- Inoperable without SIM inserted
BTW, I’m not evaluating the TV service (mediaFlo) since I’m not signed up for it.
That’s it for now :)
May 12, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I haven’t had a chance to play with the Vu yet but I was wondering if the device will stream videos from our site: http://www.zoovision.com In theory it should work but with out testing it we can’t know for sure. Can someone with a Vu test out the site and let me. Thanks in advance!
Sean
May 13, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I’ve had no ‘gaps’ in my music playback. The touch screen isn’t as resistive as everyone is leading to believe. I believe the user interface is the way it is because apple put a patent on theirs.
May 13, 2008 at 1:19 pm
@02slider, by “no gapless playback” I mean that if you rip a CD of live music (for example) where there’s no silence (gaps) between songs, the LG Vu will play brief silence between tracks! The iPhone plays the same tracks without gaps - this is a feature supported by some MP3 players, but so far the iPhone is the only phone to support “gapless playback”…
May 28, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I’d be interested to know whatever happened to your i-Mobile 902. Did it survive (how long?) and how did you like it as the months went by? I’m thinking about buying one.
May 28, 2008 at 7:14 pm
@Zack I sold my i-mobile 902 - it survived just fine.
May 30, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Also, did you not like the i-mobile 902? Or did the Vu just look better to you? Thanks.
May 30, 2008 at 1:39 pm
@Zack I liked the i-mobile 902 camera a lot - you can read my thoughts here: http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/category/902/
I don’t generally keep phones more than 3-6 months. The LG Vu is a review unit - the camera is nice, but not as good as the i-mobile 902.
May 30, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Interesting. So are you a journalist?
BTW, the only problem I’ve read about so far with the 902 is that someone said that sometimes photos don’t get saved properly to the flash card. Did you ever experience that?
Thanks.
May 30, 2008 at 3:47 pm
@Zack, I’m not a journalist… This blog is a hobby! I just happen to have enough readership and connections that I’m able to get review units from time-to-time.
I never experienced this problem with my i-mobile 902.
June 6, 2008 at 5:51 pm
It looks like a great phone… although there is something bigger and better coming out every week it seems. I have some definate iPhone killers on my site if interested.
The Samsung f700 I think is a very close iPhone competitor… or it could be.
You can read about it at http://www.technologycurrent.com