Over the weekend, some leaked pix and info came out on 2 updates to some pretty popular Verizon LG phones– the enV2 and Voyager. These new upgrades are the appropriately-called enV3 and the more surprisingly named enV Touch (apparently the Voyager 2 is a name trademarked by someone else so Verizon and LG had to pick a new one). Anyways, both phones look to include some nice improvements to their older predecessors, so if your looking to upgrade soon, or just wanna see what’s new, read on!

We’ll start with the enV3- it’s gained the most new feature between the two.

LG enV3 (Pic from Boy Genius Report.com)

enV3

Perhaps the most significant gains are in the screen sizes. While just a couple tenths of an inch on each, the outside and inside screens have received more generous dimensions, a particularly nice change for the outside one: anyone that has seen the EnV2 can attest, the screen there is tiny- all you can do is check recent calls, dial new ones, or view text. Texting, however, still proves quite difficult on the tiny keyboard, after my experience on some of my friend’s models, though it might come easier with time. Here are some other specs:

• 2.6 inch inside screen and 1.5 inch outside screen– As we said above, this is a little bigger than the older EnV2, though again it definitely is nice. Oh, and as you can see from the pic, the outside screen gets an updated interface that looks like the front screen on the LG Chocolate 3
• Same thickness as the EnV2– Just because the screens got a lil bigger doesn’t mean the whole phone gotta get bigger right?
• Verizon 3G with all the standard V Cast services– You know, like V Cast Music with Rhapsody, V Cast Video, Visual Voicemail….
• 3 meagpixel camera with Flash and Video Recording
• microSD card slot with ability to add up to 16 GB of memory
• Stereo speakers– Nice upgrade, will make music listening much better.
• Updated internal keyboard inside and control wheel on front– These are both really minor changes, moving the space bar to the keyboard’s center rather than side, the creation of a text message button to take you straight to your text messages, and a new control wheel on the front screen (whether this is a scroll wheel like the Chocolate’s is left to be seen).

This has been confirmed by Verizon, and you can expect it to drop May 29th for a very nice $129.99 with 2 year contract and $50 mail in rebate, and will be available in either blue or red (as you see in the pic above).

LG enV Touch (Pic from Phone Arena.com)

enV Touch

This is otherwise known as the Voyager 2, and seems to bring the Voyager up to 2009 standards, though, sadly, not much past that (thus disproving rumors of a slide out, multi touch upgrade we mentioned in our upcoming Verizon phones post). Here the specs:

• 3 inch inside screen and 3 inch outside touchscreen– This is exactly like the Voyager, though like the enV3, gets a little bigger screen as well (2.81 inch screen on the old Voyager to 3 inches here). Both screens are also said to have better resolutions, which should make the screens much nicer and crisper, particularly for doing things like watch videos, checking the web (with a real web browser), and viewing pix.
• Full QWERTY keyboard when you flip open the phone
• Verizon 3G– With V Cast services like V Cast Music with Rhapsody, V Cast Video, VZ Navigator, Visual Voicemail…..
• Stereo Speakers– Good for music playing
• microSD card slot– We’re not yet sure how much this goes up to.
• 3.2 megapixel camera with video camera, auto-focus, and flash– This updated camera also has a Schneider-Kreuznach lens, which is found in Kodak digital cameras. Nice little upgrade for sure, and should provide some much better pix
• Updated keyboard layout– Like the enV3, most notable for the placement of the Space bar in the middle of the keyboard, and dedicated keys for things like text messaging, favorites, etc.

However, there is some bad news out there for those of you who like V Cast Mobile TV : Verizon has dropped that in this update (perhaps dropping the service entirely?).

We’re happy people though, so we’ll end this on a relative happy note: the enV Touch is said to be coming a week after the enV3, on June 5 for $219.99 with a 2 year contract and a $70 mail in rebate.

This by the way making for an even crazier first week of June, what with a possible new iPhone on the 8th at Apple’s WWDC conference, the launch of the Palm Pre– release date and price just announced– see here, and the E3 video game conference on the first couple of days– see here for those rumors. Don’t worry, everything big that comes out during those few days you can bet you’ll find right here.

Anyways there you have it, some more awesome messaging phones coming in the near future to Verizon. What you think, one of these or the Alias 2? Let us know in the comments.

Friends. This is the BlackBerry Storm. It’s the first BlackBerry phone with a touchscreen. Oh! It’s not any old touchscreen. No, no, no, no! This touchscreen actually has springs underneath which allows only the most efficient touch response in the industry! Why do I bring this up? Well, it’s quite simple, really. I WANT ONE! Here’s the deal. I had an LG VXwhateveritwas and left it accidentally on the Long Island Rail Road heading home one night. Naturally I freaked out once I realised my plight. If you know anything about New York City Transit then you know that’s a hopeless proposition to even allow the thought of getting the phone back from the lost and found to even enter one’s mind. Needless to say I was bummed. 

Long story short, I ended up getting an LG Voyager (with a touchscreen) with an early upgrade. I thought I was happy with that until Murphy’s Law stepped in and only but a few short months later…the announcement of a brand new BlackBerry made the rounds and I’m stuck with a phone that seemed cool at the time but would be rendered obsolete within a couple of months. 

I know what you’re thinking. Gee, Billy, just go and buy the Storm. Well, you see, dear reader. I would but I can’t upgrade again for another two years! Quel dommage! So any of you out there who can give me ideas on how to get my paws on a Storm and get it hooked up with Verizon, I will be eternally thankful! 

That is all.

I need to put my own layout on this here “fine” website. I put fine in quotes because I need to make my own layout. There is a PROBLEM! I can’t make one! I only know how to make MySpace layouts and YouTube layouts. If you would like to help… send me the code to msdrmepatrick (at) gmail.com! If you don’t…oh well! Just move on. Oh yeah! Add me on the bird here. The bird=Twitter. Subscribe to the awesomeness of my channel on YouTube. Thanks! Remember to send me those codes!

UPDATE: I want it to look a little like this. Ok, now GOOD BYE!

Dear Verizon-

Thank you for having service that hasn’t really ever been a problem for me, even if sometimes your customer service has been jacked up.

Also, thank you for swallowing up the ESPN phone brand and turning it into the ESPN MVP application for VCast enabled phones. I’ve enjoyed it on the last two phones I’ve had, and it’s pretty much become a necessity for me. Well, not really, but you know what I mean.

However, I have a bone to pick with you. The last time I got a new phone, I wanted a smartphone. I was looking at Blackberrys, Treos, and your other smartphone offerings, only to find that none of them are VCast enabled, and thus, aren’t capable of offering ESPN MVP. I didn’t get too distraught over this, as I ended up settling on The Voyager, which has turned out to be a pretty decent phone, even if its calendar and address book features are vastly inferior to those included on the crappy old “candy-bar” style Nokia I got back in the day when I finally caved and got my first cell phone. Other than a terrible calendar and a crappy address book, it has close to everything I’m looking for.

I’ve had my Voyager for just over a year now, Verizon, and I still have a few months to go before I can upgrade. Yesterday I went to my local Verizon store to get new screen protectors, and while there I decided to see if you’ve worked with the smartphone companies to get VCast enabled on them. I figured you had to have by now. I mean, if the smartphones are so smart, I have to be able to get all of the features I enjoy on my non-smartphone on them, right?

RIGHT?

Well, I looked around at all the smartphones on display. From what I could determine, I suspected they did not allow for VCast, and thus, didn’t allow for ESPN MVP. After looking, I asked a sales associate. She confirmed my suspicions, which disappointed me in you, Verizon.

When my contract comes up and I’m eligible for a new phone, I expect the deciding factor on which phone I’ll get to come down to ESPN MVP vs. the organizational features of smartphone. If I choose smartphone, but I’m not able to get a smartphone capable of providing ESPN MVP, I may as well just find the best smartphone I can get. If that happens to be a Verizon phone, well, kudos to you for winning me over on a non-ESPN MVP smartphone. However, if that happens to be something like, well, maybe an iPhone, for example, well, it’s your own fault for not getting your act together and offering a smartphone with ESPN MVP.

Have a nice day,

Josh

So…Dubya is gone and Obama is in.  Quite the historic event.  First of all, congrats for running what will ultimately become a case study in successful elections, first of all at the primary level and then at the big dance itself.  Second, boy did it look cold there in DC.  I almost shivered while sitting in my So Cal office in shorts and a golf shirt.  Third, I managed to avoid the drama of web servers crashing under the streaming strain by watching the live NBC broadcast on my LG Voyager via Verizon Wireless’ VCast Mobile TV service.  No interruptions and clear as a bell picture and sound.  Effin’ brilliant service, imho, and I highly recommend both the phone and the service.

Now, on to fixing the country.  As you readers may have figured, The Dude tends to have a more conservative leaning, politically.  A little less so on social issues, but definitely on fiscal issues.  It is painfully obvious that we are in the middle of quite the financial crisis.  Normally, any good fiscal conservative worth his or her salt would simply advocate lowering taxes and letting businesses conduct business, with the idea that the revenue generated by a successful business (sales taxes, payroll taxes, employees buying other stuff and continuing the cycle, etc.) will make things happen and stabilize the economy.  The problem that we face currently is unfortunately a little beyond that simple a focus.  The big problem as I see it is that the financial powers that be are simply too afraid to conduct business.  Look at all the money that’s been poured into the credit and financial markets, as well as the auto industry.  Not a whole lot of results, much less actual business generated.  And the only way I see to create a trend of stability is for “Government” to take the lead on things.

Nobody can deny that the infrastructure in this country needs some serious work.  Water delivery, roads, power/energy, air traffic control, schools, they all need massive amounts of updating.  And coincidentally, all of these things tend to be owned by one governmental agency or another.  So logically the way to kick start things and hire unemployed (or soon to be unemployed) people is for “Government” to start authorizing all of these public works type projects.  Two things, though, are needed to keep fiscal conservatives from having coronaries and actually generate efficient results.

First, government should not hire the employees.  Governments are extremely inefficient.  I know, I’ve both worked for municipal agencies and been a consultant to them for the past 14 years.  Let consultants and contractors hire the workers.  They can do the work more efficiently and at a lower price than the government agencies can.

Second, DO NOT RAISE TAXES TO PAY FOR IT!!  Let’s face a little reality.  We are facing a staggeringly huge national debt.  Even as Obama’s transition team proposed in the previous several weeks, the stimulus package is going to cost a ton.  So we should simply admit to ourselves that the increase in debt will be massive but necessary.  And with that why not again minimize the impact of government inefficiency and cut out a lot of government processing.  Deficit spend!  Seriously.  To balance (so to speak) the books, have the Fed or the Treasury “loan” the money to the various government agencies that need it.  Then let the trickle-down effect go to work.  Say the City of San Diego decides to overhaul its water delivery system (it sure needs it!).  It will be a massive job, requiring a ton of manpower.  Actual workers digging out the pipes, people fabricating the pipes, people designing the water system, people redesigning the road system to accommodate the new water utilities, and so on.  The workers themselves and the construction companies will likely need to purchase tools, equipment, and trucks, thus providing work for people in those industries.  The engineers designing the water and road systems would need to buy new computer systems and maybe lease additional office space, thus providing some stimulation in those areas.  Maybe workers will come in from other areas (it would likely require enough people) and need housing.  They’ll all need food and such at the jobsites, uniforms, communication devices, and who knows what else.  In addition to the direct financial impacts, think about the workers.  Knowing that they’ve got some financial stability, I bet they’ll be more interested in going out for a nice dinner or buying that HD flatscreen plasma.  With all that work, they’ll likely want to take a small vacation here and there, maybe visit SeaWorld or LegoLand.  Maybe they’ll feel confident enough to replace the 6 or 7 year old family car with something new.  Who knows?  But if Obama decides to raise taxes, particularly on the businesses who would do all of this hiring, they may feel that they can’t afford to hire as many people as they otherwise would’ve and wind up being able to pay their employees less due to increased competition for fewer jobs.  And if these workers are earning less than they otherwise might have, maybe they won’t feel secure enough yet to start spending.  If taxes are raised, maybe businesses will decide to hold off on purchasing a new fleet of trucks, because the increased taxes won’t quite make that purchase pencil out, or maybe they’ll hold off on moving to a larger facility.  If the taxes are not increased, it is most likely that more of the economy would be stimulated for the same dollar amount, and ultimately generate more revenue not only for themselves, but for the government agencies to use to pay back the “stimulus loans.”

So President Obama, congratulations and good luck.  You have a helluva task ahead of you, and it certainly won’t be easy.  Expectations are probably unreasonably high, and it’s not likely that any signs of success would be seen in the immediate future.  But success can be had.  You are a very inspirational person, and given the dark mood of the country leading up to your inauguration, that sense of inspiration is a great spark.  If you do it correctly, you can use that spark to really stoke the forging fires of our collective souls.  We’ll be watching.  Don’t f**k it up.

Apple's iPhone has inspired a flood of next generation smartphones

It’s almost, as Yogi Bera would say, “deja vu all over again”. 7 years ago, after Apple first introduced the iPod, there was a rush of “iPod-killers” that flooded the market in order to compete. However, few of these devices ever caught-on long enough to realize any real commercial success and mount a serious challenge to the dominance of the iPod.

This time around, with the mobile market, Apple is something of a late entrant with its iPhone. In 2001, MP3 technology was still relatively new and no MP3 manufacturer had yet created a device — or desktop music management software — capable of establishing it in a dominent position. Not so with the mobile phone market. Last summer, when Apple first introduced the iPhone, it immediately faced stiff competition against entrenched and established manufacturers such as Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia.

That said, since the iPhone was released in July 2007, it has enjoyed a remarkable climb in market share, skyrocketing from 4% at the time of its debut to 23% to date. It therefore comes as no surprise that, once again, the popularity of Apple’s device has spawned numerous immitators from RIM/Blackberry’s Storm to LG’s Voyager.

While I don’t see an iPhone-killer in any of them, despite being a faithful iPhone user, I’m rooting for the imitators to do a better job of giving Apple a run for its money than the so-called iPod-killers did. Why? For the simple reason that a good, healthy competition will only end up quickening the pace of innovation and lowering the prices of the resulting products. Both not only good for consumers but also good for the future of mobile computing, which is the next, fastest-growing frontier in the digital space.

Graph courtesy of ChangeWave

Of course, given the sad history of the manufacturers chasing Apple, I’m afraid I don’t have reason to be optimistic. And I’m ALWAYS optimistic! It’s tough for me to realistically expect a rapid pace of innovation to come from the same companies that, prior to the introduction of the iPhone, developed some of the most useless, unimaginative and uninteresting devices on the planet. That last bit is not hyperbole either. For years the United States mobile market has lagged significantly, and embarassingly, behind its European and Asian counterparts. I find it interesting that now that a popular competitor has entered the space, each of them has found a way to incorporate features that had been unheard of before, such as touchscreens and real web browsers.

And why are they content with merely immitating the iPhone rather than developing something truly unique, user-friendly and useful? If they are all content with merely copying and coming in second to the iPhone, it’s unlikely they’ll all of the sudden start truly innovating.

The digital future is at stake

Why is all this important? Why do I care if the others in the mobile market give Apple a run for its money, rather than watch it route the industry as it did with the iPod? Because this time the future of the Internet is at stake. A recent Pew Internet survey found that “the mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020″.  Also earlier this month, Opera Software announced in its latest State of the Mobile Web report that “overall data traffic has increased 463% since last year“.

Not entirely surprising. We now have mobile devices that are capable of doing things other than simply placing phone calls. The result is that we’re doing things with our mobile devices that we used to only be able to do with our desktop computers.

For those of us in the design field, we’re seeing clients begin to catch up very quickly as they ask for more ambitious mobile solutions to their business needs. This was hardly the case when useless WAP browsers run from archiac mobile operating systems ruled the market. Indeed one of the things that will make the iPhone so difficult to catch is the advantage it has, having developed a large ecosystem of innovators who write applications for the iPhone that extend its functionality far beyond Apple’s original functionality. Companies are beginning to see the advantages of empowering their customer/client bases and allowing them to connect with their brands wherever they are.

To be sure, Apple has never truly needed outside competitors to spark it’s internal culture of innovation. But it sure would be nice if others found religion and started really developing great products for once.

YEAH RIGHT!!!

.chris{}

I jumped on the opportunity for a phone upgrade as soon as I realized I was eligible for one.  The original plan was to get the LG enV2 at Best Buy (was on sale for $49.99 this week), but I started playing around with the LG Voyager and decided to get that instead.

So now I have a band new LG Voyager!  I need to get the mail-in rebate out before I forget about it….

I just got off the phone with Verizon. I ordered the LG Voyager Titanium which I’ve been meaning to do now for about a month or so. I’m excited…I can’t wait to get it!

In other news, I did some laundry today so I could get it all packed up and ready to go to Maine. Last night I cleaned up the room a bit in case of an inspection while I’m gone. Today it’s been pretty nice as far as not having any snow, although the high temperature so far as been -11. I haven’t been outside at all but it looks a bit windy out. I was supposed to go downtown and party with Courtney, Ron and Kaysi, but Ron decided not to go I guess and it would have been a bit awkward with just me. But it’s fine, I still have a few things to do to get ready to leave.

Blackberry Curve 8830 Smart Phone World Edition Vs. LG Dare and Apple Iphone
Comparison of the Blackberry Curve, LG Dare and Apple Iphone, especially for students, business persons and those on the go.
View more »

Product summary

Now that I finally got my laptop, I had to take a picture of all my computers and other random gadgets. Ok, so there isn’t that many, but for a 16 year old, more then a fair share!

Ok, so here is what I have:

• HP Pavilion a808x – this is my first computer for myself, it really still works nice too. It has 512MiB ram (I never felt like paying $20 to upgrade), a nvidia 6200 with 128MiB ram (I only got it for ubuntu’s desktop effects…), and a single core 2.2GHZ processor by AMD. It is currently running ubuntu. My brother kind of shares this one with me, so it runs Windows XP as well.
• Dell Inspiron 6250 – This laptop is 7 years old and S-L-O-W! My parents pretty much let it go to me. It has a 20GIB super slow hard drive to begin with, so it already has problems. Then it’s a slap in the face with 1.6GHZ single core processor, and 256MiB of ram. But on the bright side has a nvidia 2 go and an Ethernet port. So what do I do with it? Nothing. The batteries shot. It runs XP and occasionally ubuntu, if I feel like running ubuntu on 5GiB of space.
• HP Pavilion DV6885SE – My new laptop. I love it! It has a dual core 2.1GHZ processor, 3GiB of ram, 250GiB of hard drive, a nvidia 8400, a 12 cell battery, and just plain looks awesome being a “special edition”. It has WiFi too, something I had never gotten to play with. This is my favorite and newest computer. It runs Vista, which is new as well to me. It’s what I am writing this post in right now! I highly recommend HPs now that I have two.
• Sony Handycam DCR-HC38 – My camcorder I don’t use much. I am not really inspired to use it at the second, but it’s nice to have around, because you never know when you need to video document something without a digital camera, laptop, or phone. Yes people, a device that only records video.
• Apple iPod Nano (3rd Gen) – Had it for a year now, 4GiB of space, it’s cool with a case, I use it every day and charge it every two weeks. I don’t have a cable for it anymore, so it has only 400 songs I am getting sick of. But I probably won’t upgrade, with a case it’s fine.
• LG Voyager (VX10000) – My phone, and I like it! With the newest software update it’s fine. I always use it for texting, I don’t have the money to activate all the other programs. It can do it all though. With the case, I dropped it 6+ feet onto a road, and it only left a scratch. I have a train as a background! I know hacks for it because I really get sick of the locked-ness of the whole thing.

Well I have a old calculator too, It’s buried in my bookbag though. Being HP it deserves to make it to the list. As do the pile of cables I have. But as I said, I am good computer wise. I just try really hard to keep my stuff nice!

Title: I have a client looking to buy 10K-15K cell phones

I am selling my LG Voyager on Ebay! All of the details can be found here.

If you know someone who is interested please pass this along!

Thanks,

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Verizon’s Visual Voicemail (pic from Verizon’s site)

Jealous of the iPhone or Samsung Instinct’s ability to use “visual voicemail” for going through voicemail, while your LG Voyager on Verizon has to go through the old fashioned way of listening to each message? If so, then today is your lucky day as Verizon has launched their own Visual Voicemail service for just $2.99 a month. That will get you the ability to save up to 40 messages for 40 days, the ability to reply through call or text to the person that called you, and of course the ability to sort through your messages in the order you want and not whatever order your phone gives you. Right now this is only available for the LG Voyager as a downloadable application from your phone, but we expect many more Verizon phones should be getting this soon as well.

More info here at Verizon’s site

USC’s Entertainment Technology Center has a history of being in the right place at the right time. Created as a consortium funded by the major content, technology, CE and service companies, ETC’s stated goal is “to understand next-gen consumers and explore new opportunities for reaching them with digital content. ” ETC was the main player, for many years, in the efforts to arrive at a standard for Digital Cinema. With that task behind the organization, ETC and its CEO/Executive Director David Wertheimer have now turned their attentions to the Anytime/Anywhere Content Laboratory (AACL).

Anywhere/Anytime Content Lab

MobilizedTV had an opportunity to speak with Wertheimer about the lab and how it might help vendors to improve the state-of-the-art of mobile TV/video. Here’s what he had to say:

“We’ve been working on the lab for several months now but it’s just now coming to fruition as a place where we can gather people and have a critical mass of state-of-the art devices to show how content moves across platforms through the home and to consumers on the go. it gives us a real opportunity to provide context for the industry-shaping discussions we have at the ETC between content providers, systems operators, technology and consumer electronics companies.

The technology is changing every day. And so we and, importantly, our member companies came to the conclusion that it would be great to have a place where we could not only know that we could follow the state-of-the-art and see content as consumers would see it, perhaps before they’d see it in many cases, but use it as a opportunity to talk about where things are headed and how we can work together to make sure that consumer experiences are as good as we want them to be.

The AACL builds on the model and the success of the Digial Cinema Lab where people from multiple industries were able to come together and hash out how Digital Cinema could work and come into existence.

For the AACL, our executive sponsors include major content partners from Disney, Warner Bros. to Fox, Sony Pictures and Lucasfilm to companies like Sharp Electronics, Volkswagen of America, Cisco, and Alcatel- Lucent. Project sponsors include Dolby, SanDisk and LG Electronics. In addition to that, we have lots of companies that have donated hardware and software to the lab, to be represented there.

One of the things we’re doing in August and into September is building out the 3D home part of the lab. We’re largely looking at the technologies that either encode, decode or display 3D video. That said, we have a working group looking at 3D end-to-end.

We’re just beginning to build out the relationships and technologies from the mobile side. Alcatel-Lucent was the first board member to join us and they and we are interested in bringing in companies from the wireless service provider space to be a part of the discussions we have. We’ve talked quite a bit about the state of the market, what’s working and what’s not and what we can do better in terms of making things better.

With regard to mobile, we’re looking at questions such as, Are there opportunities for us to build towards more common formats, since there are hundreds of video formats required to service the various handsets? How can we help drive a movement towards sanity? I think this is an opportune time to be doing this. People have seen some excitement about mobile but cost is going to be important in the mobile space. So doing things efficiently both for the service provider and content provider are going to be really important. People weren’t focused on that when they were just excited to get content on the mobile device. How, now, will we encourage the right things to happen so we don’t have to produce 200 versions of a movie or TV show, but a much smaller number and make sure they look good?

In the lab, we have lots of portable devices, from Apple iPods to iPhones to LG Voyagers, which Verizon is an affiliate sponsor of. I think a lot of these guys are headed in the right direction. This game is far from over. If you look at where the iPhone is, it’s got a lot of people excited about video on portable devices which is good. But the field is still wide open. I think that if people are smart about creating devices that are easy to use and really good at providing a quality user experience, I think there is still a lot of room for people to make inroads.

In the lab, our goal is to see how consumers are consuming on the leading edge and how that changes how major content producers and those who have to build the big systems to enable it are going to do what they do. Trending is important to us, but we don’t need lots and lots of people sitting around the table with us to fully understand that. The reason we bring smaller companies together with our larger partners is it is important to have that dialogue. The next big distribution company might be a name we don’t know today. We need to continue to be out there looking for how things are changing technologically and from a consumer behavior point of view, and what that means for content and consumer electronics.

Currently, our lab is not open to the public. The use of our lab is one of the sponsor benefits of being part of our organization. We are exploring right now how to involve smaller companies. Traditionally, ETC has been a non-profit organization funded by very large industry-shaping organizations, because it’s been frankly the power of those organizations that have been able to move the needle. That said, in today’s world, where smaller companies can have more and more influence, we are constantly and are currently evaluating how we open it up for those kinds of companies to be involved.

We do several events such as Tech First Look where we invite start-up companies to make a presentations and have a dialogue with the member companies and other industry analysts and so forth. We do those events a couple of times a year. So we have ways to get those companies in front of our member organizations, but we don’t currently have a way for them to join.

I bought a new phone because my Razr was crapping out on me. My almost-two-year old Razr had a life of about 4-5 hours and it just wasn’t hackin’ it anymore. So I plundered down to Verizon and picked up a phone that I like better than most of my friends:

The LG Voyager is, to sum, the shit. Web browser, Mobile IM, 2.0 Megapixel camera, and tons of other fun and assorted goodies. It’s got a full Qwerty keyboard so I can text like an even crazier maniac, and feel like Veronica Mars while doing so. Since I re-upped my plan, I’m now officially unlimited with texts and pix msgs.  Beware.

I checked out the Dare and enV…but the Voyager really comines the powers of both into one gadget of awesomeness. Yes, the touch screen isn’t AS good as the iPhone…but overall, this phone is pretty freakin’ sweet. And since I have Verizon and the iPhone isn’t an option for me, the Voyager is a solid choice for my cellular activities.

Therefore: My new phone is better than you.

Ok, so over the last week or so we were lent an LG Chocolate 3 for Verizon (by a TeenTechBlog friend who would prefer to remain Anonymous ). We put it through its paces- you know made some texts and calls, checked some V Cast, etc., and to summarize this phone in two words: Very Good. To find out what we liked and didn’t like- as well as more detail besides the words Very Good, hit the more link.

We’ll do this in the same style of our usual hands on/ first look.

Features:

• Pretty thin yet very sturdy feel- We liked the design of the Chocolate 3, especially that HUGE screen on the front- changing music tracks, viewing text and pix, and even taking pix with it, was great and extremely easy (though we would’ve liked to have the ability to “Quick Reply” to a text without having to open up the phone). The back of the phone is a smooth feel, that felt pretty strong, the front though- even with the great screen- was very shiny, and that means a lot of fingerprints and scratches. The phone is pretty thin as well for a flip phone, and should fit comfortably in a jeans pocket.

You can see the Chocolate 3 is about the same size as AT&T’s thin LG Shine

• 2.2 inch inside screen and a 1.76 inch front screen with Scroll Wheel- We mentioned the front screen above, but the inside screen is also HUGE and very bright and colorful- making it very easy to read text, view pix and phone numbers, and really anything else you’d do with a phone.

LG Chocolate 3 both opened and closed

• 2 megapixel camera with video support- The camera takes pretty good pix for a phone, but like the Instinct (we reviewed here), the camera here will not be replacing your regular camera anytime soon.
• Built in Mp3 player with 1 GB of memory built in- We loved this part of the phone. Syncing music was similar to what we would do with our iPods and iTunes (thanks to Verizon’s free V Cast Music with Rhapsody player- we’ll cover that more on Verizon and Rhapsody later. You can also use other players like Windows Media Player for transferring songs if you want), and don’t even get us started on the sound. It was LOUD and EXTREMELY clear. The 1 GB of memory is also a nice touch, and for a music phone like this, it is really great to have the ability to load up 250 songs out of the box (it includes a USB cable in the box for syncing with your computer- as well as charging the phone).
• Built in FM Transmitter for Music- This allows you to play your songs over a car stereo’s FM radio (that is once you find an empty station on your car’s radio, and set the same station on your phone). This was simple and most of the time worked well from wherever I sat in my family’s minivan. Just a note on this feature- for best results you may want to keep the phone open instead of closed. From my tests with it, I got static- though not terrible- more often when the phone was closed, and when I kept it open, I most of the time got perfect quality.
• Micro SD card slot- This slot supports adding up to an 8 GB card- for those of you with a huge music collection.
• 3.5 mm Standard Headphone Jack­- Lets you use your regular headphones. It works as it should, and even with iPhone headphones!
• Verizon 3G- This is VERY fast, and downloading a 3 minute song with it took less than a minute- and I didn’t even have perfect coverage!
• V Cast- This phone has the whole set- V Cast Music, V Cast Video (the quality by the way is not the greatest with videos coming in very fuzzy and unclear), and VZ Navigator (for all your GPS needs- also includes traffic updates, which is a nice thing to have- especially when it will tell you where exactly the traffic is and how long the delay is there )
• V Cast Music with Rhapsody- We thought we should give you a little more info on this as it is a pretty big part of the phone. This works like other phone song download services, you pay usually $1.99 and get your song downloaded straight to your phone on the go. Now is where the good part begins. You download that Rhapsody player with V Cast from here, set up an account for your phone number, and when you log in after downloading your song from your phone- you’ll receive an alert asking you if you want to download an Mp3 version of that song to your computer for FREE. No more buying the same songs twice (though here you are paying $1.99 over the regular $0.99 you’d find on iTunes), and you can now use that Mp3 file to put that downloaded song on your regular iPod or Mp3 player! O, and this also works for other Verizon phones like the LG Voyager and Venus, and Motorola’s Razr 2 V9m (for a list of compatible phones click here)

V Cast Music Manager with Rhapsody (click on pic for bigger version)

• Great Call Quality- This may get overlooked with all these features, but this phone does have some really nice call quality- with calls sounding clear on our end and with the person we called.

Now let’s get to some of the bad parts of the phone.

Drawbacks:

• FM Transmitter works ONLY for Music- Something that we would have like to see- especially with the no talking on your cell phone while driving laws- was the ability to use this feature for calls as well. It would definitely make it easier for drivers even where that law isn’t intact.
• Front of Phone gets a lot of Fingerprints and Scratches- Not the end of the world- those of us who own or owned iPods know how the back of that gets scratched- but still it would have been nice not see such a good display get damaged so easily.
• V Cast with Rhapsody costs an extra $1 than buying a song from a Computer and transferring it to the phone- We don’t really get the logic behind this, as Verizon includes a USB cable in the box for syncing, and Rhapsody only charges $.99 per song when you buy from a computer.
• Video quality not the best, and is also not viewable on the front screen- Ok, so this wont replace your TV anytime soon, and again this isn’t such a big deal. A question we had- and again don’t see the logic behind- is why can’t we view our V Cast and other videos from the HUGE front screen. Trust us, when you see the phone in person you’ll see how big that screen is.
• No answering text from front screen- We know we said this earlier, but it was a big problem to us, and would make lives definitely easier.

Our Verdict: Very, very good phone. Those few drawbacks take away from it a little, but the great music and call quality make this phone great, and that huge front screen (it is that good) with Scroll Wheel (for easy navigation) just make it even better.

I would hands down recommend this phone for a person who wants a good music player and cell phone in one device- and doesn’t want to pay AT&T that $70 a month for the iPhone 3G, someone who wants a cool phone that at the same time works very well, or someone on Verizon who doesn’t want a touchscreen phone like the Dare or Voyager, but still wants a very good phone.

The price of the phone is $129.99 with a 2 year contract from Verizon’s site, and comes in either Light Blue or Black.

What you guys  think- is this better than some of the other phones out there like the LG Voyager or LG Dare for Verizon, the iPhone 3G or LG Vu for AT&T, Motorola Rokr E8 for T-Mobile, or even the Samsung Instinct for Sprint? Let us know your opinion in the comments.