LG Voyager™

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: We found calls for the most part to be loud on the LG Voyager. We did occasionally use the side volume keys to adjust the sound both up and down. Additionally, there were a few times when we couldn’t hear callers clearly, but this was more the exception than the rule. Using the speakerphone didn’t degrade call quality, and we had no problem hearing callers over the speaker. Additionally, you don’t have to be too close to the cell phone when using the speakerphone to be heard clearly by callers.

Audio quality: Playback of songs is loud through the cell phone’s speakers, but songs sounded a bit tinny. The LG Voyager has a standard cell phone headset jack (so you can’t you use your own stereo headphones with the cell phone). Since the LG Voyager supports Bluetooth stereo, you can also purchase an optional Bluetooth stereo headset if you want to listen to music without wires.

Ease of Use

Menu/phone book: Like many Verizon Wireless cell phones, the LG Voyager has a standard menu system; if you're already accustomed to it, using the LG Voyager should be a breeze. That said, this is one of the more straightforward menu interfaces you’ll find on a cell phone. The interesting feature about this cell phone is the touch screen. There are four quick-launch keys at the base of the screen for messaging, the phone, a basic menu, and the address book. However, if you want to quickly view a bunch of apps, tap the screen near the top and it launches a fuller menu. This became our go-to option for launching the camera or viewing pictures. While launching the browser to check Web-based e-mail and Facebook, we typically used the basic menu key at the base of the cell phone touch screen.

We particularly like how easy it is to use the phone book, which can store 1,000 contacts, each with five phone numbers, two e-mail addresses, and a picture – sorry, there's no slot for addresses. If you want to find your phone number, you’ll need to access contacts from the menu system instead of the quick-launch application at the bottom of the home screen. Additionally, the break of alphabetical letters for the address book is a bit odd; however, you can always open the cell phone and click on the first letter of the name you want and a list will appear instantly, which makes finding numbers a lot quicker.

Camera/video: The LG Voyager sports a 2-megapixel camera that can take photos and record short videos. Though this camera phone lacks a flash, we didn’t miss it much. However, we should note that pictures taken at night or in a dimly lit room don’t come out at all. Additionally, this camera phone has one of the slowest shutters we’ve encountered. You have to snap a picture at least 10 to 15 seconds before you want to capture an image. About that picture-snapping button: Don’t hold it down or you’ll inadvertently launch the video camera. Press it once and wait for the picture to be taken. While you can also snap self-portraits, there’s no mirror next to the lens to help you frame the shot. On the plus side, the entire screen turns into a viewfinder (similar to digital cameras), so it seems like you have more room to frame your photo.

As for image quality, we found colors to be vivid when well lit externally and the images clear on the cell phone’s screen. Unfortunately, as is the case with many camera phones, the quality suffered a bit once we downloaded pictures taken with the LG Voyager’s camera to a computer. We found outdoor photos lacked contrast, but the colors were true; colors on the indoor photos were muted. Video quality is acceptable but not stellar. However, we should note that we had a much better experience when viewing videos via Verizon Wireless’ V Cast service.

Music: The LG Voyager sports an MP3 player and comes with a spacious 180MB of internal memory, so you can store tons of music (at least a couple of albums' worth of tunes) and pictures on the cell phone. It also comes with a synching cable that makes getting music on the phone pretty easy. If you want more storage, we recommend buying an optional MicroSD media card, as this cell phone will support up to an 8GB MicroSD card. You can play MP3s and WMA (Windows Media Audio) files on the MP3 player. Sorry, there’s no support for AAC (Apple’s music format) files. As noted, the audio quality is pretty good through the cell phone speaker.

Although the LG Voyager lacks the ability to adjust audio-centric controls such as bass and treble, there are Shuffle, Repeat, and Skip songs options. We should note that we really liked the interface for playing and controlling music. While it looks like the cell phone is launching a Web service to play music, that’s simply not the case. Additionally, playing music through the cell phone did not drain battery life any faster. Even though you still can’t transfer music via Bluetooth, you can listen to music via Bluetooth stereo options. We particularly enjoyed pairing the Voyager with the Motorola T505 In-Car Speakerphone with Digital FM Transmitter and listening to songs stored on the cell phone over the car stereo.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to pair the LG cell phone with a Plantronics 925 Bluetooth headset. We found call quality to be a lot clearer with a headset, and users didn’t know we were using a cell phone, let alone a headset.

Design

Look and feel: The LG Voyager is definitely a big cell phone. If you’re in the market for one of a more petite nature, this model is not for you. However, on the plus side, if you want a cell phone that has some girth and is easy to find in a pocket or purse, this could be the perfect fit. The phone does feel comfortable when you hold it up to your ear or cradle it between ear and shoulder for longer calls. However, since the screen comes so close to your face, it tended to attract a lot of face grease, and we found ourselves wiping it off often.

About that screen, it’s pretty bright and it’s got the right amount of sensitivity for the touch screen out of the box – meaning we didn’t have to adjust it. We found the external screen hard to view in direct sunlight, but had much better luck with the internal screen in those situations. That’s what’s really nice about the LG Voyager; if one option doesn’t work for you, there’s inevitably another one that will, though it might take you a little time to find it. Another plus is that the cell phone’s spine isn’t littered with extra buttons. The only buttons you’ll find are camera (which is placed perfectly for snapping shots when in picture mode), the volume keys, and the sliding lock button. On the other side of the cell phone’s spine is the slot for an optional MicroSD card.

Keypad: We’re just going to come right out and say it – we really like the cell phone’s touch screen. We didn’t even have to adjust the settings to be more or less sensitive to the touch. We like the huge numeric keypad that appears when you press the phone icon at the base of the main screen. In particular, we like that the letters on the numeric keys mirrors a standard keypad – meaning we never had trouble trying to figure out if we were selecting the right keys when we dialed a number or short code that included letters. While we’re on the subject of keypads, we found the touch-screen QWERTY keyboard that appears when the Voyager is in horizontal mode to be spacious.

Unfortunately, we were not nearly as enamored with the internal keypad as we were with its touch-sensitive counterpart. That said, we are thrilled it’s included. As mentioned previously, this is the SUV of cell phones, and as such, we expect it to be fully loaded. The real issue we have with the internal QWERTY keypad is that the keys are a bit cramped, and we found that we often mistyped letters, though we did like that the symbols are laid out on the keys, so no scrolling through a menu to find a question mark – a nice plus. However, we were bothered by the placement of the Space, Return, Clear, and OK buttons. They are all close together, and we constantly selected the wrong keys and ended up sending one-word texts. That said, after a while, we became more accustomed to the layout.

Battery Life

In the battery life department, the LG Voyager could fare better. But as we’ve already mentioned, it is the SUV of cell phones, and as such, it goes through power fairly quickly. We found that the cell phone could last about two days before recharging when using the LG Voyager regularly to make calls, occasionally surf the wireless Web, and send/receive text messages. Users who barely use the cell phone to make/receive calls and send/receive messages can probably last about three days before needing to recharge, while heavier cell phone users will likely need to charge the LG Voyager nightly. We should also note that leaving the phone's Bluetooth activated does not have an adverse affect on the battery.