LG Neon

As my contract expired, I upgraded/extended for another 2 years and got a free LG Neon phone.  I'm not much of a texter, and I don't use the internet on my phone, but I didn't like the style of the other phones they were offering (I don't like the flip phones these days, and I don't really care for the sliders).

The Neon is a slider phone - but laterally, as it has a QWERTY keyboard.  For regular phone use, there is a touch-screen capability where you can  type in the phone number on screen, but that's it.  You can't even type in alpha characters in there.  Which reminds me - I'll have to memorize which numeric keys correspond with the letters of the alphabet, in case I need to dial 1-800-numbers or something.

My favorite phone in my 10+ yrs of owning a cell would have to be the Sony Walkman w810i, the phone I was using up until 1 day ago.  I don't care for the walkman feature - I have an iPod shuffle which does exactly what I need it to do - play music.  I also have an iPod touch but using it for music would be a waste of battery.

The Neon has mp3 capabilities, but just like with the Sony - I'm not going to be using it.  The camera is 2 MP, just like the Sony, but the quality is not as good.  I also don't like the zoom feature.  I'm not sure if it's the same with all LG phones (I think maybe), but there is not true zoom feature.  Instead of zooming in, you can change the resolution size, effectively zooming in or out.  However, when you are trying to take a pic on the fly, the last thing you want to do is have to push 5 buttons (or so) to zoom in.  By that time, the pic opp is gone.

As for the QWERTY keyboard, well, thinking it would be useful may have been silly on my part.  First, with a traditional phone keyboard, you can text with one hand.  With a QWERTY, you can't.  Compared to the QWERTY on the iPod touch, it's not quite as good.  I'm used to the iPod touch suggesting words and correcting spelling, not to mention you can push the space bar (button) twice to insert a period and a space.  To enter a period on the Neon, you have to hit the function key and then a button.  

The phone itself is lightweight.  It's slimmer than my Sony, but longer and wider.  It fits well into pockets, though.  On the side, there is a covered port for the headset/charger and for the microSD card.  The coverings look as though they can fall off easily - it's pretty standard on LG phones, though.  

Which brings me to the charger.  The guy at the cellphone store told me to charge the phone for 10 hours (initial charging usually requires longer - but at least it isn't the 14 hours they used to suggest).  I checked in the owner's manual but it didn't say anything. After 8 hours, I couldn't tell if the phone was done charging or not - there was no "charge complete" notification.  However, it didn't look like it was still charging.  And it was a booger trying to unplug the charger from the phone - it's wedged in quite deeply.

I'm not sure about battery life - it's reportedly supposed to be good.  However, after using the phone for less than 1 day, I'm down to 2 (out of 3) bars.  Is it because I didn't charge it long enough?  Also, I don't like the 3-segmented battery icon that LG uses - it's too difficult to tell how much battery is left.  Sony uses what iPod uses - an (unsegmented) battery icon.  Plus, with the Sony, you could push one of the volume buttons and get phone information (how much battery left, etc).

I do like how LG phones are fairly customizable - you can change the soft keys and the directional key shortcuts.  That was one thing I hated about the Samsung (SCH 300?) phone that my mom tried - soft keys were pre-set and unchangeable.  She isn't going to need a shortcut to AIM plus there was no bluetooth.

I don't like how LG AT&T phones have a media net button (in the center of the directional pad) - I never use the internet but you can't change this button.  It also serves as the "okay" button but you have to make sure you don't accidentally hit it and incur data charges (as my parents can attest to).  On my sis's new LG phone (slider - CF360), they don't have such a button.  Lucky!

I don't like the color scheme - the white color is fine.  But the lime green (neon) color, with orange lettering - not so good.  I think they used to have a blue/teal version which looks nice but it's not available anymore.

All in all, the Neon seems to be a nice phone.  Not comparable to the Sony (for my purposes) and from what I've read, if you are a heavy texter, you should try the LG Xenon.  Nonetheless, this phone is what I'll be using for the next 2 years - I think it'll be fine.