Price Range: $79.99 - $149.95

The gorgeous display measures two inches diagonally (320×240 pixels) and supports 11 lines of text. With support for 262,000 colors, it’s one of the most attractive displays we’ve seen on a cell phone and arguably the best on an LG handset. Graphics and animation were sharp, and colors popped. Our only gripes, and these are small, is that the display has a reflective quality and attracts smudges and fingerprints easily. Also, it’s hard to see in direct light and nearly impossible to see when the backlighting is off. You can change the clock style, the backlighting time, and the font size but no other options are customizable.

The Chocolate’s buttons take some time to get used to. The “send” key is where it usually is, left of the cursor pad, but the “end” key is on the side of the phone. The cursor pad, meanwhile, looks like an iPod-style scroll wheel but isn’t – it’s just a cursor pad. And the cursor pad and soft keys are touch-sensitive, with no tactile feedback. The learning curve is sharpened by the beautiful new Flash-based menu system, which doesn’t look like other Verizon phones. (Fortunately, you can kick the phone back into the familiar Verizon menus.)

With the interface, you are able to theme it to fit your personality and style, something we enjoy doing. By default, the phone uses the “Rock n Roll” theme, which places all your menu items in a circle. It almost seems to invite you to use the touch wheel in a similar fashion to an iPod, but really you just need to click to the right or left to spin the onscreen wheel navigation. Once you make your first choice, the submenu is a simple list layout which you tap up and down on the wheel to navigate through. This is the point where we started to get the hang of this thing. As we said before though, you can change wallpapers and themes to your liking. The phone is Get It Now compatible, so there is how you access additional ringtones, games, and other applications as well.

That said, if you’re looking for a music-phone on Verizon, learning the Chocolate is worth the effort. This is Verizon’s best music-phone by a long shot. It supports stereo Bluetooth, playing music easily through our wireless Plantronics Pulsar 590 headphones. It has a roomy 68 MB of on-board memory, accepts MicroSD memory cards up to 2 GB, and – finally – can play both WMA and MP3 files natively in Verizon’s V CAST Music player. You can put music on the phone by dumping it into a MicroSD card, or syncing it via USB cable with Windows Media Player. Verizon has also gotten rid of the $15/month subscription fee for their V CAST Music service, so if you feel like buying songs over the air for $1.99 each, go for it.

A cool perk is the phone supports Bluetooth for talking and listening. This comes in particularly handy for MP3 and music playback, as you can conserve the phone’s battery life while listening to music via wireless stereo headphones. I used the Motorola HT820 Bluetooth stereo headset, and was very impressed. I could crank the music as loud as I wanted with little or no distortion before the volume became painful. I didn’t notice any pops, clicks or anything indicating the headphones were picking up wireless signals.

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Fashionista’s Phone

The LG KP200 phone is a cheap low end clamshell phone. It does not belong to any of LG’s specialized brands like Chocolate or Shine, but it does sport the usual LG colors - grey and silver. The phone measures 86 X 45 X 20.1 mm and weighs at about 76 grams. Although the phone is of the low-end type, it does support features such as Java, an FM Radio, Photo album, Photo editor, and even Wallpapers; but of course, you couldn’t expect more from this low budget phone.

The phone comes with a large 3 Inch high colour screen which provides a high screen resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. The screen is an LCD TFT touch screen which comes with a touch screen menu interface which eliminates the users need for a keypad. The KE850 Prada runs on a Macromedia Flash user interface which is highly useable & effective.

The main attraction of the LG Prada is probably its enormous 3-inch diagonal touch display. The brilliant screen supports 256,000 colors that really show off the rich and colorful detail of the Prada’s gorgeous menu interface. You can adjust the brightness and backlight time, but not the font size. That sits just fine with us, however, as the default font is quite nice and large already. You also can choose from a variety of innovative themes that take advantage of the touch screen interface–one of our favorites has a moving fish on the home screen wallpaper that you can direct with your finger.

Specifications:

Network GSM
Form Factor BAR
Message Email
Pixel 2.0 MP
FM Radio yes
MP3 Player yes
Bluetooth yes
Ringtone 32ch
Memory Slot microSD
Standby time(h) 300
Java yes
Digital zoom yes
GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE yes
USB yes
Touch Screen yes
Video Camera yes

Price Range:

Take pictures wherever you are and show your creativity with the 9-time continuous shooting feature. 4X digital zoom Either send an image immediately after you have taken it or keep it in the phones’ photo album. Use pictures taken with the digital camera as wallpaper for your phone. The smooth sliding keypad reveals an extra large colour LCD screen underneath. This also allows you to answer and end calls.

This is a unique mobile that has the screen that operates in two modes. When the keypad is up, the visible screen will show important information such as caller ID, signal strength and remaining battery life. However when the keypad is down, a large screen is revealed and you can enjoy the full funtionality of the phone such as web browsing, games and more. 65,000 colour screen displays images as they were meant to be seen. 128X160 pixel high resolution display. Use the screen as a viewfinder for the built-in digital camera.

Key Features:

- 65,000 colour LCD screen
- Enriching sound with 40 Polyphonic MIDI technology
- MMS Support
- Embedded Java Technology
- GPRS class 10
- WAP 2.0
- IrDA-Infrared Data Transfer
- Excellent Battery life

Specifications:

Network GSM
Ringtone 64ch
GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
Color Silver
Resolution QQVGA
Message MMS
Form Factor SLIDER

LG G5300i has 40 polyphonic sound allows up to 40 notes to be played simultaneously providing some astounding and accurate sounds and personalised ringtones that will be easily recognisable. The phone allows you to identify up to 7 caller groups (up to 20 people per group) with unique ringtones, icons and photos, which means you can tell if it’s work or play. It is also possible to customise the phone with ringtones to fit your personality.

65,000 colour screen displays images as they were meant to be seen. 128X128 pixel high resolution display. Download pictures and wallpapers from the supplied CD and from the LG Mobile.com website.

Key Features:

Colourful design
Blue backlight that illuminates both the keypad and the sides of the phone. Internal antenna means the phone fits snugly in your pocket.

Embedded Java Technology
Java is a programming language that allows developers to create exciting games and applications for mobile phones (network operator dependent).

WAP 1.2.1
Access internet-based content and services such as games, ringtones, news, stocks and shares, etc. on the move without a laptop (network operator dependent).

GPRS class 10
GPRS provides fast internet access for mobile phones allowing you to spend less time waiting to download games and ringtones and more time talking to your friends and colleagues (network operator dependent).

MMS support
The Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is the latest in messaging technology that allows images, audio and video to be sent with text to other mobile phones. Precious moments and experiences can be shared immediately with friends and family (network operator dependent).

Caller Groups
The G5300i allows you to identify up to 7 caller groups (up to 20 people per group) with unique ringtones and icons, which means you can tell if it’s work or play.

Excellent Battery life
Using the latest in battery technology, the battery life allows up to 3 hours of talk time or up to 200 hours of standby time.

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Simplicity at your fingertips

Designed for ease of use, the KG130 features a well laid out keypad with easy access buttons and a clear and vibrant screen to display the intuitive user interface. Take photos up to 640 x 480 in resolution using the KG130’s built in VGA camera. 4X digital zoom. 6 time multi-shot. The KG130 takes up to 6 photos in quick succession. 10 second timer. White balance and effects settings. With support for Photo ID, assign photos taken with the KG130 to show you who’s calling! Either send a photo to someone immediately with MMS it or keep it in the phones’ photo album.

The KG130 features a bright, 128 x 128 pixel, colour screen and displays all the information you need perfectly. Personalise the screen with animated images, photos the selection of preinstalled themes.4 0 polyphonic sound allows up to 40 notes to be played simultaneously providing some astounding and accurate sounds and personalised ringtones that will be easily recognisable. GPRS provides fast internet access for mobile phones allowing you to spend less time waiting to download images, ringtones web pages and more time talking to your friends and family .

LG Jaguar is inexpensive and well-designed phones, but you have to look pretty hard to find something to love with the Jaguar LG / KG130. The LG KG130 / Jaguar has a cheap 128 X 128 pixel CSTN display 65000 colors, a VGA resolution (0.3 megapixel) camera.No MP3 player, no Bluetooth and KG130 does not support USB, so if you want to connect to a PC, you will need to use an old-style serial port and most computer does not support serial any longer.

Key Features:

Light and compact
Vibrant colour screen
Flight mode
40 polyphonic sound
Internal antenna
MMS
WAP 2.0
GPRS Class 10