Released for Verizon Wireless, the LG VX9800 uses advanced wireless technology and design to offer a complete multimedia entertainment experience along with the latest in wireless phone communication. Whether streaming news and sports video highlights on Verizon Wireless' VCAST service, downloading and watching VCAST video clips from the hottest names in entertainment, or listening to favorite songs through the phone's MP3 player and stereo speakers, users will notice that the VX9800's overall design typifies the latest in wireless technology... [Continue reading LG VX9800 Review]
LG VX9800 Features
QWERTY keyboard for fast and easy text messaging
Dual internal and external color screens able to show up to 262K-colors (320 x 256 px) and 65K-colors (160 x 128 px)
Built-in 1.3-megapixel camera with 4x zoom, flash, customizable color effects, self-timer, and video clip capture and playback capabilities
Integrated MP3 Player with customizable equalizer and dual speakers for MP3 stereo sound
Bluetooth wireless technology for hands-free connectivity with headset and dial-up networking profiles
Advanced speaker-independent voice recognition with text-to-speech (English) functionality and full-duplex speakerphone
VCAST service to stream and download video clips with high-speed EV-DO connection
Integrated GPS navigation through Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator
Mobile Web E-mail for easy access to Hotmail, AOL or Yahoo! e-mail accounts
BREW support for application, ringer, wallpaper, graphic and game downloads including 3D gaming
Personal organizer with Calendar, Scheduler, Alarm Clock, and Notepad and Tools including World Clock, Calculator, and Ez Tip Calc
128 MB of internal memory and mini-SD memory expansion slot for additional storage with optional card
LG VX9800 User Reviews
1. Posted by flclfanboy
Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:28 pm
not sure when somone will read this, considering the last post was in 2006, but thats my point. i noticed all these reviews / comments were from people talking about the features, or who had only owned the phone a few weeks, here is my account :
i bought a LG vx9800 secondhand late 2005, and have religeously used it ever since. i have had no problems of any kind with this phone,.. which i would say is pretty incredible. i did for some reason need to update the software version at one point, but the reason, i cannot remember since it was in 06. this phone goes everywhere with me, i've moved 4 times since i have had this phone, changed vechicles 5 times, went to 3 different colleges, several jobs, and gone though a few relationships as well :p . this phone is with me and on my person at work, at home, in the car, hicking, traveling, fishing, etc., and it looks like it. most of the grey finish on the sides and mouthpeace / earpeice on the front is rubbed away and shows through to the light grey plastic, the number pad on the front is also all but barly visible, since the numbers and letters are pretty much all sratched away. there are numerous nicks and scratches all over the surface, after all, this phone has pretty much been everywhere i have. it's been dropped countless times, sat on, kicked, grabbed by animals, children, what have you. once i even drove away with it on the hood of my jeep, and didnt notice untill it was that last second where you see it flying off, at about 40 miles an hour. its survived it all, and keeps working like the day i bought it. despite all the surface blemishes its recieved, the screen is still surprisingly clear, with only a slight haze and a few small scratches,, but when i hit a button and the lcd lights up its clear as day, aside from one 1/8th inch mark that slightly refracts a few pixles. the camera still takes clear pictures, all buttons work, the keyboard and side buttons never lock up. if i get agitated by the 5 second keyguard i disable it, i dont have problems seeing the font, but on the other hand i do not need / wear glasses. and as far as features go, this is a phone, not a computer / gaming device. yes, it is old school in terms of menu and graphics, but it comes with a good amount of features helpful in my everyday life. things like a calander, event planner, dual time zone display clock, this thing reads my text messages and says who is calling me out loud so i know who is calling me and what my text messeges say form across the room, i text often, so i take full advantage of the qwertyuiop keys, an app that allowys me to chat with my yahoo / aol / msn instant messenger friends and charges them as normal text messages with no extra fee, it even has a feature that takes a picture of a buisness card and saves the numbers and name into memory as a contact, tell me your barbie phone can do that right ? not to mention the clear capabilities of this dual focus camera. yes, the plastic thing that covers the charge port was a bit lacking, thats why i discarded mine the first time i charged the phone. yes, the charge port has been fully exposed all this time with no adverse effects as of yet. i burned up the original battery life, and have since bought the extended life battery, wich has served me very well. it normally lasts about 1 week before i need to charge this phone. with a lifetime of 287 hours talk time, i guess i dont make a lot of calls, but am texting often, and i have the bad habbit of refreshing the display to check the time too much.
so to sum up, yes i support this phone, i would recommend anyone who wants a quality phone to use one of these. sure, its bulky, it was when it first came out, and is becoming increasingly so with newer phones becomeing smaller and slimmer all the time. but this things a beast, literally. i do not baby this phone, i use it open texting in the rain, i set this phone on sand, rocks, pavement, what have you, anything that is convenient. it is jammed in my pockets with keys and loose change. my phiolosphy is this, use your everyday items like its everyday, dont baby your car, clothes, phone, etc. life is too short to worry about your posessions. this phone has taken everything i've thrown at it, and is just as functional as the first day i used it. did i mention i never turn it off ?
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28 out of 28 people found this review helpful.
2. Posted by pArTy b0y!
Sat Oct 08, 2005 8:15 pm
I just bought this phone and I LOVE IT-
PROS-
1) Awsome Speaker Phone!
2) Works Great with my Jabra Blue Tooth Headset
3) Screen is amazing when you see it in person
4) Supports Dual Time Zone Clocks
5) Keyboard is easy to work
6) Take a picture of a Business Card and you can do alot of cool things with it.
7) Not a bad size for all that it is capible of
Not a bad MP3 Player
9) Gets a signal in places my VX6000 & VX7000 didnt
10) The Camera is pretty good also for the size
11) The Extended Battery is amazingly better then prior VX series have had. Plus its not all that much bigger.
12) Video is not that bad if there is enough light
CONS-
1) When I have my phone Locked, recieving Picture(Not Text) Messages Unlocks it. Verizon told me they didnt know why and cant help me.
2) Doesnt have many Ringtone providers in Get It Now, but that will probably change.
3) The new moble office software is supposed to support Blue Tooth Address and Phone Number Transfers, but wont support the VX9800.
4) The rubber protective Piece that covers the Power Charger port is CHEAP!!!
5) Charges using the same port that it uses to connect to a PC VIA USB. I liked it better when the Charger and USB port were seperate!
6) Doesnt let you set you put Spaces when Renaming your Ringtones!
7) Doesnt let you set your Clock to 24 Hours time, always stays in AM/PM.
Silicone Mountain makes a 2GB Mini-SD card, this phone wont recignize larger then 1GB.
9) Wont let you set what you record to Ringtones like the VX7000 did.
10) Still has that stupid blue bar at the bottom of your screen when you are set to Vibrate Mode or Alarm Set.
11) Email doesnt work well with One Bridge
12) You have to hold the Camera Button too long to get it to enable the Camera
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3. Posted by Lainie
Mon Apr 17, 2006 1:08 pm
I bought this phone in February of '06 and at first I lOVED it. Well then I noticed after about 3 weeks of using it the inside keyboard completely locked up on me and I was unable to push any buttons, also the outside volume control buttons and Camera key were unable to work also. I had to Power off the phone completely then power on and they all worked again for a while then again it happend. I returned the phone and they mentioned there was updated software for this model. They completely exchanged to a brand new phone, and updated software. Seemed to work great again, for about 2 weeks then happend again!!! So frustrating! So again they replaced to a new phone Uploaded some software told me that these were the "Brand NEW" phones and shouldn't have any more problems. The guy said that they rushed it out before fixing some software glitches. SO I left hoping that would be the last replacement phone. Well It's happening again. SO frustarting....I have NEVER had so many problems with a phone before. The problem is I REALLY love this phone, I just wish the keyboard/ keys wouldn't freeze up on me....So just beware.....
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4. Posted by paulvee
Wed Nov 22, 2006 5:56 pm
hit "menu"
hit "0" that's zero, not o
type in 6 zeroes
go to setting 12 and change it.
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50 out of 58 people found this review helpful.
5. Posted by Rampet
Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:41 am
I recently purchased this phone after a recent visit to my local Verizon Wireless store. I was considering getting a Razr but was pulled to the Vx9800 because of some of its distinct features. The full QWERTY keyboard is great and very easy to acclimated to. The large internal display is simply gorgeous; everything I have viewed on it is crystal clear. The Stereo speakers are great and when paired with a 1GB mini SD card I am able to play tons of MP3's. I did purchase the extended life battery because when using the phone as an MP3 player the factory battery was a bit lacking. I admit it took a bit of an investment to get this phone to do everything I wanted it to but if your looking for a full-featured phone with a lot of possibilities I would highly recommend this phone. I currently live in an area that does not support the V-Cast service but I am moving soon to an area that does. Since this phone was the same price as the Razr I feel like I have gotten a much more feature rich phone for the price. Again I highly recommend this phone.
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6. Posted by swbsam
Thu May 18, 2006 10:58 pm
My review of the LG VX9800
my phone history in the
last three years
Moto. startac
Moto. V710
LG VX9800
let me start off by saying that I was very disappointed by the photo quality of the V710, after waiting as long as I did to buy a phone that had a camera feature, so I never really used it much to take any pictures.
Okay, a few months ago my wife's phone breaks and instead of buying her a new phone I give her my V710 and I go hunting for a new phone, the people at the Verizon store were for the most part useless, it's basically, take it home for two weeks and if you don't like it bring it back (not the way I like to do things but that's the way it is today) as I never really got into the features of the V710 the learning curve for me was pretty intense (were talking many hours on the phone with both Verizon and LG (Verizon's phone support was great LG's on the other hand Sucked)and the only reason I'm writing this review is because if your willing to spend the time learning this phone and the things you can do with it, it can be a lot of fun.
photo quality = better then I had hoped for, I have taken some great Images with this phone (and I never thought I would say that about a phone) Datapilot also makes it very easy to transfer images to your computer
Video = if you shoot at the high resolution you can't send it, the only way to transfer them to your computer is with a mini SD card and my biggest beef is that the mic is pointed in the opposite direction of the camera lens so when your shooting videos the sound is great if your talking but the people in front of the camera lens are talking it's very low.
Ringtones = Verizon will tell you that you can only download ringtones from them but that's not true I bought Datapilot and have made plenty of ringtones and other then the time it took to learn to do it it's great.
Speakers = I'm a little disappointed (the V710 has better speakerphone and louder warning tones then this phone(it's got the speakers they just didn't give it enough volume)
MP3 Player = after learning everything you have to do to get MP3'S on the card so they will play it works great but... since the volume isn't what it should be on this phone if your driving in a car at freeway speeds it's not loud enough so after buying a few adapters I plug it up to my car stereo like you would an Ipod and it works great that way.
text mess. = I'm not a big text messeger but the few times I've sent text mess. it's been pretty easy ( easier then with my other phones).
mobile web = seem to work just fine ( but I don't do much of that either.
Games = I haven't done at all ( I was going to down load Hold-em but their was no free trial and Verizon said if you down load it your paying for it weather you like it or not, so I didn't)
to sum it up, now that I have spent way to much time learning how to use this phone I do like it, the front screen is way to small and even though I don't like the key Guard feature I have turned it back on (the phone was in my pocket and dialed somewhere outside the us for 269 minutes) yes there are things I'm sure will be better on the next model but I have not had any of the kinds of problems I've heard others describe like anything freezing up or not working, learning how to use all the features on this phone was not easy but if I could do it you could do it .
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7. Posted by fragility
Fri May 26, 2006 9:32 pm
i am a text messaging fanatic. and for the most part i love my phone, except for a few problems.
a) when i get a text message while i'm typing a text message, you, of crouse get the option to view now or view later. so if i'm already typing something and i push view later, when i go to send the message i had been working on, the phone power cycles. and iswear, the longer the message i was working on, the more likely it is to do that. it drives me completely nuts. i've switched it out and still had that problem.
b) once it shuts itself off like that, the volume goes away. i have to turn the phone all the way down, press set, then turn it back up and press set again for it to ring again. and it took a long time of trying different things to find that out.
other than these problems, i love this phone. i'm not sure what the appeal of this particular handset is to someone who doesn't text message, but for anyone who pretty much refuses to talk to anyone on the phone if they can text instead, it's wonderful.
the screen is big and beautiful.
the sound is great.
the voice quality is wonderful.
when they come out with the next version, if these problems have been fixed, i'm all over it.
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8. Posted by relise74
Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:51 am
I love the device in general. I got it mainly because I'm an instant messaging and text messaging addict.
Without being too technical and detailed (because I don't have the energy for that), the things that I appreciate the most about the device are:
- Both the outer and inner screens are bright and clear
- Sound quality is good
- Messaging center is very versatile
- Camera phone takes pretty good-quality photos
- Yahoo, AOL, and MSN messaging services... awesome (but if you use these a lot you'd better seriously "up" your text messaging plan)
- Can access your Verizon account airtime-free
- Voice command is cool... also fun to have the phone read your text messages aloud
Although the phone has much more to it than what I listed, I must admit, I haven't taken advantage of them all--including the VCAST service--but plan to try that soon.
Aside from all of the great features of this device, I'm having the same problem as Lainie (another reviewer). The inside keyboard (and side volume control) locks up completely several times a day and the only way to get it to respond again is to turn the phone off and back on. VERY ANNOYING.
In general, I love the device, but the one inconvenience with the inside keyboard's freezing up tarnishes my overall impression a bit.
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26 out of 33 people found this review helpful.
9. Posted by sweetaloma
Wed Aug 23, 2006 11:58 am
I can't say enough good stuff about this phone. I got it back in November or early December 05...shortly after it arrived to the Verizon store. I had been looking for a "smarter"phone or something of the like and I was drawn to this piece because of the cool commercials (hahaha). Really though I liked the fact that you could check email easily and the internet functions well enough, text paging is very easy, and over all its a super piece of equipement. Yes it is a little bit bulkier than a traditional flip phone, but the ease of use for a small womans hands is outstanding!!!
I came from Nextel with the i830 (ittybitty) and crappy service to check out T-Mobile for 2 weeks, bought a Razr (hated it) and then a Blackberry (the slimmer one) and decided neither were for me, then I came to VZ for this LG... (I was lost for a month in an abyss of various trial plans, # porting and phone swapping)
I just very recently left Verizon in search of better plan pricing and a "real" smartphone... I'm going into real estate and this seemed to be the most logical thing to do...right? Free incoming, more minutes, unlimited data, Supra eKey capabilities...it all seemed so easy. But the phones available and service quality really sucks...I went to a PPC 6700 ...ack!!! It's big and dumb and I hate this block.
So throughout this experience I have learned that if something aint broke, don't fix it. I will be returning my brick-smartphone to the "other guys" and reinstating my plan with Verizon. I am now full circle - going back to VZ this week and my LG X9800 has waited patiently fully charged and ready to conquer the world.
...and they all lived happily ever after...
p.s. Just a sidenote to some of the other comments, I use my phone daily for texting...a lot of it, and never ever had a problem with the keys becoming frozen. It's like buying a car, some are good for life and some are lemons out the door...
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18 out of 23 people found this review helpful.
10. Posted by majoritywhip
Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:33 am
This phone is very cool but has some major software and design problems. We'll start with software.
If you power off the phone you might lose some of your games (notably Monopoly Tycoon). It just won't start again. Sometimes the phone will crash while playing a game. Be careful about loading too many games because it has memory creap (meaning that it will take up too much memory disabling features). DO NOT let the battery charge down all the way. IT WILL KILL YOUR PHONE PERMANTATLY!
OK, Design...
The soft pad is way too close to the END/SEND keys on the internal keypad. So forget about any fast moving games, because as soon as you try to move up... BAM! no more game for you. You start over.
This phone has great sound quality, but the assortment method sucks. Sure, you can make playlists, but you can't put them in any particular order. I guess this is a software issue, but still a design flaw. It would be cool if you could put a particular album and/or artist in subfolders on the card. It would be easier to organise your music.
The only sound effect that is worth anything is ROCK. Forget the rest. Another software issue.
OK. You can't Bluetooth with your PC to transfer songs to your card. You must get a card reader of sorts. Mine was $10. Still a hassle.
The thing only plays WMA video files??? Who uses those?
You can zoom when you have the camera set to 640x480, but not 1280x960. It is cool however that you can take wide horizontal shots with the phone in the open position. But get this...
Any picture you take will not fill the front screen as your wall paper. It get's cropped on the left and right edges. Also, when tagging a pic to a phone number it comes up as a thumbnail instead of filling the screen. You seriously need bifocals to see the pics. BAD BAD BAD.
Otherwise, a pretty good phone
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57 out of 84 people found this review helpful.
11. Posted by lmc13a
Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:25 pm
I bought this phone with high expectations, but was severly disappointed. Both Verizon and LG seem to have conspired to take a good phone and concept and throttle it to near uselessness. The built-in ringtones are circa 1998. With the unit open, doing any kind of phone functions are difficult. The front keypad is way too small and the center "ok" key is very difficult to press without hitting a navigation. For such a large beautiful inside display, the text is nearly microscopic. Just try to switch between normal and large text and be able to tell a difference. I'll give it that the audio is the best with the dual speakers, but without the ability to move MP3 to phone memory, it really irq'd me. Verizon is becoming the Comcast of wireless. Overpriced and gouging since they have the largest area of coverage. No games unless you pay via get It "screwed" Now! I was told in the Verizon store I could use this phone for dial-up networking like I used to use my old Qualcomm for, but I think Verizon disabled it. It recognized the phone as a network gate through the Bluetooth, but then when I dialed it came back unknown user. When I called Verizon, they told me none of the VCast phones can do this, end of story. How did I move into the future and get all my functionality from 5 years ago ripped away? Anyway, I ended up returning it. I was going to go back to having no contract and start shopping other cellular companies. Lucky for Verizon they had an extremely knowledged technician in the store that pointed me to the Motorola E815. Now this is a great phone with sweet features. It is a VCast phone, but it can do dialup networking over bluetooth. Although the data services group at Verizon will deny it. I got a smoking 350Kbps download speed with EVDO. Also, you can use mp3 as ringtones. There's a sneaky way to copy them to local memory. Speaker phone is excellent and keys are large. Internal display is beautiful and much easier to read than the LV9800.
My bottomline... this could have been a great phone if only an LG or Verizon designer tried to use it for a day and realized all the short comings. Do yourself a favor, buy the Motorola E815.
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125 out of 195 people found this review helpful.
12. Posted by cixi
Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:40 pm
This is a rotten phone and I can't wait to exchange it. However, since Verizon's customer service seems to be making the inevitable trip towards crappiness, this isn't going to be for a while.
First off, I expected this phone to be bulky and bigger than other clamshell phones. Fine. What I didn't expect was that its actual phone features would be configured for Lilliputian people. To make up for the thickness, LG seems to have sacrificed the length, to no good effect, I'd say. The mouth piece and my mouth are an enormous distance apart and I wouldn't say I have a large face. So because of this, everyone I've talked to says I sound tinny and like I'm in a wind-tunnel. When I was walking down the street, I had to use this phone like a walkie-talkie, switching from ear to mouth back and forth.
The keys on the front phone part are incredibly tiny, especially around the center toggle button/SEND/END/hot buttons. I have petite-ish fingers and I kept hitting the wrong buttons. It's just frustrating.
Also annoying is the fact that the face goes completely black after a while and you have to hit a switch to turn it back on, so no quickly checking the time with a glance. The keyguard function is also a pain, in which it locks the phone after 5 seconds and you have to double push the OK button to get it unlocked. It's not a major annoyance, but an annoyance all the same.
The inside QWERTY keyboard is fun, I won't deny that. The screen is big, the speakerphone is loud, texting is lightening fast. However, I don't text all day long, so the other drawbacks just completely make this a horrible phone for me. It's so big it's like sticking a transister radio in my pocket, but the functionality of the actual phone part is like having a Barbie phone.
The other part I feel I should warn people about is the VerizonWireless.com exchange policy. I've bought phones off the Verizon website before and was able to exchange them in the store. No longer. Now you have to go through this convoluted process of shipping back the phone to the warehouse company that supplied it, wait for them to acknowledge they got it, then wait for Verizon to re-credit the New Every Two discount and then order a new phone, which will re-up your new 2 year contract (if you re-signed a new 2 year contract). So, if you want to exchange the phone, you may have to wait 2-3 weeks to get a new one and will extend your contract by 2-3 weeks. This is unacceptable to me. Unless you're 100% sure you'll keep the phone you order, don't bother ordering it from the online store to get the instant online savings. Get it from the store so you can exchange it right away and don't have to deal with shipping back and forth. The mail-in rebate will come.
Bottom line: this phone sucks for a user like me (who texts often, talks a lot, cares about call quality, needs a user-friendly phone and doesn't want my skirt to be dragged down by the heft and weight of my cell phone phone, doesn't use V-cast) and I will never order a phone from the online store.
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13. Posted by KingAlbert
Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:59 am
I fell in love with this phone and bought it immediately upon the renewal of my contract.
The first this you notice is how much this phone can do, or better said, how much it is capable of doing - for an additional fee.
Internet Access? - Sure, for an additional fee (and to a limited number of sites).
Ringtones? - Sure, for an additional fee.
Games? - Sure, for an additonal fee. It doesn't even come with a demo or sample game of any kind. It has nothing!
Music? - Sure, for an additional fee. But wait - you can load mp3 files on your miniSD card and use the built in MP3 Player with Equalizer - or so I thought. This function has been disabled and you CANNOT PLAY MP3 FILES AT ALL. According to Verizon Tech Support you can convert your files to WMA format and it will play. Sorry, but I'm not converting my library of MP3 files to WMA format.
Bottom line: the phone can't do much of anything right out of the box.
Recommendation: Stay away from this Overpriced Piece of Garbage.
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Not a bad MP3 Player
