Screen

A beautiful feature to an already beautifully-designed phone, the VX8600's internal 262K-color, 176 x 220 px LCD screen is ideal for viewing pictures and videos in detailed and vibrant colors.

On the outside, is a surprisingly large 65K-color, 128 x 160 px external LCD screen that can also be used as a viewfinder for the device's camera and camcorder.

Both screens utilize TFT (Thin Film Transistor) technology that offers more vivid colors and quicker refresh rates compared to other LCD technologies including OLED and STN.

Audio

A music player for MP3s and WMA format songs, the VX8600 can also download high-quality full-length songs for $1.99 from Verizon's VCAST service and sync with any personal computer with Windows Media Player. USB cord is sold separately.

Via VCAST, those who want their music to go can download songs from major music labels including Warner Music Group, Universal, Sony/BMG and EMI Music. With a external memory card slot, more even more music can be stored on removeable microSD memory cards (sold separately).

Access to a dual-band network provides solid call quality for the VX8600, which utilizes Bluetooth (v1.1) capabilities, one-touch speakerphone, speaker-independent voice recognition, voice memo recording (1 minute in standby or 5 minutes during a call) and M-3 rating hearing aid compatibility. The VX8600 has a continuous talk time of 3 hours 40 minutes. The only call feature the phone seems to be lacking is three-way calling.

In addition to silent and vibrate modes, the VX8600 comes with 13 unique polyphonic ringtones, and more that can be downloaded from Verizon's Get It Now service.

Messaging

Emails or text messages can be sent to as many as 10 recipients at a time with a limit of 1,064 characters per message. Other forms of messaging include picture and 15-second video messages, Web-based email and instant messaging with AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! messenger.

For SMS messages, users can input a scant 75 characters for outgoing messages; however, 160 characters can be viewed in incoming SMS messages. The VX8600 can store up to 386 voice, text and picture messages.

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