LG VX8500 Chocolate Review

Design:

The Chocolate is very compact and lightweight.  It measures 3.80”H x 1.88”W x 0.69”D with a weight of 3.53oz.  Due to the small design, internal antenna and weight, it fits well in the hand and is almost unnoticeable when in your pocket.  The shell of the phone is constructed out of shiny black plastic, which is very slippery and shows a lot of fingerprints.  A better choice for the casing would be matte black plastic to eliminate the fingerprints.  We found ourselves having to keep wiping the phone with a cloth to cut-down on the fingerprint problem.  The shiny plastic also gives the Chocolate more of a “Toy” look than being a high-end device.

Construction quality!

The front of the Chocolate is designed very well.  Located on the top is the 320x240 pixel QVGA 262K Color TFT Display, which is one of the best features of the phone.  It has a nice size and displays text and images with good quality, as well as showing icons for the Signal Strength (1x/EVDO, or Digital), Bluetooth, GPS, Battery Level, Current Date & Time, and any Missed Alerts (Voicemail, Txt/Pix/Flix Messages).  Most other phones only have a 176 x 220 Pixel display, which causes text and images to have jagged edges, but this is not the case with the Chocolate.  The only other phone Verizon has on the market with a 320x240 display is the Samsung A990.  We hope that Verizon will continue this trend of incorporating QVGA Displays in their upcoming phones.  Even though the Chocolate has a high quality display, it is still hard to see in direct sunlight, but this is a problem with all cell phones, no matter how good they are.



Just below the display is the 5-way circular touch-sensitive control pad.  It's used to access the Menu functions of the phone, and also when utilizing the built-in MP3 Player.  To the left is the Send (which looks like a phone icon) and Messages button.  To the right is the Clear/Go-Back (which looks like a sideways U) and Contacts button.  All of these are touch sensitive, which means that the button does not have to be pressed in.  A very small electric charge is interrupted when your finger is placed on one of the buttons.  The left side of the phone is where the Volume Up/Down, Voice Command buttons, and Charger/Data port are located.  The right side of the phone is where the MicroSD Card slot and Camera, Music, and End/Power buttons are.  The back of the phone houses the mono-speaker and the battery.  Sliding the phone up will reveal the 1.3MP Camera on the back of the display.

The Chocolate is the first phone for Verizon to use touch-sensitive buttons.  They have an eye-catching red backlight, but are extremely sensitive, even when the sensitivity level is turned down to the lowest setting.  Because of this, we found ourselves having to be careful where we placed our fingers; otherwise we might press one by mistake.  The touch-sensitive buttons are a nice idea, but are yet to be made perfect.



When the phone is slid open, the Numeric Keypad is located at the bottom.  The buttons have white backlit, but are also very small and slippery.  When dialing a number or sending a TXT message, it is very easy to unintentionally press the wrong button due to their small size.  This may be a problem for people who send a lot of TXT Messages.