LG VX8500 Chocolate Review

Interface:

One nice aspect about the Chocolate is the new User Interface that it features, which has two FlashUI Themes called “Rock'n Roll” and “Jazz”.  The Rock'n Roll theme is selected as default, which shows the menu in a circular fashion and is red-colored.  We decided to change to the Jazz theme because of its Blue color.  Both themes operate with good speed and are very responsive.  Despite the two new themes, the phone still has the older Verizon Standardized UI themes that you can use.  A new option is that you can select six different color choices for the top and bottom bars (Red, Blue, Orange, Green, Silver, and Black).  We were glad to see that Verizon is now offering more choices for their menus, but only the LG VX8300 and Chocolate have the new FlashUI menu system.

Phonebook:

Adding a person to your Contacts is very easy to do.  With each contact you can enter the Name, Mobile 1 number, Home number, Work number, E-Mail 1, Group, Picture ID, CallerID Ringtone, TXT Message alert tone, Mobile 2, Fax, and E-Mail 2.  With Ringer ID and Picture ID you can assign a specific ringtone and/or picture to each of your contacts.  When this person calls, the Chocolate will play the ringtone that is assigned to them and display the picture.  Once contacts are added, you can then assign them to speed dial and groups.  The Chocolate allows a total of 500 contacts and 98 assigned speed dials.



Voice dialing is speaker independent and works by pressing the Voice Command button on the left side on the phone.  You can say “Call Work”, and the number stored in the contacts list under “Work” will be dialed.  If you just say “Call”, the phone will ask you for the number.  You then speak the digits for it to dial.  The Voice Command calling feature works a majority of the time without any problems.  The Digit Dialing is a useful feature when driving and can be used with handsfree earbuds or Bluetooth earpiece.  Other functions of the VoiceCommand allow you to send a message, go to a specific menu, and check the phone's status.



Organizer:

An easy way of keeping track of appointments is by using the built-in Calendar.  After a task is added in the Calendar, the phone will alert you with an audible tone and display the information on the screen.  There are three standard alarms and one music alarm that can be programmed separate from the Calendar.  You can choose the date, time, ringtone, and how often (Once, Daily, Mon-Fri, and Weekends).  The music alarm is different because it will play a MP3 song. 



Everything that is downloaded from Verizon, such as ringtones, music, wallpapers, TXT/PIX Messages, and Get it Now applications are all stored in the phone's 68MB of internal memory.  The Chocolate comes with a MicroSD slot which will allow you to install a MicroSD card for additional memory.  We recommend going with a card with the largest amount of memory, because any pictures that you take with the phone, and all MP3 music files that you transfer from your computer will be stored on the memory card.