LG Voyager Review

Large touch screen on the front, QWERTY inside

Published on: 22 November, 2007 by PhoneArena Team

Design:

The Voyager is a clamshell phone, just like the enV, constructed mostly out of black plastic with chrome accents. It feels durable and solid, and should hold up to everyday use. The exterior front is a fingerprint magnet, but the back has the same soft-touch coating that we’ve seen on several Motorola phones. When you are holding in your hand, you can feel that it is slightly wider than the enV, but when placed it in your pants pocket, it feels about the same size and weight. Even thought it is larger than most other devices, such as the V9m, there are a lot of features packed into the Voyager, which justifies its size.


		LG enV, LG Voyager, Motorola V9m

Model	Dimension (Inches)	Dimension (mm)	Weight (oz)	Weight (Gramms)
LG Voyager	4.64 x 2.12 x 0.71	118 x 54 x 18	4.69	133
LG enV	4.64 x 2.08 x 0.78	118 x 53 x 20	4.60	130
Apple iPhone	4.50 x 2.40 x 0.46	115 x 61 x 11.6	4.80	135
Motorola RAZR V9m	4.06 x 2.09 x 0.47	103 x 53 x 11.9	4.13	117


	LG enV and LG Voyager

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The front of the Voyager is dominated by the unprecedented 2.81” 400x240 pixel touch-sensitive display that is used for most all device functions and menu navigation. The internal display is the exact same size and specifications, except that it is not touch-sensitive. Both are bright and have good contrast and sharpness, with images being shown at 262K color depth.

Unfortunately, the front display can be difficult to view while in direct sunlight, which is a problem when using the dial pad icons to place a call, or when going through the menus.The touch screen is pressure-sensitive and not capacitive, which means that you can use your finger or any other type of pointing device on it. A stylus is not included, but can work without any problems. When it detects that pressure is applied, there is a slight vibration haptic feedback that is given, and an audible tone is heard.


Send, Clear and End Buttons

The only physical buttons located on the front are for Send, Clear/VoiceCommand, and End/Power . Along the left edge is the volume rocker, camera button and sliding lock button, which can also be used to lock and unlock the display. On the right side is the 2.5mm headset jack and memory card slot, that can use up to 8GB microSDHC cards. The data/charger port is on the bottom of the phone, as well as the retractable antenna that is use for Mobile TV reception. The 2MP autofocus camera is on the back, right above the 950mAh battery.


Camera button, sliding lock button and volume rocker	2.5mm headset jack	Memory card slot


Data/charger port	2MP camera	Retractable antenna

Opening the Voyager up works just like the enV, with a two-stop hinge. This is a good design, and we are glad to see it used again. The internal QWERTY keyboard is one of many features that sets this device apart from the iPhone, and has been redesigned since the enV with slightly larger buttons and lettering. We found that typing text messages and E-Mails using the internal QWERTY keypad to be easier and faster than using the iPhone’s QWERTY touch display. However, there is also an option to use Voyager’s external touch display for typing text messages. It shows letters on a 12-icon dial pad, instead of an on-screen QWERTY, and can use T9 predictive entry and multi-tap. While this is OK for short messages, the internal QWERTY keypad is the easiest to use. To the right is the 5-way navigational d-pad, which has a slightly larger “OK” button than on the enV, but because of this, the plastic around it that is used for up/down/left/right is slightly smaller. It may take some time getting use to, but for now the enV’s d-pad still feels better when used.