LG enV Touch VX11000 Review

Camera:

Another nice improvement on the LG enV Touch VX11000 is the 3MP autofocus camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens and LED flash.  The program takes two seconds to load and is easily accessible by pressing down the dedicated camera button on the left side of the phone.  Once activated, you can use either the external or internal display as the viewfinder.  The only difference here is the external will have touch-icons and the internal requires the use of the d-pad for changing settings.  The 2-stop autofocus cannot be turned off and allows you to select from Auto, Macro, and Manual.  With it set to “auto” the camera takes about 1.5 seconds to focus, less than a second to capture the image, and 4 seconds to save.  The total turnaround time to take one picture, save it, and take a second picture is about 8 seconds; 2 seconds faster than the Voyager.

Images taken outside are excellent, equal to that of the LG Dare, as they are crisp and have good detail.  This is mostly likely due to the fact that both have the same camera.  Colors are accurate and not overly saturated, with better white balance than we saw with the Voyager.  Unfortunately, images taken inside still face the same common problems that most cameraphones share:  grain the in the image and slight blurriness due to camera shake with low shutter speeds.  Fortunately there is a flash, which helps when taking low-light images of subjects no more than 10 feet away.  Other camera features include a Panorama Mode for wide-angle images, Intelligent Shot that adjust for anti-shake, smart denoise, and dynamic lights, Facial Makeover that removes blemishes and enhances facial features, Smile Mode that will only take an image when a smile is detected, and Name Card Reader to covert business cards to stored contacts.  All of these features worked well, except the name card reader, which often times would misspell names and email addresses.




Videos can be recorded up to VGA 640x480 resolution and can be as long as the available memory.  They are recorded between 17-20FPS, which is better than the 15FSP on the Dare and 12FPS on the Versa.  While they are not “vacation quality”, they are good enough for viewing on the phone, PC, and uploaded to YouTube.


Multimedia:

It should come as no surprise by now that the music player found on the LG enV Touch VX11000 is more advanced and user friendly than the “red” player found on the Voyager, and allows for multitasking.  The player on the external display has a similar layout to the Versa, with it showing the album art, progress bar, and buttons for rewind/skip-back, play/pause, and fast-forward/skip-ahead.  This is also on the internal display, but the d-pad has to be used for navigating.  Since the device has stereo speakers located on either side of the internal display, it is recommended to flip the device open when listening to music, as this provides for the best un-muffled sound.  The sound quality from the speakers is good (better than the Voyager) but for some reason music isn’t as loud as when played from the enV3 or Chocolate 3.  There are also 6 equalizer settings, but the “flat” setting sounds best.  You can also connect wired earbuds to the 3.5mm headset jack or use a stereo Bluetooth headset.

One feature that is missing from the LG enV Touch VX11000 is the VCast Mobile TV service, which uses the MediaFLO network to play live streaming videos.  We can only assume this was done to keep the cost of the device down, or because there aren’t many subscribers.  It still comes with the standard VCast Video service, which plays pre-recorded clips at lower resolution.



We tested our own video files on the device, and were able to playback H.263 and H.264 encoded MP4 videos with resolutions up to 720x306 and bit-rates up to 1500kbps.  All of them played back smoothly without dropping any frames.  But as expected, DivX and XviD videos are not supported.


Software:

Naturally, the LG enV Touch VX11000 can use VZ Navigator for driving directions, and download ringtones, games, and other applications, but it also comes with a document viewer that can display .doc, .xls, .ppt, and .pdf files.  This is a first for a Verizon non-smartphone, and is a nice feature to have.  It worked remarkably well, as it would open Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Acrobat files without problem.  The only real function you have is to zoom in on pages and move them around the screen.  It does not support copy/paste or editing of files.