LG Phoenix Review

Introduction:

Seeing that just about every wireless carrier under the sun has been offering their version of the LG Optimus One for some time, now AT&T is finally getting its fill of the budget friendly Android smartphone. Enduring the wait has been agreeably daunting, especially when it first arrived stateside back last fall, but its release should nonetheless offer a certain degree of satisfaction amongst customers. Also available as the LG Thrive over on the carrier’s prepaid lineup, the $29.99 on-contract LG Phoenix P505 might be able to rise under the ashes and still present itself as a decent handset despite being late to the game.

The package contains:

• LG Phoenix
• microUSB Cable
• Wall Charger
• 2GB microSD card
• Quick Start Guide

Design:

Following accordingly to the design style of previous variants, the LG Phoenix definitely has an appreciable design that’s solidly built for an inexpensive smartphone. Donning a bluish soft touch coating all around, it keeps the handset looking clean while repelling additional debris from caking onto it – plus, its chrome trim bezel sprinkles a bit of distinguishable character to it.



You can compare the LG Phoenix with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Regarded as a basic smartphone, we’re still happy to see the handset sporting a reasonable 3.2” HVGA (320 x 480) capacitive touchscreen – though, its feel is on the plasticy side. Still, it gets the job done with its decent viewing angles, natural looking color production, and strong luminance. However, text at times can still look rather fuzzy, but it’s nothing too detrimental.


As we continue to see capacitive buttons in use with most Android smartphones, it’s undeniably refreshing to find physical ones with the LG Phoenix. Sufficiently sized and exuding a solid button feel when pressed, it’s absolutely almost rare to ever accidentally press on them.


On its sides and built into the chrome trim bezel, we find its adequate sized volume rocker, prominent power button, 3.5mm headset jack , microphone, and microUSB port for its charging/data connection.


Lastly, the only item we find in the rear is none other than the handset’s 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera. Furthermore, removing its back cover grants us access to its 1,500 mAh battery, SIM card, and microSD card slots – though, you’ll need to remove the battery to insert/remove the SIM card.

Interface and Functionality:

Internally, it might not resonate something spectacular with its 600MHz processor, but we’re still nevertheless content with the Phoenix’s level of performance. Specifically, we’re still experiencing some responsive movements when navigating across its homescreen and app panel – with no bouts of adverse lag evident during our testing. In addition, it doesn’t seem to stutter much in performance after activating any of its preloaded live wallpapers. Besides the carousel of icons lining the bottom portion of the homescreen, we’re presented with a mostly stock Android 2.2 Froyo experience.


Just like other Android 2.2 smartphones, you can sync your address book with various social networking accounts – giving you pertinent information and status updates all in the same place. Obviously you can add as many contacts that the phone's memory can hold, and along with that, various pieces of information can be associated with each person.


Although its keyboard is thoroughly responsive, typing up long messages can be a chore when trying to use the portrait on-screen keyboard due to its cramped layout and tiny buttons. However, flipping it to landscape obviously solves the problem as we’re presented with more room. In addition to the stock keyboard, we find the LG one as an alternative – albeit, we’re not fans of its offset “enter” button.


There’s actually nothing out of the ordinary with the Gmail app on the LG Phoenix, especially when it offers all the versatile features we’re commonly greeted with on all other Android smartphones out there.


Flaunting its AT&T branding prominently below its earpiece, there are boatloads of AT&T branded apps preinstalled with the device. These include things like AT&T FamilyMap, AT&T Code Scanner, AT&T Hot Spots, AT&T myWireless, AT&T Navigator, AT&T Radio, and Live TV. Thankfully, the only other third party apps preloaded with the handset are ThinkFree Office and YPmobile, but as usual, we find the customary set of Google apps to tastefully complement the experience.

Camera and Multimedia:

Not surprisingly, image quality with its 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera is remarkably below average with its soft details and bland color production in outdoor conditions, which combine together to make shots appear muddy in appearance. Conversely, low lighting shots produce some level of noise that lessens its overall quality even further. Needless to say, you’ll still want to rely on your traditional point and shoot for those memories you want to keep on film.





Things can definitely get worse, and right on cue, that’s exactly what we’re seeing with the handset’s video recording quality. Although it’s able to shoot VGA (640 x 480) videos, we’re not thrilled with its pixelated looks, choppy frame rate at 17 frames per second, and muffled sounding audio recording. Obviously, it’s safe to say that you’ll want to steer away from potentially using it to shoot videos.

LG Phoenix Sample Video:



Running the usual stock Android player, which is more than ideal for the most basic of needs, it displays the usual assortment of items when playing music – like the album cover, track information, and on-screen controls. Emitting some acceptable tones with its speaker, which is emitted through its earpiece, it doesn’t crackle or sound irritable at the highest volume setting.


Loading a video encoded in MPEG-4 800 x 480 resolution, we’re content with the handset’s performance in playing videos altogether. Moving at a steady rate, its display is sufficient enough in size to make it easy on the eyes to watch, but there are still some things that taint its appeal – like its pixelated looks and bland colors.


Preloaded with a 2GB microSD card, it might be enough for most people, but fortunately you can replace it with cards up to 32GB in size.

Internet and Connectivity:

Granted that it’s locked out from Flash support, it doesn’t particularly take away much as one would expect because its web browsing performance is more than agreeable with our taste. Loading complex pages in a decent amount of time, it renders our site accurately, but due to its screen size and resolution, text doesn’t appear to be as sharp as we’d like – though, pinch zooming remedies it. All in all, we’re happy with the experience seeing that it’s fairly responsive with most operations.


Positioned as a basic smartphone, this handset is pretty much like most of the other GSM phones on AT&T’s lineup – meaning, it’s a global phone capable of being used in just about any part of the world. Additionally, it features other connectivity items like aGPS for your location-based services, Wi-Fi for an alternative data connection source, and Bluetooth 2.1 to get other wireless devices to connect with it.

Performance:

Even though it doesn’t produce the strongest tones with its earpiece when it comes to phone calls, we’re glad to find voices clear and distinctive on both ends of the line. Additionally, we find the same level of output with the LG Phoenix’s speakerphone quality, which produces some low tones, though, voices exhibit some clarity to make the experience tolerable.

Impressively, the LG Phoenix is one of the better handsets we’ve tested of late in regards to signal strength. That’s because it’s able to pull in a solid amount of bars in high coverage areas around the greater Philadelphia area.

After fully charging the smartphone, we’re able to get 8.5 hours of continuous talk time with it, which is better than the 7.5 hours rated by the manufacturer. However, when it comes to normal everyday operation, it suffices in getting us through a solid day with some gas in the tank still – thus being somewhat acceptable for most people.

Conclusion:

Just like the other handful of variants before it, the LG Phoenix is still an acceptable basic Android smartphone, and more importantly, it’s the perfect gateway device in moving people up from feature phones. However, its late arrival on AT&T’s lineup is indeed alarming – especially when other higher caliber smartphones are now closely priced to it. For example, you can pick up devices like the HTC Inspire 4G for roughly the same price through various retailers, which of course, single-handedly beats the LG Phoenix in almost every way. Naturally, $29.99 on-contract for a device like this isn’t too shabby at all, but we’d rather see it priced at free – especially considering that this is basically a 6-month-old model at this point. Despite that, we’re still quite fond of the handset.

Software version of the reviewed unit:
Android Version: 2.2.1
Build number: FRG83
Kernel Version: 2.6.32.9

LG Phoenix Video Review: