LG Rumor Touch Review

Introduction:

LG has had a lot of success with their Rumor line on Sprint, along with variants on Alltel and now Verizon Wireless.  However, two generations in more of the same will no longer do for Sprint customers so LG has made some major changes to the third member of the Rumor family.  As the name implies, the Rumor Touch adds a touch screen to the familiar side-sliding design, but the upgrades don’t stop there.  There is a brand new interface for the new device, social network apps, an upgrade to 3G data and a 2 megapixel camera.  Included with the Rumor Touch you’ll find the microUSB AC adapter and a 1GB microSD card.

Design:
 
The LG Rumor Touch features a 3” resistive touchscreen and a side-sliding full QWERTY keyboard.  To be honest there aren’t really too many phones like the LG Rumor Touch, in fact the only ones we can find domestically are the Samsung Glyde and Rogue, as well as the flip-style LG Voyager and enV Touch.  Smartphones have been penetrating the consumer market more and more, and with an ever dwindling price gap between feature and smart, touchscreens haven’t found a real foothold on feature phones yet.


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

The Rumor Touch feels good in the hands.  The construction is solid and the slider mechanism snaps open and closed reassuringly.  Overall the size is very comfortable and we were just as happy holding it as slipping it into our jeans.  The color scheme is mostly shades of black, but the face has a chromed blue accent ring (other colors will be available after launch.)  It’s a very subtle design compared with the in-your-face colors for previous Rumor variants, and we have to say we like it.



The 3-inch resistive touchscreen has a resolution of 240x400 pixels, which is passable for a mid-range device and brightness and color depth (262K) were also just fine.

Below the display are three physical buttons: Back, Home and Phone (sound familiar?)  The left side has a volume rocker and camera button, while the right houses the power/lock key, 3.5mm headset jack and microSD card slot.  The microUSB charging/data port sits alone at the bottom.  The back of the Rumor Touch is coated in soft touch plastic and features a pattern, something we’re seeing increasingly from LG units like the Lotus, Lotus Elite and Rumor 2.  It simply houses the 2 megapixel camera and speaker cutout.




Sliding the handset open reveals the spacious 5 row QWERTY keyboard.  The presence of five rows allows for a dedicated number row at the top and plenty of special keys along the bottom row, including four directional keys.  Despite the generous size we would have preferred to see a bit more texture to the keys; they are made of hard plastic and your fingers kind of slide across them which makes typing harder.  The keypad is quite large as well, meaning those with even average hands may have to stretch more than they’re used to.  The typing experience is not bad, but it could definitely be better.



The first Rumor had a myriad of quality issues, including bad flex cables, charging ports and keypads.  The Rumor 2, for the most part, fixed these issues and this latest Rumor feels the most well-built of them all.  The Rumor Touch is officially known as the LN510, a departure from the LX designation of Sprint phones as well as a jump from the 2xx series moniker of the original Rumors.  (It should be noted that the just-announced Remarq carries the LN240 designation and Verizon’s upcoming Cosmos the VN250, a departure from the VX naming convention going all the way back to the VX-1 from 2001.)  LG has usually made their mark on Verizon, but with devices like the Rumor Touch and upcoming Android smartphones for Sprint they seem to be making a move on Samsung on the nation’s number three carrier.

User Interface:

The LG Rumor Touch brings with it a slightly reworked interface, including the all-new Hello UI for contact management (more on that later.)  The home screen is almost bare; it simply features the typical status icons at the top with a small Home icon and bar at the bottom. Tapping that icon brings up a list very similar to the Favs tab on the Instinct.  The user can choose from almost any menu item to place on the screen, and in the edit menu can re-organize the layout by dragging the items.  From there the user can enter the full menu, which is basically the same menu layout we’ve seen from Sprint for a while now.  In the past this menu has had 12 items, but the Rumor Touch pares it down to 10 by getting rid of History, Missed Alerts and Contacts and adding Social Networking.


The Social Networking options give you access to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace apps, as well as the paid Sprint Social Zone app.  This app gives you access to Photobucket, Zanga, Black Planet, Asian Avenue, MiGente and GLEE.  While it’s nice to see less mainstream sites get some exposure, we would very much like to see Flickr.


With Missed Alerts no longer being available via the menu the Rumor Touch has incorporated a Bubble system to alert you of missed events.  When you miss a call or receive a text, voicemail or email a bubble will pop up on the main screen with a bit of detail.  The user can choose to acknowledge the bubble and will be taken the appropriate media, close the bubble and get rid of it or to ignore the bubbles, which hide in the form of an icon along the status bar.  It is a quirky alert system and while it offers no practical advantage, it is visually pleasing and a fun overhaul.


A more useful new feature is the Hello UI for contact management.  Again similar to the Instinct, the phone button on the Rumor Touch gives the user four options: Hello UI, Missed Calls, Contacts and Dialpad.  Hello UI takes the place of speed dials; there are four groups you can sort contacts into, with each group allowing for up to six people giving you a total of 24 possible quick contacts.  Selecting a contact will bring up a quick menu to call or text the person, as well as bring up their message history, contact info or delete them from Hello UI.   Contact icons can be arranged alphabetically in a grid, or the user can place them as they wish.  Want to text part of or the whole group?  Simply draw a circle around the ones you want to text and quickly compose a message to everyone.  It’s a quirky interface and something we think the younger crowd will appreciate more than older users, but we like it nonetheless.



The screen will often give you feedback when pressed but then the software would not perform the action.  Like with the LG Dare we found this to manifest itself most notably as inaccuracy with the on-screen keyboard due to these missed presses and we also found ourselves inadvertently choosing items while trying to scroll through a list.  This last annoyance is most prevalent while scrolling through our Facebook and Twitter feeds.  This definitely took away from the user experience, but is less of an issue with a mid-range device then it was with a flagship one.

Multimedia:

The multimedia capabilities have received a big upgrade thanks to the addition of 3G.  While the Rumor and Rumor 2 had a music player, it was very basic and not extremely usable.  The Rumor Touch now has access to the Sprint Music Store, which is by no means perfect but is very usable.  It also gains Sprint TV for access to more than 50 channels of live and on-demand programming.

The 2-megapixel camera performed slightly better than similar shooters in the Lotus Elite and LX370, but there was still noticeable graining and colors lacked vividness, though detail was better.  Options are predictably sparse; the user can adjust brightness, white balance and color tone as well as use fun frames or the self-timer.  Videos can be shot at a maximum QVGA resolution and we measured them at 13fps.  Like other recent Sprint devices, the Rumor Touch has an Auto-Send feature that will automatically send your photos and videos to various sites like Photobucket, YouTube or Facebook as well as to your PC (via email.)




Data and Software:

The Rumor Touch is an EVDO Rev. 0 phone with Bluetooth 2.1.  It runs a modified version of the Access NetFront browser to accommodate the touch screen.  It’s not the greatest browser, and we’d recommend an immediate download of Opera Mini, which had no problems with touchscreen navigation.


As noted earlier there are stand-alone apps for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.  Sprint Navigation is pre-loaded and included with Sprint’s family of Everything plans, and for nervous parents Sprint Family Locator allows tracking of up to four handsets for an extra charge.  Sprint’s recent partnership with GetJar gives customers access to over 60,000 free applications beyond those available from the carrier’s deck.

Performance and Conclusion:

The Rumor Touch proved to be a warrior in our performance testing.  Callers said we sounded very clear, possibly a bit muffled but we had a head cold while trying it out which could easily explain that.  On our end we had no problem hearing them and their voice sounded plenty loud and realistic.  They rated us an 8.5/10, we may even give it a 9 on our end.  Battery life was equally stellar.  It is rated at 7 hours of talk time, quite a feat for a CDMA device especially with a touchscreen.   It appears that even the heaviest of social networkers will have no problem going a few days with the Rumor Touch.

The LG Rumor Touch is a significant upgrade to the Rumor 2 in every way, and the $70 Sprint will be charging on contract is reasonable for those not looking to go with a smartphone.  It bests the competition, namely the Sanyo Incognito, Samsung Reclaim and Exclaim and even the Lotus Elite.  The touchscreen could be a bit more responsive and the stock web browser needs work, but all in all we enjoyed using the LG Rumor Touch.  It is a plenty capable messaging device with dedicated and usable apps for Facebook, Twitter and other popular social networking sites and the interface enhancements are useful, though they take a bit of getting used to.  Sprint’s suite of applications make it a much better multimedia device, and good call quality and excellent battery life are merely icing on the cake.