Wednesday, May 09, 2007

[log] LG LX150

The Nokia 6225 drowned itself. And for more than week Sprint kept telling that they cannot activate new phone because they were migrating my account to the new billing system with the Nextel merger. After multiple fruitless trips to Best Buy and Sprint store, and calls to 800-SPRINT1, finally, new phone is here. Log of observations:

Motorola MOTOKRZR: Absolutely sleek, no doubt. Love the matted-rubbery surface on the bottom of the phone. But, it's larger than is necessary, with a music player and camera that I will never use. And the Deal Breaker: Ridiculously slow menu action. You click menu, it takes a full second for the phone to react. So if you ended up double-clicking, that just makes the menu come up and immediately go away. No thanks. I'm not loading Internet Explorer. I'm loading the phone menu, for gods sake.

Samsung Upstage: Zee geek-factor approved. Definitely a looker. Deal Breaker: One, on the phone side, the LCD screen is only the height of your eyebrow. Two, it feels very uncomfortable to hold when making calls. But then again, maybe "making calls" just isn't a fashionable priority for cell phones anymore.

Sanyo Katana: Immediate Deal Breaker: Buttons look and feel absolutely cheap. I don't need to look cool but these buttons are below my (very low) vanity standard.

Motorola MOTORAZR: It's cool. It's popular. It comes in a cool red. But Deal Breaker: It's so damn big. I know it's hailed as a breakthrough in thin phone design and all. But I'm not so sure if it counts when you save on the thickness by adding on the girth.

Samsung A640: Sleek exterior, looks like a phone that Knight Rider would carry, if Knight Rider carried a cell phone. Though online reviews complain of worrisome reliability issues and weak vibrate. The buttons and interior feel cheap to me, but I convinced myself and pushed it above my vanity threshold. I was all ready to buy it until I saw in my browser window ...

LG LX150: Only offered online at the Sprint site. Saw it in the last minute while the customer service manager was talking to tele-sale about the mysterious $18 tax that they wanted to charge me for the $30 Samsung A640. And turns out , they only wanted $20 for LG LX150 (with $17 mystery government tax). I bought it sight unseen but hey, the CNET guy gave it a good review. Definitely not Zee geek-factor approved. No music player (good). No camera (excellent - means I can carry and use my phone when I need it the most, like waiting in line in federal buildings and looking for people at a concert). Buttons look and feel great. Superfast menu navigation. Internal antenna. Super light (3.2 oz). Tiny. The dark electric blue is easy on the eye and the flip phone is comfortable to hold.

A lovable, adorable piece of electronic. Now, if Sprint can just figure out how to actually activate my phone ... (or, keep those service credits coming)