LG Versa Touchscreen Phone

The LG Versa promised to be a touch-screen phone with a difference. It wanted users to look at it as a handset that is versatile and could fit the usage of just about everybody. It does this through its option of adding external modules to increase its functionality. By default, the phone comes with an QWERTY keyboard, but if you prefer not to have the extra bulk, just detach it and you can still type with the virtual keyboard on the touch screen. LG plans to have additional modules in the future, such as external speakers and a game pad controller.

Even through its default configuration, the Versa is indeed a very attractive touch-screen phone. It has features such as an animated interface, a full HTML browser with support for Flash Lite, a 2.0-megapixel camera, EV-DO, GPS, stereo Bluetooth, and more. It could be a candidate for the best touch-screen phone in the market except for one shortcoming – its lack of Wifi and its unsatisfactory browser experience.

Looking at the Versa’s design, one can almost compare it to the LG Dare. It measures around 4.17 inches long by 2.07 inches wide by 0.54 inch thick. It is a slim and sleek handset, plus the back battery cover has a nice soft touch surface. Like the Dare, it has a large 3-inch-wide touch-screen display on its front face, plus the Call, Clear/Voice command, and End/Power keys.

The Versa’s main screen supports 262,000 colors and 480×240 pixel resolution, which result in vibrant graphics with plenty of detail. You can adjust the backlight time, the menu fonts, the dial fonts, the display theme, the banner, the wallpaper, and even the image of the charging screen. Instead of just one home screen, you can have up to three and you can navigate through your home screens by wiping at the display and the screen will rotate like a 3D cube. Each home screen has shortcuts to the message in-box, the phone dialer, the main menu, and the phonebook along the bottom row.

Another feature for the Versa that has been requested by users by other touch screen phone (iPhone) is its touch screen tactile feedback. There’s a calibration wizard for adjusting the screen’s sensitivity to your liking, and you can alter the vibrate type (short, double, or long), the vibrate level (low, medium, high, or off), and the accompanying sound effect. You can choose from four sound effects, plus a silent option.

The Versa also has a built-in accelerometer that will rotate the display 90 degrees in either direction when the phone is held horizontally. This works with all applications and menu interfaces except for the home screens; for that, you’ll need the keyboard module.

Other features include a generous 1,000-contact phone book with room in each entry for five numbers and two e-mail addresses. You can categorize callers to groups and pair them with a photo and one of 22 polyphonic ringtones for caller ID. Other basics include text and multimedia messaging, a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, a calculator, a tip calculator, a calendar, an alarm clock, a stopwatch, a world clock, and a notepad. There’s also a drawing pad, which lets you sketch little drawings with a variety of pen colors and sizes. You can send the image via a multimedia message if you wish.

It also has mobile e-mail, mobile instant messaging, voice command and voice dialing, voice recording, USB mass storage mode, an RSS reader, and GPS functionality via Verizon’s VZ Navigator.

As mentioned, the Versa’s main drawback is its unsatisfactory browsing functionalities. It has a full HTML browser and is one of a few mobile browsers to support Flash Lite 3 and the H.264 video standard. Yes, you can, in fact, videos right from the Versa’s browser, but not all formats will work. It won’t support longer higher-quality Flash videos like those on CNET TV, but for quick clips from YouTube, it works great. You’re also able to have up to three browser windows, or tabs, open at a time. You can view Web pages in full-screen view or a normal view, with the controls visible. Other browser settings include the ability to access the browser history, send a URL via text or e-mail, search the text on a Web page, set the keypress and connection timer, and toggle Flash and JavaScript on and off.watch

However, what is disappointing is its touch-screen responsiveness when you are browsing. Its browser doesn’t respond very well whenever a user taps on its icons or menu items. In fairness to LG, this seems to be a browser only problem. But still, the company should have picked a much better option. Also, while the browser would load WAP pages just fine, it tends to crash on full HTML pages. The only way to recover from this is through a hard reset by taking out the battery. Lastly, because the Versa has a relatively small screen compared with the Apple iPhone, there was also a lot more scrolling involved when navigating large Web pages.

Before this review ends, its also nice to mention the Versa’s 2-megapixel camera. For a phone like this, you might expect something a bit more powerful but LG opted for a 2-megapixel shooter. That said, photo quality was good for the most part; images look sharp and colors are vibrant. You can take photos in five resolutions (1,600×1,200, 1,280×960, 800×400, 640×480, and 320×240), five white balance presets, and five color effects. Other settings include autofocus, spot/average photometry, three shutter sounds, a self-timer, flash, and a panorama mode.

The LG Versa has a rated battery life of 4.83 hours of talk time and 17.9 days of standby time.

Sources:
http://www.infosyncworld.com/
http://www.laptopmag.com/
http://www.brighthand.com/