LG Chocolate Arrives in the US
Finally, the US has caught up with the LG Chocolate phone! As such, the model version is always different so instead of the KG800 that is known in both Asia and Europe, it is referred to as the VX8500 in the US. Verizon now has it available off their web site. I haven't seen it on T-Mobile or Cingular yet. Of course, I bought my Chocolate phone while living in London.
I am not quite sure if the VX8500 is SIM-capable. This would mean that the phone would have its phone number programmed so you cannot just remove your SIM card and buy a new phone to replace it. I doubt the phone will fall under Verizon's global phone category, so you are out of luck.
Anyways, it's a slide-up phone and has a cool touchpad for you to navigate through the menus. It has a built-in 1.3 megapixel camera, can record videos and audio memos, and has bluetooth, which is quite cool if your car has the ability to pair your phone with the telephone system onboard. The mp3 player component is quite loud but you cannot rewind or fast forward. In the UK/Asia version, you are limited to just 128MB of memory so that would only give you 20-30 songs (depending on quality). The US version comes with a microSD port so you can add more capacity, but I doubt it would replace your iPod player.
Standby time is decent, about 200-250 hours, though I usually charge whenever I get home. It is quite light, less than 100 grams, and is at least a tri-band so you can use it pretty much anywhere.
With that glowing, touch-sensitive red keypad, it is guarantee to attract attention, especially the females. =) The phone is really not about the technical features, but the overall design. It is just cool to have it. With that touchpad, the slide-up mechanism, and minimalist look, it is just like a lightsaber!
It is not a revolutionary phone, but one of the most beautiful phones ever released by LG.
Besides, LG is already releasing the second LG Chocolate version into their local market.
Also, if you are looking for a rival to the VX8500 (KG800), look at Samsung's E900 slide-up phone. It is more technically savvy than the LG, but you would give the design thumbs-up to the LG.
LG KG800 - URL
Samsung E900 - URL
Comments
Posted by: bbobo
Posted on: February 8, 2007 03:47 PM
[comment deleted due to vulgar language]
Posted by: Henry
Posted on: September 3, 2008 01:06 PM
People are way too judge too judgmental about looks. Now looking back at the previous two chocolates... They were very successfull marketing wise but mechanically they needed work. I have had the first two chocolate phones and I have personally liked both of them (never had a problem). I hear and see problems with these two phones to this day. Now if the first two designs for the handset were the same and niether of them worked then maybe a clamshell is a good test to see if this will make the difference. The chocolate was popular because it was almost revolutionary. It was an mp3 player phone that looked like an ipod ( yes I know there was others just like it but this is the first one to make a huge marketing launch).
The new chocolate3 may not be as attractive but functionality wise it has improved...The FM transmitter is fairly good but over all its a cool feature to have in a phone, it is expandable up to 8gb of removable sd memory which is way more than the previous two.The fact that they brought back reading text messages on the front screen along with some other menu functions is also a huge plus, and over all for the phone its self it has decent battery life large keypad easy to use... I would say you guys are over looking the phone and juding it by the way it looks. From what I have seen it looks and feels like a pretty solid phone but as we all know only time will tell...