When you cover the cell-phone market, an industry driven by imitation, it's uplifting to come across models that break from established design templates to make life easier. The LG Decoy and Glimmer, upcoming additions to our cell phone Ratings (available to subscribers), aren't game-changers like the iPhone. But they do have some unique characteristics that are bound to make some users happy. The details:
The LG Decoy, $150 from Verizon with a two-year contract, offers an innovative solution for hands-free users: It comes with its own Bluetooth headset, which conveniently snaps into the back of the phone when it's not in use. (Click on image at right for a closer look. The headset is the piece with the "Bluetooth" symbol.) The phone charges the headset, though only when it's plugged into the AC charger. The headset, which is a little over an inch long, earned good scores for listening and talking quality—comparable to many of the models we recently added to our Ratings of Bluetooth headsets (available to subscribers). Talk time was also relatively short at 2-1/2 hours. A replacement headset costs about $70.
The phone itself (Click on the image at left for a closer look) has an excellent mixture of controls and features for making and taking calls, and display and keypad are very easy to read under most lighting conditions. Voice quality is very good for talking, but only fair for listening—worse than most other CDMA phones. Talk time is an adequate 4-1/2 hours. You can download music and other content via Verizon's V-Cast service, and store that content on memory cards of up to 8GB.
The LG Glimmer, $150 from Alltel with a two-year contract, is a good choice for those who can't decide if they want a conventional cell or a touch-screen model. It deftly squeezes the characteristics of both—the touch screen and a slide-out keypad—into one phone. Use either to access the phone's many features, which include a music player, a camera, a calendar, and a Web browser. The large, 2.8-in. (diag.) touch screen serves as a display and a control center. Those controls give you direct access to the dialing keypad, contacts, messaging, and list of menus. The virtual keypad has vibration feedback—an effective way to simulate the feedback you get from pushing real buttons.
If you get tired of touching the screen, you can peck out your entries with the included stylus. Or, you can also slide out the Glimmer's alphanumeric keypad for a more conventional phone experience. It has very good voice quality when talking, good when listening—on a par with other CDMA phones. Talk time is an adequate 4-3/4 hours. It has a very good mixture of controls and features for making and taking calls, and display and keypad are easy to read under most lighting conditions. But both keypads—virtual and real—make dialing difficult without looking, and the memory-card slot is hard to access. (The phone supports cards up to 4GB.)
Both phones have a 1.9-megapixel camera, are GPS navigation capable, and support Bluetooth data and stereo headsets. Their high-speed wireless broadband data capability provides faster Web browsing and file downloads.
—Mike Gikas
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