LG EnV3 review – messaging phone with excellent call quality

Thumbs Up:

Excellent call quality, full HTML Web browser; 3.0 megapixels camera; user-friendly controls; colorful dual internal and external displays; spacious QWERTY keyboard.

Thumbs Down:

LG EnV3 has flat numeric keypad. The Web browser does not have dedicated address bar to enter URLs. Both corporate email support and Visual Voice Mail are paid features.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

LG EnV3 is based on CDMA2000 1X technology that supports dual-band of CDMA2000 1X 1900/800. It has folder type design and micro-SD expansion slot that accepts up to 16GB cards. The additional features are text-to-speech recognition, E-911 compliant and TTY compatible.

1.65 inches external display has 160×96 pixels resolution. 2.6 inches internal LCD display has 240×320 pixels resolution that supports 18-bit (262,000) colors. LG EnV3 has two display languages: Spanish and English. Messaging features are mobile email, visual voice mail, picture messages, multimedia messages and text messages.

LG EnV3 has 3-megapixel camera with flash. It features multi-shots and self timer delay function of 3, 5 and 10 seconds. Its image capture resolution options are 320×240, 640×480, 1280×960, 1600×1200, and 2048×1536. The camcorder records video in two resolutions: 176×144 and 320×240 pixels. Special effects include Black & White, Negative, and Sepia.

Supported audio formats are MP3 and AAC, whereas the digital video playback formats are MPEG4 and 3GP. LG EnV3 has lithium polymer battery that has life of 327 minutes talk time and 460 hours of idle standby time.

Razzle Dazzle:

LG EnV3 looks identical to its predecessor – the EnV2. It has calculator like look due to its flat numeric keypad, small display and rectangular shape. It is 4.1 inches tall, 2.1 inches wide and 0.7 inch wide and weighs 3.8 ounces. The EnV3 is a bit lighter than the EnV2. It feels comfortable in both closed and open positions while taking in hand.

Inside Dope:

LG EnV3 offers design and most of the features including HTML browser and 3-megapixel camera similar to its predecessor the EnV2.  In addition, it has flat numeric keypad, small external display, wide and skinny rectangular shape like its predecessor. The EnV3 has two keyboards – one standard alphanumeric keypad on the front and full QWERTY keyboard inside. The EnV3 offers Bluetooth, EV-DO network, and 3G support. The cell phone has sleek and slim appearance and offers user-friendly controls and excellent call quality. LG EnV3 for Verizon Wireless costs $129 with two year contract after mail-in rebate of $50. However, you have to pay additionally for Visual Voice Mail and corporate email support. The numeric keypad is flat and a bit difficult for frequent usage. 3-megapixel camera provides good still image quality and average recorded video quality. If you need a messaging phone with good call quality and full QWERTY keyboard, then you can go for LG EnV3.

Design

The external display with navigation array and numeric keypad is located on the front surface. You have to flip-open the phone to access internal display and QWERTY keyboard. Volume rocker and camera keys are located on the left side. 2.5mm headset jack and micro-SD card slot sits on the right side. You will find camera with flash light on the back, and charger jack at the bottom. The stereo speakers sit on both the sides of internal display. Two soft keys and QWERTY keyboard is located beneath the speakers.

External Display

1.65 inches external display of LG EnV2 sits on the front and has 160×96 pixels resolution that supports 65,000 colors. Despite of being small in size, the display is enough bright and vibrant to show off colorful normal and animated icons. You can scroll through the menu interface to select the required option.

The external display will show photo caller ID, signal strength, battery life, date/time and playing music track. Moreover, it also works as camera viewfinder and you can turn on the Dual Display option to use the external display as self-portrait. You can change the wallpaper and backlight time for external display. However, you have to flip open the phone to access VZ Navigator, V Cast Video, instant messenger, email and Web browser on internal display.

Internal Display

2.6 inches LCD internal display has 320×240 pixels resolution that supports 262,000 colors. It is enough bright, vibrant and sharp to display colorful images and text.  You can change the brightness level as well as select Auto Brightness, menu interface, display themes, charging screen, font type and size, and backlight time.

Navigation Array

Navigation array sits underneath the external display and it is different from that on LG EnV2. It consists of circular toggle, talk key, End/Power button, Send key, Clear button that works as voice recorder and voice command shortcut, and Contacts button. The toggle works as shortcuts for photo gallery, Messaging menu, Bluetooth menu, and My Music menu in standby mode.

Numeric Keypad

The flat numeric keypad of LG EnV3 sits beneath the navigation array. The keys are spacious and divided using curved linings, but do not have enough textured difference between them. For more accuracy, you can use T9 method for continuous typing.

Keyboard

As previously said, the full QWERTY keyboard is located inside. The keyboard has spacious keys raised above the surface and provides nice feedback on pressing. You will find dedicated SMS key, Favorites key, Symbol and Shift keys. The Space bar is located in the middle of QWERTY keyboard. Q, W, S, 2 and 3 keys has blue colors to indicate their usage in video game controls.

Internal Navigation Array

The internal navigation array has speakerphone key, Clear key, four-way toggle with center OK button, End/Power key and Send key. You can map the up, down and left directions for user-defined shortcuts, whereas the right will lead to customizable My Shortcuts menu. There is another shortcut at QWERTY keyboard that allows initiating new note, new SMS or contacts search screen by pressing any key on the keyboard.

Phonebook and PIM features

LG EnV3 can store 1000 contacts in its phone book. Each contact can save five phone numbers, two email addresses and one street address. You can divide these contacts into groups and pair them with one custom ring-tone and photo for caller ID. The basic feature set includes voice memo, tip calculator, notepad, world clock, alarm clock, calendar, voice command, voice dialing, multimedia and text messaging, speakerphone, and vibrate mode.

Applications

LG EnV3 has preinstalled Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger. Its Bluetooth profile supports file transfer, vCard and vCalendar object push, basic imaging and printing, phonebook access, A2DP or stereo, dial-up networking, and hands-free. You can add social networking email address inside “Blogs” section of Messaging menu. This will update your videos and photos in MySpace or Facebooy by sending them to relative email address.

The additional highlights of LG EnV3 are visual voice mail, email, GPS support and USB mass storage.

Messaging features

Messaging features are: mobile email to access POP3 account of Verizon, AOL, Windows Live, Yahoo and more; RemoSync for corporate accounts to sync work calendar and emails; and mobile Web email to accounts of Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and Hotmail by opening their respective pages in Web browser. It is important to mention here that you have to additional $3 per month for visual voice mail service, %5 for mobile email application and $9.99 for monthly subscription of RemoSync. The RemoSync – corporate email option only works with Microsoft ActiveSync and requires the Exchange server address of your company.

Web browser

You will get a full HTML Web browser in LG EnV3, which is a good upgrade over WAP browser of the EnV2. The browser offers the options to search inside the page, subscribe to RSS feeds, history, bookmarks, full-screen view and zoom. We are disappointed that there is no address bar on the top of browser window to enter or change the URL to visit. You have to visit VZWGoto site again and again to enter the URL in search box.

Carrier Service

Verizon Wireless has also included its broadband services including V Cast Video to stream or download video clips from CNN and CBS, and V Cast Music with Rhapsody to download on the air songs. Again, you have to pay $1.99 additionally to download a song, but it will contain both PC and mobile version.

Media Player

The music player has simple interface and features equalizer, repeat and shuffle modes, create or edit play-lists, mute option and displays album art with artist, album and track name. It also has Music Only – an airplane mode that disables cellular signals and allows music player to work. You can sync and transfer the songs by connecting the phone to computer via USB cable. Moreover, you can sync all subscribed songs with Rhapsody service. The music player supports AAC+, AAC, WMA and MP3 formats.

Camera

LG EnV3 has 3-megapixel camera that can capture still pictures in five color effects, five white balance presets, and six resolutions. The camera also has four shooting modes: Dual Display mode that enables external display to act as self-portrait viewfinder; Intelligent Shot that automatically set color saturation and white balance as per surrounds; Panorama that stitches consecutive three shots from left to right; and Smile Shot that takes picture on smile. The photo quality is overall good. Captured pictures are sharp, but the colors are not vibrant. The inbuilt camcorder records video in two lengths – 30 second for MMS and 1 hour for storing. The overall video quality was blurry and shaky, but only good for sharing on YouTube and Facebook.

Games and Personalization

Tetris Pop and Ms. Pac Man games comes with the LG EnV3. You can personalize the phone by changing alert tones, display themes, wallpaper, and more. More options can be downloaded through Verizon online store.

Call quality

We made few calls through dual-band based LG EnV3 via Verizon Wireless. The overall call quality was good. We received natural and loud sound at our end without static, which resembles the landline call quality. The callers also received clear and loud sound at their end without any interference or static. The speakerphone call quality was also good.

Audio Quality

The audio quality was good at inbuilt stereo speakers. We get loud volume, but with little bass. We will recommend using stereo Bluetooth or wired headsets for better music quality.

EV-DO Speed Test

We streamed videos, music and browsed two Web sites. The videos took 10 seconds to load completely from V Cast. The Microsoft and GSMcellulars website loaded completely in 15 and 10 seconds respectively. The streaming video quality was good, but looking pixilated and choppy.

Battery Life

LG EnV3 has battery life of 19.1 days idle standby time and 5.45 hours of talk time. The digital SAR rating is 1.34 watts per kg as per FCC radiation tests.

Nitty Gritty:

LG EnV3 has good feature set and attractive design.  If you need a messaging phone and does not mind dedicated address bar in Web browser, then you can buy Verizon Wireless’ top messaging phone – LG EnV3.