Microsoft has already announced the release of Windows 7 but it is still manufacturing Windows 6.5 phones aggressively. The latest example of this is LG Fathom. It run on Windows 6.5.3 and is one of the few smartphones from Verizon Wireless to have CDMA/GSM dual chipsets. You can put in an international SIM card when you are traveling out of US. We weren’t that impressed with the resistive touch screen but the slide out QWERTY keyboard is quite good. The phone has some good features and we are really tempted by this phone even though there is Windows 7 lurking around. This handset is available for $149.99 and you have to sign a two year contract after $100 mail in rebate. We also liked the solid construction of the handset. The QWERTY keyboard is quite roomy and the display too is bright. Other goodies on the device include Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. On the flipside, performance of the phone was a bit sluggish, especially with the accelerometer. The handset, as a whole, is quite bulky  [...]

This is the first Android phone by LG to hit the American shores. Previous Android devices by the manufacturer came out only in the Asian and European markets. We really liked this phone even though there is nothing spectacular about the feature set. This is because everything has been kept neat and tidy in the phone. The display is pretty good, the slide out keyboard too is good and the performance too lived up to our expectations. The phone comes with Android 2.1, the latest version of the OS. The price is the phone is $99.99 and it comes with two year contract obligation. The phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera along with flash but the quality of images wasn’t as good as we’d expected. There are other features on the phone that will be of great use like stereo Bluetooth, EV-DO Rev. A. and Wi-Fi. Apart from that, we liked the solid design of the phone; the weight contributes a lot to make the phone durable. The phone has a rated battery life of seven and half hours.

This device is the successor to LG Lotus Elite that we got back in 2008. The looks are the same but the handset is now sleeker, curvier and there is a stunning resistive touch screen on the lid through which you can contacts and messaging without opening the lotus elite handset. We couldn’t get enough of this external display and spend a lot of time fiddling around with it in our test centers. Usually the external display’s on the phones are quite disappointing, they only give basic information like signal strength, time, data and caller ID. But we had absolutely no complaints about this external display. The Lotus Elite also has integration with social networks like Twitter and Facebook. But apart from that, the features are about the same which was a bit disappointing considering LG had a year to come up with new ideas.  This handset is made for style conscious people. LG Lotus Elite will put you back by $99.99 and comes with a 2 year contract and a mail-in rebate of $50.