Solid construction, bright display, roomy QWERTY keyboard, comes preinstalled with Windows Mobile 6.5.3, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS. Supports GSM and CDMA networks for globe trotters.

Against:

Resistive touch screen display (capacitive would have been better), sluggish performance, bulky body

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

LG Fathom has a 3.2 inch diagonal touch screen with resolution of 480×800 pixels. The screen supports 262,144 (18 bit colors). The phone runs on Windows Mobile Professional (Pocket PC) version 6.5.3. The handset is powered by 1000 MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 processor. There is 211 MB internal memory available for the user and the phone card slot accepts 16 GB of memory cards.

The phone runs on 1500 mAh  lithium polymer battery with rated talk time of seven hours and standby time is 19.8 days. The 3.2 megapixel camera has the following features – Scenes, ISO control, Panorama, Self-timer, Effects, Multi shot, Night mode, Macro mode, Digital zoom, Auto focus. Supported video formats are 3GP, WMV, and MPEG4. Supported audio formats are WMA and MP3. The card slot supports microSDHC and micoSD cards. The phone has 512 MB ROM and 256 MB ROM. The phone as 802.11b/802.11g/802.11n wireless interface. PIM features include Notepad, World Clock, Calculator, To-Do/Tasks, Calendar, and Alarm. Voice features include Speaker Phone, Recording, and Dialing.

Razzle Dazzle:

LG Fathom’s design is quite similar to LG Ally, its Android sibling. The device is 0.7 inch thick, 2.2 inches wide, 4.5 inches long and weighs 5.4 ounces. The phone is a heavier than other smartphones and you will certainly feel the extra bulk when you put it in your pocket. On the front, the bezel has stone texture which feels quite nice.

Inside Dope:

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 as compared to other smartphones.

Display

LG Fathom has a 3.2 inch resistive touch screen with resolution of 800×480 pixels. Resistive touch screen is not that responsive or smooth as compared to iPhone’s capacitive touch screen. Resistive touch screen needs a stylus all the time. Fortunately, you have alignment wizard which improves the tap accuracy. The display is quite good; the text is both legible and crisp. The backlight can be adjusted and the built in accelerometer automatically changes the orientation of the screen from portrait to landscape when you tilt the phone.

Navigation array and keyboard

Below the screen, you have the End, Main Menu and Talk keys. On the left side, there is charger jack, volume rocker and 3.5 mm headphone jack. On the right, you have the camera shutter button, task manager button and microSD card slot. The Lock/Power key is located on the top and on the back, there is the stylus compartment. Sliding the upper half of the phone to the right gives you a full QWERTY keyboard. The phone slides smoothly and also clicks securely on both the ends. There are four rows below the keyboard along with Symbol and Function keys. The keyboard is very much spacious and the buttons are adequately raised above the surface which makes it easy to type.

OS Features

If you have used Windows 6.5 before, you will find it easy to get along with LG Fathom. The Internet Explorer Mobile browser is improved and you get other usual features like Microsoft’s MyPhone backup service and full Microsoft Office Mobile suite. The usual PIM features like address book and calendar are still there. A single entry for the address book can take multiple numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. Contacts can be assigned a photo caller ID and you can make groups of your friends. Other basic features on the phone include speakerphone, voice command support, conference calling, and multimedia and text messaging.

Music player

LG Fathom’s music player is one of the entertainment options on the phone. Supported audio formats are MIDI, AAC+, AAC and MP3. Supported video formats are H.264, H.263, WMV and MPEG4. Files can be transferred through USB cord or through micro SD card. Up to 16 GB of memory cards are supported.

Camera

LG Fathom has a 3.2 megapixel camera. You get three settings for quality, five options for resolution, and three video resolutions. Other offerings include night mode, macro mode, ISO control, continuous shot, panorama stitching, brightness, five modes for scene presets, white balance, brightness, color effects, shutter sounds and finally, a self timer. Pictures can be zoomed, rotated, resized, cropped or you can add frames to it. In MMS mode, the video recording is limited to a minute but you can shoot for longer period in the standard mode.

Call quality

When tested for call quality, LG Fathom was really good. We could hear our friends well without any distortion but on their end, the sound was a bit tinny. Callers didn’t have much to complain about the sound quality. Volume too was loud enough.

Verdict:

We were frustrated with the performance issues, it was sluggish occasionally but other wise, this is a feature rich phone.

Sturdy device along with Android 2.1, good QWERTY keyboard, nice feature set

Against:

Photo quality is a bit low, doesn’t have Verizon’s V Vast applications.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

LG Ally has a 3.2 inch WVGA capacitive touch screen with 480 x 800 pixels resolution. The 3.2 MP camera can also capture 640×480 pixels VGA video. Features for the camera include Auto focus, LED flash, Scenes, Self timer, Panorama, Effects, White balance, and Macro mode. Supported video formats are WMV, 3G2, 3GP and MPEG4. Supported audio formats are WMA, AAC, AAC+ and MP3. The phone has 512 MB internal memory and the external card slot can take up to 16 GB of cards. S-GPS and A-GPS are also included.

The phone is based on Android 2.1 OS and is powered by MSM 7627, 600 MHz processor. Ally has 512 MB ROM and 256 MB RAM. Other features include 802.11b/802.11g/802.11n Wi-Fi, 2.1 Stereo Bluetooth and 3.5 mm headphones jack. The 1500 mAh has rated talk time of 7.5 hours and rated standby time is 500 hours. The phone book supports features like Caller groups, Mutiple numbers per contact, Search by second and first name, Picture ID, Ring ID. PIM features includes Calculator, Calendar and Alarm. Voice features are Speakerphone, Commands, Recording and Dialing. Email features includes IMAP, POP3, SMTP, Microsoft Exchange, Push e-mail.

Razzle Dazzle:

The design of this phone is a lot like LG EnV Touch. It has a rectangular and blocky design. The phone comes wrapped up in silver and black exteriors. The handset is 4.56 inches long, 0.62 inch thick and is 2.22 inches wide. On the sides, there are ergonomic angles and curves which make it comfortable to hold in the hand. Weighing in at 5.57 ounces, we won’t call this phone lightweight but it still lighter as compared Motorola Droid and Devour.

Inside Dope:

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.

Display

LG Ally has a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen which gives a resolution of 800×480 pixels along with support for 262k colors. The display is made up of tempered glass and the images look vibrant and crisp. The screen was good even in bright sunlight.

Navigation array and keyboard

Underneath the display, there are two touch sensitive buttons for Search and Back functions. Below this duo, there are four buttons for End/Power, Home, Call and menu pop-up. On the phone’s left, there is a charger jack and volume rocker. On the right, there is a camera shutter key and microSD card slot. Sliding the screen on the right reveals a four row QWERTY keyboard. The orientation automatically changes from portrait to landscape when you slide the keyboard out. We really liked the keyboard, it has roomy buttons and hence feels comfortable to type on. The keys also give tactile feedback when pressed. On the keyboards right, there is a square navigation toggle which is a nice alternative, if you don’t want to use the touch screen.

Android features

If you have used Android 2.1 cell phones before, you wont need much time to get used to the LG Ally. This handset offers seamless integration with Google apps like Google Talk, Gmail, Google Search, YouTube and Google Maps along with Google Maps Navigation.

Phone book and PIM features

LG Ally’s feature set includes multimedia and text messaging, visual voice mail, voice commands, speech-to-text recognition, A-GPS, Stereo Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Android browser, which is one of our favorites, is also included. You can tap for zooming in and out but pinching feature, which we have seen on iPhone, is not supported. There is also the Android Marketplace which lets you download games and apps.

Music player

For music enthusiasts, LG Ally comes with a built in music player which is quite similar to other Android phones. You can edit and create playlists and usual shuffle/repeat modes are also there. Amazon MP3 Store lets you buy/download tracks. For storing music, there is 512 MB of internal memory and the external card slot can take up to 16 GB memory cards. This phones doesn’t come with applications for V Cast video streaming or V Cast Music along with Rhapsody. Fortunately, there is the browser for Flash Lite videos and for music, there is always the Amazon MP3 store.

Camera

LG Ally has a 3.2 megapixel camera which gives five options for resolutions and three settings for quality. There are other options like 5 scene modes, 8 color effects, 5 white balance presets, self timer, 4 shutter sounds along with a silent option. There are 5 special shot modes which include Panorama shot as well as the Smile Shot. The latter automatically detects the smiles on the subject’s faces.

Call quality

Call quality of this phone was OK but we did feel that our friends sounded hollow. On the other side, they too reported that we were sounding as if we were calling from a tunnel.

Verdict:

LG Ally has a great design and feature set. This is LG first Android phone for the US market and we like this first attempt.

Downright sexy looks, the camera is located on the hinge and hence swivels, external display has touch screen interface, good call quality and plenty of multimedia and text messaging.

Against:

Not much upgrades have been made from its predecessor in features, camera could have been of 3.2 MP, speakerphone quality for calls and music is disappointing.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

LG Lotus Elite is a CDMA2000 1X handset with support for CDMA2000 1X 1900/800 bands. It is a clamshell phone. The two mega pixel camera of the phone takes photos in four resolutions of 320×240, 640×480, 1280×960 and 1600×1200. Other settings include night mode, self timer, four shutter sounds along with a silent option, 4x zoom (zoom cannot be used at the highest resolution), nine fun frames, five presets for white balance presets (there is a manual mode too), brightness (manual and auto), and four color tones. The camera can shoot videos in resolutions of 128×96, 176×144 or 320×240.

The external and internal displays of the phone have the same specs. Both are 2.4 inches in size and have a 240 x 320 pixel resolution. The only difference is that the external display is resistive touch screen. Supported audio formats are AAC +, MP3 and AAC. Other features include vibrating alert, polyphonic ringer, call timer, call conference capability, voice recorder, caller ID, speakerphone, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, speakerphone, voice dialing, microSD card slot, GPS, touch screen. Rated talk time of the phone is 354 minutes and standby time is 389 hours. On the left side of the phone, there is volume rocker button and a 2.5 mm headphone jack. On the right side, there is a slot of microSD cards, screen lock button, and camera key.

Razzle Dazzle:

This phone doesn’t look like the usual ones that you see. It has a square design that you hardly get on the phone these days. (Todays phones are mostly rectangular due to the wide screen displays) Though unseen, we welcome this new design by LG, it has certainly worked hard to this phone a style statement. The biggest upgrade to this phone from the previous Lotus is the touch screen on the external display which we thought was quite sexy. We think the Lotus Elite is more aimed at women with the bold red exterior with a whimsical floral tattoo on it. The handset also attached with red leather strap which can be removed if you don’t want it.

Inside Dope:

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.

Display

LG Lotus Elite’s external display is 2.4 inches big and has a resolution of 320×240 pixels or 262k colors which is awesome for a lid display. The screen is resistive though, which means it is not as easy to use an iPhone screen. The highlight of the external display has to be the animated wallpaper. Our review unit had a flying butterfly animation which had us drooling on the screen for a lot of time. You also get the usual information like time, date, signal strength and battery. There is an icon for messages or missed calls. You can also program the phone to access your contacts lists, recent call history, speed dial contacts, photo gallery and messages and you don’t have to open your phone for this. The internal display of the phone is of the same size and has same resolution as the external display but it is not touch screen. You can adjust the brightness of the display, font size for browser, messages, ntoebpad, applications and digital digits. The main menu’s look can be changed to list or grid.

Navigation array and keyboard

LG Lotus Elite doesn’t have any button on the lid and all the keys are located on the inside. Beneath the display you get a navigation array which consists of a four way toggle with OK button in the center, two soft keys, Talk/End keys, back key and a dedicated button for speakerphone. The keys are flat but not difficult to press. There are three buttons which say Text, Email and Social. The latter key can be used as short cut for social network applications like MySpace, Twitter or Facebook.

We really liked the QWERTY keyboard beneath the navigation buttons was really good and comfortable to typing messages. There is a dedicated key for emoticon, the number keys are colored in red and we really liked the position and size of the space bar. (Mostly it is really small and is aligned to one side of the keyboard which is irritating)

Phone book and PIM features

LG Lotus Elite has a 1000 entry limit phone book, a single entry can take multiple numbers, memo, three e-mail IDs, URL, street address, IM user name, job title, company name and birth date. There are 4 vibration types and 33 polyphonic ringtones to choose from. The Elite also supports photo caller ID and pairing up of your contacts. PIM features include stop watch, world clock, notepad, calculator, calendar, alarm clock, speakerphone, and a vibrate mode. For advanced users, there are features like mobile Web browser, stereo Bluetooth, document viewer, voice memo recorder, voice dialing and voice command, wireless backup service, and USB mass storage mode. The handset also has A-GPS with support for Sprint’s location-based services like Sprint Family Locator and Sprint Navigation.

Messaging

LG Lotus Elite isn’t anywhere short in messaging. It has the standard multimedia and text messaging features and comes pre installed with IMs like Yahoo, Windows Live and AIM. There is also e-mail. E-mail can be set up from various Web providers like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AIM Mail, AOL Mail along with other IMAP or POP servers. If your workplace uses Outlook Web Access (OWA) you can easily setup your corporate or work e-mail.

Multimedia

Inclusion of EV-DO Rev. 0 gives you access to a range of broadband services from Sprint. They include Sprint Movies for pay-per-view movies, Sprint TV for live on-demand television shows, Sprint Music for downloading and purchasing songs on the air, and Sprint Radio to stream radio. A track costs $0.99 and you can download it to your computer as well. The music player lets you edit and create playlists and apart from downloading songs, you can transfer the tracks from your computer through USB. Options include shuffle, repeat and you can minimize the player to background when not in use.

Camera

We really liked the position of the camera on the LG Lotus Elite. It is located on the hinge, so when you open the phone the camera is facing you on the hinge and the internal display can be used as a viewfinder for self portrait images. When you close the phone, the camera lens turns on the outside of the hinge, so you can use the external display to click photos. The 2.0 mega pixel camera (we would have liked at least a 3.2 MP camera on this style centric phone) can take pictures in 4 resolutions 320×240, 640×480, 1280×960 and 1600×1200 and there are three settings for quality. Other settings include night mode, self timer, four shutter sounds along with a silent option, 4x zoom, nine fun frames, five presets for white balance presets (there is a manual mode too), brightness (manual and auto), and four color tones. The camera can also take videos and the settings for the camcorder are the same as photos. The quality is not so good but there is not much to expect from a 2.0 MP camera. The colors seem dull and muted and the images were blurry.

Games and personalization

LG Lotus Elite can be customized with screen savers and wallpapers. You can download more from the Sprint’s store. There are a few applications and games like NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile, Social Zone, Frogger Evolution and Family Feud and Minigolf Las Vegas 4 Prizes. Some games are for trials and you will have to pay a fee for the full versions.

Call quality

LG Lotus Elite’s call quality was very impressive when we tested it in our labs. There is no distortion and our friends sounded natural on the phone. On their side, our friends said that our voice was as clear as landline calls. Speaker phone calls were disappointing, our friends that the voice sounded muffled and we had to speak with the phone close to our mouths. Our friends sounded tinny while on the speakerphone.

Battery life

Rated battery life of the Lotus Elite is 5.9 for talk time. We didn’t test the talk time but we will do it soon and update this section.

Verdict:

LG Lotus Elite is a downright sexy looking phone, we will recommend this phone for style conscious people and it doesn’t disappoint in performance either. To sum it up, it is a super phone but we doubt if men will buy it owing to the floral design on the exterior.