Hands On Review: LG Chocolate VX8500

If people love anything more than gadgets, it's candy, so naming a cell phone "Chocolate" seems like a wise thing to do. And while this cell phone from LG is certainly compelling and unique, it's got a long way to go before it succeeds at what it's trying to do: Replace both your existing phone and your MP3 player.

The Good: Cell Phone Meets iPod 

Let's start with the good: The LG Chocolate concept is flat-out cool. The phone is a slider model. Just flip the front of the handset up and the screen slides toward the top of the device, revealing the standard 12-key keypad down below. But the top of the phone is where the magic happens: Instead of the usual bunch of cell phone buttons there's a wheel that's uncannily similar to the one on the Apple iPod. Additional buttons surround the wheel at each corner. Although none of these are actual buttons: Rather, they're actually touch-sensitive parts of the phone itself. Just glide your hand over the appropriate corner to activate that function. The wheel is also not like the iPod's, despite its iPod look: You don't drag your finger around it but rather just hit one of the four labelled segments of the wheel as if they were regular buttons to push.

Touch Sensitive Gets Tricky

Unfortunately, the numeric keypad design and standard soft buttons of the cell phone world have long been well understood by millions of users of these devices. Muck with the interface and it starts to get confusing. How confusing? The Chocolate borders on baffling any time you try to do anything more complicated than making a simple phone call. (And even that can be tricky, since the "end call" button is tiny and placed on the side of the unit. I found it easier just to physically slide the phone shut to end a call.)

Having all these touch-sensitive buttons is also problematic if you, say, ever want to touch your phone without it going haywire. Yes, the phone automatically locks itself after a short period of idling, but even while you're actively using the phone to browse for new music, take a photo, or perform other tasks, it's far too easy to brush against one of the touch-sensitive areas, causing a random button press. (You can change the sensitivity level to your liking, though this doesn't help if your palm jams up against one of the buttons on the phone.) Fundamentally, touch sensitivity just doesn't work on a device like this, and a return to old-fashioned buttons that require firmer buttons pushes with tactile feedback just makes better sense. 

Other complaints: It doesn't help that the software interface is confusing and needs a lot of work. You can also expect long delays while you wait for menus to load, though this is partly Verizon's fault, too. And here's a final point: The Chocolate is one of few phones I've ever actually had freeze on me during use. While connecting to the VCast music service, the Chocolate siezed up completely, and I had to remove and replace the battery to get it back to operating condition.

The Music's Not Bad 

Now let's not forget that the Chocolate is intended as a music phone, so how well does it play music? About as well as any other phone, unfortunately. I actually greatly prefer the music abilities of LG's own FUSIC handset, and it's far less confusing to actually use. The Motorola SLVR, while imperfect, also works better in this regard thanks to the iTunes interface. On the plus side, audio sounds crisp and clear, and once you get the hang of the interface, browsing the Verizon site for new songs is fairly simple, though at $2 a pop, I don't know how much people will be buying. There's 68MB of usable memory on the phone for you to store songs on; MP3 and WMA files are accepted along with downloaded V Cast tunes. Not bad, but most users will want to use a microSD card for additional storage. The phone accepts cards up to 2GB in size. (No card is included, however.)

Other features are hit and miss. The camera (a 1.3-megapixel model) is average, and the Chocolate has no speakerphone, which is baffling because it has a very large speaker. (Contrary to some user comments, the Chocolate categorically does not include a speakerphone.)

Bluetooth is included, but the three hours of talk time (based on my tests) is very weak.

Good Thing It's Cheap 

There is one kicker, however: After rebates you can get this phone for a mere $75, much cheaper than the SLVR. At this price, it might be worth checking out to see if you can live with its interface flaws. Though, to be honest, I doubt I would ever be able to. (UPDATE: For those looking for the $75 price for the phone, it appears to no longer be available. Click here to see the LG's product listing (which still says $74.99), then click on the Wirefly logo. It will take you to the Wirefly page, where the current price has been updated to $99.99. Sorry about that, but pricing can change at any moment.)

Note: This review has been updated to clarify several points. My complaints regarding the end button have been reworded, and my complaint about accidental button presses has been expanded and clarified. I have also removed my original complaint about the back button not working; I've been unable to replicate this problem, which was likely due to a button sensitivity setting. The pricing for the phone has been updated in greater detail (and has changed since the review was originally written). I have also added new comments about the phone crashing and its available memory. Thanks to all the commenters (at least the non-profane ones) for helping to improve the coverage of this product.