LG CU500 Cingular phone quick review/comments

with some quick comments on another Cingular phone...

A few quick comments with more to come later (please be patient as time is limited for me currently...)

Another JoeUser.com member (ModerateMan) got ahead of me just a bit in writing an article on Cell Phone service: What kind of cellphone do you have? Who provides service?

Having just gotten a new set of phones for my household, I intended to write a review, or at least some quick comments about my new "toy" -- I mean phone -- and how I'm liking it. It's still pretty early in the relationship, so I don't want to write too much and mislead others with misinformation, or should I say MISSED INFORMATION that might be available in a manual, or a feature that is in the phone but which I can't seem to find.

Below are some images of the LG CU500 camera flip phone. It's a 3G phone, one of the first available (along with a Samsung model of a different sort). It's intended to provide competition against the Verizon Wireless VCAST service and seems to do a good job at it if you are in an area that provides 3G coverage. Even in areas where you are limited to EDGE coverage, you are also able to make use of most of the features that make the phone such a nice whiz-bang toy.

3G is the latest, greatest, fastest phone service as provided by Cingular. It brings speed enough to serve up Cingular's new Cingular Video services. That's what interested me in the phone I purchased, and thus far I've been impressed at the speed and quality of the video that the phone receives.

With Cingular Video you can bring up highlights that are provided by Cingular and watch clips from ESPN, news services, and other outlets. Yesterday I was able to bring up a nice ESPN update with Sean Salisbury rambling on about quarterbacks in the NFL. Very nice. If I were to add a set of headphones to help keep the information private, or if I adjust down the volume to minimal levels, it makes for a nice distraction when I'm stuck somewhere and want something to kill time with while waiting (or perhaps suffering through a meeting, etc.).

I have a few gripes about the phone though in that it's still almost too new and it's feature set hasn't be completely locked in. Most other reviewers have had a few complaints too and virtually all of us are hoping that the complaints will be fixed via firmware updates along the way.

My biggest complaint, which I noticed other folks had as well, is an inability to turn off confirmation notifications (a little musical tune plays) when you make changes on the phone, like sending over contact information via BlueTooth. Having sent over about 2 dozen contacts from Oulook, I was getting frustrated at not being able to turn off the chime easily. You can turn it off, but it basically involves turning off *all sound* on the phone. Not necessarily what I wanted. You should be able to silence or at least severely pull back the volume on the notifications/confirmations.

Voice quality wise I like the phone a lot. Service wise it seems to do a much better job than my "last generation" Cingular phone. I had a Nokia 6820 that would lose service and then basically need to be restarted to get connected again.

Note that using the Cingular Video features is not a free service. You really need to get one of the MEdiaNet bundles from Cingular so that you get a plan with unlimited data transmission. Without doing that you'll be sending megabytes back and forth and paying for every bit of it. The more reasonable MEdiaNet plan runs approximately $19.95 per month. At least during the initial novelty phase of the phone I figure to check things out and see how it all looks. I'll probably get cheap fast and decide that video over the phone is nice, but not worth it.

What I am looking forward to is giving HBO Mobile a spin. That's a $5 per month add-on (as best I can tell) that requires Cingular Video. It promises special original content and highlights of original HBO programs. As a big fan of many HBO shows, I'm looking foward to some of the original content and hope to find it worth the $5 a month. (With that said, I'll be paying for it by cutting off my HBO subscription for several months while HBO is in a relative lull programming wise on the TV front).

Anyway, I guess that's it for quick words for now. More comments later as I make more use of the phone. So far I would say I give the phone a big thumbs up, but I really just got it, and again don't wish to mislead.

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Oh, a link for more information: LG Electronic's USA site: CU500 phone

Google on LG CU500 review or other LG CU500 keywords for more information on same.

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I guess it is the younger ones. The only reason I got the Vcast was that it supported Blue Tooth. I dont use Vcast, and really dont have any reason to. I want a Universal Cell phone! Or I guess a Satelite one (when they become competitive). As the only contact I have had with my wife is email since she decided to pick me up some German beer. In Germany of course!

But great review!

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I recently wrote a guide on how to turn off those annoying confirmation sounds - it drove me nuts too:

http://comerford.cc/wordpress/?page_id=146

You can use a similar technique to change the message arrival tones - which are awfully boring.

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