LG Decoy Cell Phone

As was looking to replace 2 year-old Motorola v325 that developed battery charging issues, after researching several models online, I settled for the LG Decoy VX8610.  I now have had this phone for over a month, so I have had an opportunity to use many of the phone’s functions which are reviewed below.

Design:
The phone itself is solidly constructed, with the exterior made largely of hard plastics.  Unlike other phones I considered which others complained online that this or that portion was of cheap plastics that did not held up well, I found 99% none of this on this phone model.  The slider, the first I owned, slides smoothly to open and close, even within the OEM holster (separate accessory purchase, more on the holster below).  If any concern, the battery charger connector cover seemed slightly flimsy to open, but not a serious issue.  Also the front of the front of the phone has a brownish tint to it, not the silvery tint as often shown in display ads.  It looks good, either personally or professionally.

The joystick though of metal, I find to be oversensitive, as sometimes it scrolls you to a selection further than you want to go.  I found hitting the joystick along its edges rather than its center or top minimized this issue, plus many of the phone features can be accessed without the joystick.  I primarily just use the joystick to scroll through phone book entries.

Display / Keypad:
The phone has a large 320 x 240 display, making text much easier to read than my old Motorola phone.  This LG phone has to option to enlarge texts, as some other LG models have this option too.  The display is bright, and though some other Decoy users complained of difficulty of using the phone in bright sunlight, I have had very light trouble with this.  I have hardly found a cell phone or any electronic such as laptops for that matter that has a great display in bright sunlight.   You have the option for each the display and keypad backlight to have the light on 7, 15, or 30 seconds, or always off, plus for the keypad always on.  The keypad itself appears solid.  If you are a heavy texter in sending messages, you probably want a full QWERTY keyboard which this phone does not have.

Call Reception / Clarity:
Call reception is this phone is very good, which I find it receives calls sometimes in weak signal areas that my old Motorola v325 did not, which was a highly rated reception phone.  Call clarity is excellent, comparable to a landline, even when using the speakerphone.  The phone has an included a blue-tooth headset, the phone’s defining feature, but I choose to use my own wired headset.  I do have occasional call drops in weaker signal areas during longer calls, especially when I fail to follow the LG’s advice in the instruction manual not to excessively touch the bottom portion of the phone where the internal antenna is located.  The phone has two signal indicators, one for calls (1x) and one for data (evdo) such as sending pictures.

Call/Alert Notifications:
The phone has a choice of over 20 ringtones included, plus you can download others.  I primarily use the phone’s vibrate function, which I find is fairly strong, even when walking and using the phone in a holster, though I have missed being alerted right away to some text messages, not an issue with calls, as the texts have a weaker vibrate.  For texts, there is an option to be reminded every 2 or 15 minutes, but not for missed calls.  Also unlike some other phones, the phone stays in vibrate mode, even when the battery is charging, if you have that selected.

Phone Book / Contact List:
You can store up to 1000 contacts in this phone, which is a huge bonus, when needing to store contact information for all of those coworkers.  For each contact, similar to other Verizon phones, you can store a home phone number, an office number, two mobile numbers, and two email addresses.  Unlike my previous Verizon phone, you cannot store notes in the email address fields, which has to be stored in the phone’s Notepad area.   With nearly 1000 speed dial locations, with a few that are reserved, speed dialing on this phone is easily.  For most phone numbers I regularly call, I choose the last three digits of the phone number as the speed dial location, which when speed dialing, I dial those three digits plus SEND to make a call.

Battery life:
Battery life is the best so far of any cell phone I have owned – over one hour talk time PLUS a week standby time.

OEM holster:
The LG original equipment manufacture (OEM) holster, a separate accessory purchase) is made of solid hard rubber.  I have found the engineer designing the holster for this phone did not talk with the engineers designing the phone as having the phone in the holster limits certain phone functions.  Having the phone in the holster make it difficult, though not impossible, to access the battery charging port and volume buttons on the side phone, and it completely blocks the earphone jack if you choose to a non-bluetooth headset.  It also slightly blocks the phone’s camera lens when taking pictures with the phone in the holster, as there is a blur in the lower right section of each picture, but the problem is resolved when taking the phone out of the holster.

Camera / Music Player:
The camera has a 2.0 megapixel camera, providing very good prints, unless much enlarged, similar to earlier to digital cameras.  You can send your pictures via text messaging.  You can store some of your pictures in the phones internal memory, or on an up to a 8MB SD card (to purchase separately, hope Santa will bring) in the phone’s SD card slot.  Missing from the phone’s camera is a flash, though can take indoor pictures with average indoor lighting.  The pictures are not also auto-saved to the phone’s or SD card’s memory, you have to save each one after you shoot each picture.  The phone can download music from Rhapsody and play those songs, but I have not tested this.

If you are looking for a replacement or new cell phone, I highly rate this phone for its solid construction, call clarity, battery life, and other features.