LG Lotus (LX600) Cell Phone

Day ONE with the LG Lotus

The LG Lotus from Sprint caught my eye when I first saw a mockup in a third party retail shop.  I will tell your right now, I'm a female so the purple color caught my eye.  (It DOES come in all black by the way.)  Then I noticed the shape, intriguing.  When I opened the clamshell to discover a full qwerty keypad, I started to get hooked.  Unfortunately I could only speculate on the fabulousness since it was a toy mockup.  Frustrated, I went back to my desk and looked the phone up on Sprint.  I read the specs and compared them to the Instinct.  I really liked the Instinct but was not ready to pay the high price for it when it came out and was not sold on a 100% touch screen.  The Lotus stacked up very well against the Instinct, especially in the items I am interested in, music, web browsing, and texting. I also looked up the reviews online to see what others thought of the phone.  Most were positive with a few reservations.  So, since the phone was looking like a great replacement for my beloved but aging Fusic, I went to the Sprint store to look at a functioning unit.

PROS and First Impressions
Once I got my hands on a functioning phone, I really liked it.  The menuing system was intuitive enough for an experienced phone user to run with.  I think that new users would also have an easy time of navigating too.  The text pad really was easy to use. This full qwerty keyboard is infinitely easier to use than the one on my work issued BlackBerry.  The texting feature is easily accessible using the default menuing system. BUT the new Sprint One Click menuing system makes it even easier by putting access to the write a text feature on the carousel.  I dig that. 

The interior screen is wide and bright for indoor use.  I have "aging eyes" but can see things well on the screen.  Younger folk will have no problem.  I like having direct access to Google from the carousel as well.  I can access all of my favorite sites quickly and easily with the new browser.
I loaded my tunes onto the phone by transferring my micro SD from the old Fusic into the new Lotus.  The ability to load up to 12 GB of data using micro SDs is awsome.  Listening to the tunes was a pleasure as the audio quality is good enough for me.  I am not an audiophile but I also can't stand tinny sound.  I was also pleased that I could use my old Fusic headset.  My most happy discovery was that I can put the music app in the background and do some tasks without stopping the groove.  In my old phone, if I did anything else I had to close the player app.  --UPDATE-- I think the sound quality for calls is fine.  I've used it ALOT and have not had any issues.  The old wired headset works fine and the music quality from the player is good enough for me to drown out the office and get into the work groove.
I tried out the driving directions feature on the way to work today and was happily suprised to hear the phone telling me about the route as well as showing.  I never could figure out why a phone navigation system did not have spoken directions. How smart is it to be driving around staring at your phone??!!  Good upgrade there. 
The camera also was OK for using even in my home at night.  The pic isn't that great, but for having no flash it was better than I expected.
Oh, yeah, it is a phone too.  I have made calls and received calls and so far I would rate the audio quality as good.  I have not heard any of the hiss or static that other reviewers have noted.  Making calls is easy and accessing your contacts is a breeze.  --UPDATE-- I have had some calls drop on me, but they are in areas where the signal tends to be weak anyway.  Overall, I think the antenna is AOK.

Lastly, the price at the Sprint store can be up to 100 bucks for a someone with an existing Sprint account or someone opening a new account.  Don't be so quick to buy into the phone at that price.  Other retailers are selling the phone for much less.  You might even want to see if Sprint will match another retailer's price.  They may not, but it never hurts to try.

CONS and FRUSTRATIONS ***UPDATED AFTER A FEW WEEKS OF USE***
While trying to go to a text intensive page on a popular techie news site, the page I wanted to view ran off the right side of the screen and there was no horizontal scroll bar.  A good bit of the content was not viewable, so I could not read the article.  I need to see if I'm missing something there.  If this continues to be the case, I will not be very happy. --UPDATE-- The browser is awful.  I mean it.  There are many web pages that do not appear correctly in it, as I observed before.  HOWEVER, I did download Opera Mini and now am cruising the net like a pro.  Being able to keep Opera running in the background using the App Manager is a great feature.  Now, if I could only put Opera on the Carousel menu.

I have also noted that the little outer screen on the cover is dim, even indoors.  As I use my phone as a pocket watch, it may be frustrating to have to open the clamshell every time I want to look at the time.  But then again, it would be like looking at a pocket watch for real.  Not a huge issue. 

--UPDATE after about a year of use--
I hate to say it, but my phone has gone back to the shop twice now.  Both times I had the screens completely die on me.  I mean they were unusable.  Either they went completely black or were covered in "static".  The first time, they completely replaced the "top" portion of the phone.  It worked well for about a month.  The second time, I got a complete replacement for the phone.  The replacement came after I decided just to call Sprint and tell them my problems.  I got the replacement phone in the mail THE NEXT DAY.  I sent them back the old one and there were no issues with the exchange.  The phone is working well so far, we shall see what the future brings.

As I noted, there is no flash on the camera.  I really think this is a dumb omission since the LED flashes are easily included and make a big difference in low light situations.  --UPDATE-- I've tested out the camera and even though it does not have a flash, it does a pretty good job.  It's no digital SLR, but, hey, it's a phone.  I have taken decent pics in low level light and mailed them to people who say they're decent pics.  I even took a picture of a funnel cloud forming near our house near dark and you can see the thing.  So, thumbs up on the camera after all.

Lastly, I have been tryig to pair the phone to a BlueTooth headset that is a cast off from my hub.  So far, I can't do it.  The phone does not "see" it.  I tried out the work issue BlackBerry and it found my Lotus, but not the old headset.  Maybe it's the headset.  Strangely enough, the Lotus does not see the BlackBerry or my husband's HTC either or his Jawbone headset.  This will take more research and atttempts.  If the BlueTooth continues to be finicky, this too will be a major issue.