my LG Vortext review

[SCTelephoneMan]

Got my LG Vortex today. I got in on the Black Friday special, paying nothing for the phone with new agreement. All I paid for was saturday fedex shipping.

For the price, (zero) this is a good buy. Some quick pros and cons:

Pros:

-Good quality sound. Call quality is good.
-Feels solid in your hand. Very solid construction. Doesn't feel like an entry-level model.
-Very snappy. Don't let the 600mhz processor scare you off. Runs Angry Birds very smoothly. Web browsing is quick.
-2.2 Froyo

Cons:
-Plastic screen. If your finger has any moisture or foreign substance on it, it won't glide across the screen.
-"Facebook for LG" is very buggy. Kept giving an error.
-Bing and other assorted Verizon spam all over the phone. Doesn't seem to be a way to get rid of it.
-Charging port is in the bottom of the phone. Forget using the phone in landscape orientation while its charging.
-Camera has no flash
-No Adobe Flash support
-No FM radio, unlike the other LG Optimus phones in this series

Biggest con so far? The proximity sensor is very wonky. And there doesn't seem to be a way to lock the orientation. It's all over the place and sometimes doesn't turn back.

Still, all in all, for the money? A solid entry into the lower end Android lineup. Overall score: 8 out of 10

 

[KSmithInNY]

Still, all in all, for the money? A solid entry into the lower end Android lineup. Overall score: 8 out of 10

Nice writeup. Seems like you're enjoying the phone and can't say i blame you. Congrats on the new toy, now go download some apps and get to playing!!

 

[kalex]

ye verizon really stuck to its customers with Binging all of their android (non droid) phones. Its one of the most idiotic corporate decisions of all time. Phone is an android phone and works best with Google apps not some Bing services. I'm sure verizon is making gazillions on the deal but you as a customer gets nothing. It should be an option and verizon should offer u $20 monthly discount for having bing on your phone. I really wish someone sues them and creates a class action lawsuit for this stupidity.

/End of rant

 

[steele ferwick]

Got my LG Vortex today. I got in on the Black Friday special, paying nothing for the phone with new agreement. All I paid for was saturday fedex shipping.

For the price, (zero) this is a good buy.

I saw on the VZ website (after I completed my order, of course) that free overnight shipping could have been had with a checkout code, freeovrnt or something like that. I had to wait till tuesday!

agreed, pretty good overall. Not quite as verizon-crippled as I was expecting. The charging port isn't a big deal to me, I have not had one phone with it anywhere else.

-it seems adobe flash may be more of a limited content deal. games and video, no. but some other content works (slowly)

-I am astounded that it doesn't have a camera flash!! lower end LG phones have them, so why not this one?? this would be the most likely reason for me to not stick with this pone.

-looks like an anti-flash trend. wonder if we will have problems with playing certain TV shows and queen songs on this device?

 

[SCTelephoneMan]

I'm sending mine back. My reasons:

-No Adobe flash support.

-No camera flash.

-CPU is underpowered.

-Screen is too small, making typing using the on-screen keyboard difficult (for me.)

-Facebook is glitchy on it for some reason. I wasn't always getting the notifications.

It's a decent entry-level phone, but not for me.

 

[galaxieman63]

Good phone for a teen

I picked this up on Black Friday for my 14 year old son. My wife and I have Droid 1s. I just switched my Droid from Stock to UltimateDroid with a 1.1 GHz kernel. By comparison, the Vortex is noticeably snappier than the Stock Droid running FroYo. Stock on this phone I'm scoring ~450 on Quadrant.

As for the hardware, the phone feels very light in my hand. The smaller screen looks quaint next to the larger Droids, but actually is quite reasonable. The small form factor works well for my son. It fits comfortably in a front Jean pocket.

The plastic screen didn't really bother me. It has much the same sensitivity as the Droid screen with a protector in place.

The ultimate critic is my son, who used the Droids before getting this phone. So far he has not missed the camera flash or the notification LED. As far as he is concerned it's just fine the way it is.

The sole complaint thus far is the lack of Flash support.

 

[kat89447#AC]

I just got this phone for my teenage daughter. I have a bb bold and the hubby has a droid 1, but honestly, I like the vortex better than the hubby's phone. My daughter is having a blast with her first smartphone and it does enough that she is happy. It takes nice pics and call quality is great. She loves the games, yes Angry Birds, and it's a great size. I know that it's hard to find info on the Vortex or any non droid smartphone, but if you just want a phone that plays games, has a good speaker for music. Easy to type on the keyboard (that's coming from someone that hates virtual keyboards). Decent battery life and is easy to search the web, then this is a great phone. She got the violet one, but it's really a deep plum color and not too girly. The touch screen is very intuitive and not sluggish at all. This phone is more phone than she will ever need in the next couple of years and a great price. I highly recommend it if you want to find a nice android that is not in the "Droid" price range.

 

[MARKUSB111]

My two cents.

Okay, firstly I got this phone for free with an upgrade so price wasn't an issue. I also have only owned an LG VU smart phone prior so I don't have a lot to compare to. I am a photographer and have a digital camera so lack of flash isn't an issue. Also there is a low light setting on phone so you can take pretty good pictures with not enough light if you need to. As far as lack of flash support the LG VU supported flash and I needed to find other programmers to customize a theme for me as I dabble in graphics. This phone I can pick up an app, make my own backgrounds and icons and incorporate them into the phone very easily. I have noticed no lags unless I try to run way too many apps at the same time. This will slow down most phones. Thanks to the people on this forum I have been able to very quickly root the phone and load apps very easily. So I am keeping this phone and am happy to answer any questions I can as others have helped me here and I appreciate it immensely. Thanks again.

 

[rdearth53]

Very nice review, glad you enjoy your phone. And to solve your rotation problem, you can go into the Android Market and search "rotation lock" and download that. Once it installs you now have a button in your notification bar that allows you to toggle between allowing rotation and disabling it. Hope I could help.