Blast from the past; remember the LG Vu?

If you were an AT&T customer in the middle of 2008, you probably were deciding whether or not to purchase the Apple iPhone 3G smartphone, or buying a feature phone. If you did decide to go with the feature phone, you most likely had the LG Vu on your short list. The Vu carried a 3-inch screen, which was pretty much on par with touchscreen phones of the era not named the iPhone. With a resolution of 240 x 400, the phone had a pixel density of 155ppi.

An AT&T exclusive, the LG Vu came in two variations. The CU920 offered Qualcomm's MediaFlo television service, while the CU915 came without it. The camera on the LG Vu was a 2MP snapper, and the phone was powered by a 1000mAh cell. The unit did have an HTML browser, although like other LG feature phones like the LG Voyager, browsing was far from smooth. The device did have a resemblance to two other LG touchscreen feature phones that were available overseas, the LG Prada and the LG Viewty.

A couple of years after the Vu was launched, the LG Vu Plus was offered by AT&T (again as an exclusive to the carrier) with basically the same specs, but with a physical QWERTY keyboard that slid open in landscape mode. One other change was the use of a capacitive screen rather than a resistive display. We gave the LG Vu a 5.5 on our review while the LG Vu Plus scored one point higher. You can check out the reviews by clicking on the link for the LG Vu or the LG Vu Plus.

With the LG Vu, AT&T had a handset that had attractive features for those who were fascinated by the touchscreen Apple iPhone, but found that device too rich for their blood.