LG FUSIC LX550 Review

At first glance, some people might mistake the LG Fusic for an iPod or other MP3 Player.  The large music player controls on the front scream to be used.  Then you begin to notice that it is not just an MP3 player, but cell phone as well. The LG Fusic LX550 is the first Sprint camera phone with an iPod inspired MP3 player built in. 

The Fusic's retail package includes the Fusic LX550 phone, standard 1000mAh Lithium-Ion battery, wall charger, 64MB MicroSD memory card, handsfree stereo earbuds with mic, four interchangeable faceplates (blue, black, green, pink), USB cable, and user manual.

The design of the Fusic is very pleasing.  It is a slim flip phone that fits well in the hand or pocket and is very lightweight.  The dimensions are 3.78” H x 1.89” W x .78” D.  Since the antenna is not internal, it will add another .60” in height.  Weight is 4.23oz. The shell of the phone is made out of pearl white plastic with metal being used around the keypad.

The front of the Fusic has a 96x96 pixel 65K color TFT display.  It displays the date & time, signal strength, battery level, new message alerts, and can be personalized with you own wallpaper.  The external display shows colors very nicely and is easy to read despite slight pixilation around some text.  When taken outside, the display becomes harder to read if in direct sunlight, but this is the case with all TFT displays.

Directly below the display is the circular MP3 player control pad. The buttons are Rewind/Back, Fast-Forward/Next, Up, and Down.  What is nice about them is that they only need to be tapped; not pushed-in like a standard button.  In the center is the Play/Pause button, but it does require to be pushed in.  The MP3 buttons also have a blue backlight so they are easy to see in the dark.  On the left side of the phone is the MicroSD memory card slot.  There is a protective piece of plastic that must be removed to gain access to it. Below the memory card slot is the Volume Up/Down buttons and Voice Command button.  On the right side is the Camera button and 2.5mm stereo handsfree jack. There you can plug in the included stereo earbuds.  The back of the phone is where the 1.3MP Camera and LED Flash are located.  The data port and charger port is located on the bottom. 

The Fusic opens very easily and feels quite solid.  Once opened, the first thing we noticed was the newly designed keypad.  The surrounding area is textured metal, which give the phone a very modern look. The buttons themselves are plastic with blue backlighting. The only exception is the Talk button, which has green backlight, and End button with a pink backlight. Despite the buttons being small, they are easy to press and are well spaced.  The downside to having small buttons is that the letters on them (ABC) are even smaller.  This can make TXT Messaging more difficult for some people.  The letters on the buttons should be larger. 



At the top of the keypad is the 5-way navigation control.  It gives you one touch access to the Main Menu, Messaging, Sprint Music Store, My Content, and Media Player.  On the left is the Speakerphone key and to the right is the Camera key.  Above the keypad is the Internal 176x220 pixel 262K color TFT display.  Colors look great and text is easy to read.  Our only complaint is that the display could be larger in size and possibly QVGA quality.  The internal display is also difficult to view when in direct sunlight.



The Fusic has red and green service lights, which can be disabled if so desired.  When the phone is in Standby Mode, a green service light will flash every ten seconds.  The service light will flash red every five seconds if you missed a call, have a new voice-mail, or new text/picture message.

Interface:

The Fusic's graphical menu system looks nice and is fast and easy to navigate.  There are 12 choices in the main menu (Web, Call History, Media Player, On Demand, Missed Alerts, Music, My Content, Messaging, Tools, Pictures, Contacts, and Settings).
The Fusic only comes with one standard theme, which you can choose different skin colors for (Silver, Blue, Green, and Pink).  More themes can be downloaded from Sprint to the Fusic for a price of $3.99/each for 90 days.  They range from celebrities, models, movies, cars, cartoons, and nature.  Each can be previewed before purchasing. 

Contacts:

Adding a person to your contacts is pretty straightforward.  With each contact you can enter the name, 5 phone numbers, 3 E-Mail addresses, group, Ringer ID, Picture ID, and web page.  With Ringer ID and Picture ID you can easily assign a specific ringtone and/or picture to each of your contacts.  When that person calls, they Fusic will play the ringtone that is assigned to them and display the picture on the display.  Once contacts are added, you can then assign them to speed dial and groups.  A total of 500 contacts can be added with 98 assigned speed dial.  Voice dialing is speaker independent and works by pressing the Voice Command button on the left side of the phone.  You can say “Call Home”, and the phone will call the number that is stored in the contacts list under “Home”.  If you just say “Call”, the phone will ask you for the number.  You then speak the digits for it to dial.  The Voice Command calling feature works a majority of the time without any problems.  The Digit Dialing is a useful feature when driving and can be used with the included handsfree earbuds or optional Bluetooth earpiece.  Voice Command has other functions as well.  It will tell you if you have any missed alerts, such as missed calls and new voicemail, and the phone's status (date, time, battery life, signal strength).

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Organizer:

The phone's built in scheduler is an easy way of keeping track of appointments and important dates & times.  Once an event is added, the phone will alert you with an audible tone and have the information on the screen. 
The calendar and tasks are part of the scheduler.  If you need to look up a specific date, you can go to the scheduler and navigate to that day, month, and year.  Tasks can be added to each date with an alert.

There are three alarms that can be programmed separate from the scheduler.  You can choose the date, time, ringtone, and how often (Once, Daily, Mon-Fri, and Weekends)

Memory:

The Fusic has 23,552KB of internal memory.  Anything that is downloaded from Sprint (games, ringtones, and themes), pictures, videos, and SMS Messages are stored in the internal memory.  The Fusic also comes with a 64MB MicroSD card.  When installed into the phone, it allows you save pictures and videos, taken with the camera, to be stored directly to it.  MP3 files and pictures from your computer can also be stored in the 64MB MicroSD card.

Messaging:

The Fusic is not only capable of sending and receiving text messages, but also pictures, video, and voice SMS.  Sending a text message is simple to use with T9 input.  When typing in a word, the phone automatically give you a list of words based on the letters entered.  It will also try to predict the next word you are going to type.  For example, when you type in “How”, the phone will place the word “are” next to it, which would make “How are”.  It is predicating that you are going to enter “How are you doing today”.  It is a nice feature, but it can't always predict the next word that you are going to use.  That is not a problem because as soon as you start entering the correct word, the one that it predicted will be replaced. 

Sending a picture message works in the same way as a text message except for the fact that you can attach a picture from either the phones memory or from the MicroSD card.  Picture messages can be sent to other capable SprintPCS phones or to any E-Mail address. 
VoiceSMS messaging allows you to record a voice message and send it to any capable SprintPCS phone or E-Mail address.  VoiceSMS messaging is a convenient feature when you want to send a person a voice message without having to call them.
The Fusic also comes with the major Instant Messaging (IM) programs built-in.  You can use AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.  I was able to use it with AOL IM (AIM) without any problems.  It woks like sending a text message except it goes to people on your Buddy List.  When they send you a message, it will display on your phones screen.

Connectivity:

Bluetooth is also a useful tool that is part of the Fusic.  The Fusic uses Bluetooth version 1.1 and supports these profiles: HSP, HFP, DUN, OPP, A2DP (stereo), BPP, and FTP.  You can store up to 20 BT pairings.  When using a BT earpiece in conjunction with VoiceCommand, the only time you need to look at your phone is to see the CallerID when receiving a call.  You can also use BT to send files from a computer to be stored on the phone.

There is a standard WAP 2.0 browser, which allows you access to pre-selected WAP sites, or you can enter your own WAP site.  You can browse to normal HTTP web sites, but the phone is limited to only displaying text and small pictures.  Trying to view a large picture-intense HTTP web site will cause an error message. WAP sites load fast thanks to EVDO.  A standard WAP page (AOL, Yahoo) will load in under 10 seconds.  A normal HTTP page will take longer depending on the size.  Since the Fusic is not a SmartPhone, it has to use a WAP browser instead of standard HTTP browser.  It would be nice if HTTP browsers could be incorporated into non-SmartPhones.  Overall, the Fusic's WAP browser is easy to use and works well, despite it's limited capability.

Music can be downloaded via the Sprint Music Store; powered by Groove Mobile.  You can browse by genre or do a search by artist or title.  You can listen to a 30 second preview clip of each song before purchasing.  Each song cost $2.50+tax and includes a version to download to your phone and to your computer.  Once a song is downloaded to the phone, it is recommended that you back-up the file to your computer in case it is deleted from the phone.

Camera:

Most cell phones manufactured today are camera phones, and the Fusic is no exception.  On the back of the phone is a 1.3MP camera with LED flash capable of taking pictures at 1280x960 resolution.  With the flip open, press the camera button on the right side of the phone.  The camera program loads in under two seconds.  Both the Internal and External displays will show what the camera sees.  Selecting “Options” will bring up a choice of camera settings.  They include Flash, Self Timer, Color Tone, Brightness, White Balance, Resolution, File Quality, and Shutter Sound.  To take a picture you press the OK button on the keypad.  The picture will automatically be stored to the phone's internal memory or to the MicroSD card if installed.  After the picture is stored, you must press the Back button on the keypad to return to the camera program.  The total time it takes for the phone to store a picture and then have you press the Back button to take another picture is 6 seconds.  It would be better if after saving the picture, the phone would automatically return to the camera program without you having to press the Back button.  This would cut down on the time between taking pictures.  Also, if no picture is taken with 60 seconds, the camera will enter into Standby mode and must be reactivated to take a picture.  Picture quality was on par with other 1.3MP camera phones.  However, the quality would be better if a CCD Camera Sensor was used instead of an inferior CMOS Sensor.  The placement of the camera on the back could also be better.  We found that fingers would often creep into the camera's view. 


Outdoor pictures during the day had good color reproduction, but overall the image was not sharp; due in part to the CMOS sensor.  Indoor pictures with standard incandescent bulbs were not good.  They were too dark and colors were lacking.  Pictures taken at night with the flash on did a good job of lighting up near by objects.  You can also take pictures with the flip closed by pressing the Camera button on the right side of the phone, but the flip needs to be open in order to see yourself on the external display for self-pics.  The Fusic takes pictures in Portrait mode, not Landscape mode.  This is our biggest complaint about the camera.  In order to take photos in Landscape mode, you must hold the phone sideways.  LG should go back to using Landscape mode on future phones.

Flash Off	Flash On	Flash Off	Flash On

The Camcorder mode allows you to record 15 Seconds of video for sending by Video Mail, or you can record longer clips and save to the MicroSD card.  You also have some of the same video settings as when taking pictures (Video Light, Color Tone, Brightness, and White Balance).  When recording a video, it displays the current video length at the bottom.  Once you are finished, it saves the video to the MicroSD card.  Video resolution is limited to 176x144.
Videos taken outside had nice color reproduction and sounds were easily picked up with the phone's mic.  Indoor videos were darker and colors were not as good.  When videos are played back on a PC (using Apple QuickTime) they are small and jagged.  This is due to the 176x144 resolution they are recorded in.  Having a higher resolution for recording videos would most likely solve this problem.



Music Player:

At the beginning of the review, we mentioned the MP3 player (iPod look-alike) feature of the Fusic.  I must admit that this is the best part of the phone.  Despite the Fusic's somewhat mediocre call quality and average picture quality, the Music Player is defiantly well thought-out and works great.  In order to use this feature, the MicroSD card must be installed into the Fusic.  You take the USB cable that is included into the box and connect it to the bottom of the phone and then to your PC.  You then must press “Menu, Tools, USB Flash Drive”.  The computer will see the phone as a Removable Media and assign it a drive letter.  Then simply drag and drop any MP3 file from your PC into the Media Folder.  At the same time, you can add pictures to the DCIM folder.  Pictures in that folder can be used as wallpaper and PictureID.  Any photos and video taken with the camera will also be stored in that folder and can be copied to your PC. 

Once MP3 files are copied to the Media folder, remove the USB cable from the PC.  The phone will then exit the transfer program and return to standby mode.
With the flip closed, press and hold the Play/Pause button on the front of the phone.  Use the right arrows (FF) button to select the icon of the memory card and press the Play button again.  The external display will show a list of all the MP3 files that are on the MicroSD card.  Select the file you wish to play by pressing the Up or Down buttons.  Once it is highlighted, press the play button.  The file will begin to play and the title is listed.  During playback you can raise and lower the volume by using the volume buttons on the left side.  The FF and Rew buttons work two ways.  If you press and hold it, it will FF or Rew the current song.  If you press and release, it will jump to the next song.  Opening the phone during playback will show a graphic equalizer on the internal display.  There are several equalizer settings, but the Normal setting sounds best.  The sound quality through the phone's speaker is surprisingly good, but there should be two speakers for better stereo sound.



Since the Fusic has a FM transmitter, you can transmit the audio over FM to be picked up by a local radio.  You first must go to the phone's main menu and select “Tools, Music Transmitter”.  Turn your radio on and find a frequency where there is no station.  I found that a higher unused frequency would work best.  Then enter the frequency into the phone and save it.  When you are playing an MP3 file, you can turn the FM Transmitter ON and you will hear the audio through any near by FM radio that is tuned to that frequency.  I tried this in my car and it sounded much better than listening to music from the phone's speaker.  Keep in mind that since the music is being transmitted over FM, the sound quality is also reduced to FM Stereo quality.
If you have a Stereo BT device paired with the Fusic, you can transmit the audio to it using the A2DP BT Profile.

Like all Sprint phone, the Fusic uses Java for its applications (On Demand and Music Store). The Java programs load in only a few seconds.  There are five pre-loaded games (Midnight Pool, Ms Pac-Man, Tetris, World Poker Tour, and Zuma).  Additional games can be downloaded from Sprint with varying prices. 

On Demand allows quick access to seven categories (News, Sports, Weather, Money, Movies, Directory, Maps, TV Guide, and Dictionary).



With Media Player you can access the new Sprint TV service.  Each channel costs from 3.95-6.95.  Categories include Music & Radio, Sports, Cartoons, News & Weather, Stylez, Movies & Shorts, and Entertainment.  There are also three Combo Packages available at discounted prices

Performance:

The most important feature of any cell phone should be the voice quality. The voice quality on the Fusic is average, but should be better considering the class and price of this phone. When using the Fusic, the voice quality of a person talking on a landline phone did not sound like they were on a landline. Parts of their words were garbled, despite good signal strength with 5 bars showing. We also found the earpiece to be quite loud, even when the volume was turned to Low. The person on the landline phone said that my voice, when talking on the Fusic, was slightly garbled, and they were able to tell a cell phone was being used. It is hard to say if it is the Sprint Network or the phone it's self that is to blame. Several calls were placed in different areas and it always sounded the same. The Speakerphone sounds clear, but will get distorted if you turn the volume up too high.

The overall performance of the Fusic is good. Call quality is average, but is not as clear as talking on a landline phone or other cell phones. There are some garbling sounds on both ends of a conversation. The earpiece volume on the Fusic is loud even when set to Low. The speakerphone sounds good, but gets distorted if volume is turned up too high. The graphical menus are fast and easy to navigate. The camera produces the best results when taking pictures outside during the day. Battery life is rated at 4.5Hr Talk time, or 7.5 Days Standby time. I got 3Hr of Talk time or 5 Days of Standby time. All phone manufactures like to over rate their battery life.

Conclusion:

It is my opinion that the Fusic is a good quality phone, but voice and camera quality should be better. The phone is made well and seems like it will last if not abused. The white pearl plastic and metal keypad gives the Fusic its modern appearance. It fits very nicely in the hand and is not too noticeable when in a pocket. Both the Internal and External displays show color and text that are clear and easy to see. Voice Command is very convenient when driving and when using a hands-free device. The MP3 player is still the best part of the Fusic. It almost seems that LG set out to build an MP3 player with a phone around it. Stereo speakers on the phone would help, but the FM transmitter makes up for it. If there is going to be a Fusic2 from LG, they should improve on the voice quality, incorporate a CCD camera, upgrade the Internal Display to QVGA, and have stereo speakers.

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As always, if you are interested in becoming part of our review team, drop me an email at: kidoborg@phonearena.com

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

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