LG Voyager Review

Introduction:

It has been almost two months since Verizon introduced its “Next” web site, where they touted the Samsung Juke, Blackberry Pearl, LG Venus and the Voyager. Since then, anticipation and speculation has been growing around the Voyager, and we are pleased to say that it has finally been released.

The Voyager is an upgrade from the enV, which was introduced around this time last year. The external touch display and user interface are what set the Voyager most noticeably apart from any other phone currently being sold by Verizon. It is targeted to the consumer that is looking for the ultimate entertainment/all-in-one device, without having to make the leap into smartphone territory. More importantly, it is designed to distract current Verizon customers wanting a touch-phone from looking elsewhere (iPhone).

The Retail Package includes the LG Voyager phone, 950mAh battery, wall charger, USB data cable, music management CD, and user manual. We are glad to see the LG now includes the data cable and music management CD with both the Voyager and Venus, eliminating the need to purchase the over-priced Music Essentials package.

Design:

The Voyager is a clamshell phone, just like the enV, constructed mostly out of black plastic with chrome accents. It feels durable and solid, and should hold up to everyday use. The exterior front is a fingerprint magnet, but the back has the same soft-touch coating that we’ve seen on several Motorola phones. When you are holding in your hand, you can feel that it is slightly wider than the enV, but when placed it in your pants pocket, it feels about the same size and weight. Even thought it is larger than most other devices, such as the V9m, there are a lot of features packed into the Voyager, which justifies its size.

The front of the Voyager is dominated by the unprecedented 2.81” 400x240 pixel touch-sensitive display that is used for most all device functions and menu navigation. The internal display is the exact same size and specifications, except that it is not touch-sensitive. Both are bright and have good contrast and sharpness, with images being shown at 262K color depth.



Unfortunately, the front display can be difficult to view while in direct sunlight, which is a problem when using the dial pad icons to place a call, or when going through the menus.The touch screen is pressure-sensitive and not capacitive, which means that you can use your finger or any other type of pointing device on it. A stylus is not included, but can work without any problems. When it detects that pressure is applied, there is a slight vibration haptic feedback that is given, and an audible tone is heard.


The only physical buttons located on the front are for Send, Clear/VoiceCommand, and End/Power . Along the left edge is the volume rocker, camera button and sliding lock button, which can also be used to lock and unlock the display. On the right side is the 2.5mm headset jack and memory card slot, that can use up to 8GB microSDHC cards. The data/charger port is on the bottom of the phone, as well as the retractable antenna that is use for Mobile TV reception. The 2MP autofocus camera is on the back, right above the 950mAh battery.



Opening the Voyager up works just like the enV, with a two-stop hinge. This is a good design, and we are glad to see it used again. The internal QWERTY keyboard is one of many features that sets this device apart from the iPhone, and has been redesigned since the enV with slightly larger buttons and lettering. We found that typing text messages and E-Mails using the internal QWERTY keypad to be easier and faster than using the iPhone’s QWERTY touch display. However, there is also an option to use Voyager’s external touch display for typing text messages. It shows letters on a 12-icon dial pad, instead of an on-screen QWERTY, and can use T9 predictive entry and multi-tap. While this is OK for short messages, the internal QWERTY keypad is the easiest to use. To the right is the 5-way navigational d-pad, which has a slightly larger “OK” button than on the enV, but because of this, the plastic around it that is used for up/down/left/right is slightly smaller. It may take some time getting use to, but for now the enV’s d-pad still feels better when used.

User Interface:

Voyager’s User Interface has been optimized for use with the external touch-screen, and works in similar fashion to the iPhone, but does not allow for multiple fingers and “pinching” of images and web pages. Menus and text are shown larger than average, so you can easily press on your desired selection. After few seconds of inactivity, the front screen will automatically lock to prevent any buttons from being accidentally pressed. You can unlock it by pressing the “lock” icon on the bottom of the display, or by using the manual sliding lock button on the left edge. Anytime that you press on the external screen, the phone will give a haptic vibration feedback and will play an audible tone.

Once the screen has been unlocked, you are given 4 icons at the bottom: Messages, Phone, Menu, and Contacts. You can also tap in the center of the screen to bring up a list of 12 shortcut icons. Unfortunately, these cannot be moved, replaced, or modified in any way; so you must deal with the ones that are pre-selected.

The Main Menus is divided into Get it Now, Messaging, Contacts, Recent Calls, Settings & Tools, Music, Browser, and Navigator. There are only two themes available (B&W and Color), but you can also select from a list of 5 menu fonts (VZW Font, LG Serif, Edge, Joy, and Script). There is also the ability to assign a specific wallpaper to each display, including pictures, videos, and animations, and also 6 different clock formats.

Using the external screen for simple one-touch input works fairly well, but when having to press & scroll through a menu list, we started to run into some problems. For example, the Settings & Tools menu has eleven selections in a list, but only 5 are shown at a time. You must press your finger down on the bottom of the screen and slide it upwards to scroll the list up. We found that this can take several attempts before it worked as it should, and often times it would think that we “clicked” an item, when in fact we were scrolling. This also holds true when moving through long lists of people stored in the Contacts menu. Because of these quirks, we decided to give the internal screen and d-pad a try. After several minutes, we found that using the d-pad to be much faster for menu navigation than using the touch-screen. This however takes away from the “cool” factor, so individuals will have to decide for themselves which method they to use.

Phonebook:

Up to 1000 Contacts can be added by either the external touch display or by using the internal QWERTY keypad. For each one you can enter in their name, 5 phone numbers, E-Mail address, and can select a picture and ringtone. After a contact is saved, you can assign them to one of 98 speed dial locations. Retrieving a stored contact is easily done by pressing the green phonebook icon on the bottom of the screen. This brings all of them up in a list that you can scroll through, or you can press the tabbed letters at the top to show only contacts beginning with that specific letter. The last option is to press Go To, where you can type any part of a name (first or last) and have it search your stored list. When you receive an incoming call, and that person is stored in your list, the external display will show their Name and Number, as well as their Picture ID (if there is one), and will play their specific ringtone (if set). The only problem that we noticed is that Voyager shows Picture ID images very small, about ½” in size. We find this unexcitable on LG’s part, considering the large size of the screen. .

Taping on the Phone icon will bring up the numeric dial pad. Even though the numbers on the screen large, we found that often times we would misdial, and would have to clear and re-enter the phone number. After a while there were less mistakes, but it does take some time getting use to, since you are not pressing physical buttons.

Organizer:

The Calendar has had a face-lift since the enV, but still functions in similar fashion. It starts off by showing the current month with the date highlighted in red. From there, you can move forward or backwards one month at a time by pressing the left and right arrows at the top and can select a day of the week by using your finger. There is an option to allow you to view weekly instead of monthly, and to type in a specific date to go to. Once the correct date is selected, you can add a New Event with the Subject, Start Time, End Time, Repeat (once, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly), Until, Alerts (none, on time, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 1 hour, 2 hour, 1 day, 2 days), Tone, and Vibrate. When the phone reaches that saved event, it will display the information on the screen and playback the designated alert tone.

Separate from the calendar are three independent alarms, with each one allowing you to select the Set Time, Repeat (once, daily, mon-fri, weekends), and Ringtone. This is an easy way to setup a daily wake-up alarm, or notification if it takes place within 24 hours.


The speaker-independent Voice Command feature can be launched by pressing the Clear button located under the external display, or by going to the Shortcuts menu. Once activated, there are 7 choices that you can speak to the phone: Call name or number, Send Message to, Go to menu, Check item, Lookup name, My Account, and Help. The most useful of these is the “Call” command, where you can speak the digits to dial or the name of a person in your contacts list. The only training that is required are for the digits, not the names or commands. The system works best in quiet environments, but it was still able to understand our voice selection while used in a car traveling at highway speeds, and while in noisy mall. It can also be used in conjunction with a Bluetooth headset, so you can call numbers while you are away from the phone.

The Voyager has a total of 184MB of internal memory built-in. While this pales in comparison to the 2GB on the Samsung Juke, it is expandable through the use of the memory card slot, and can accept microSDHC cards currently up to 8GB in size. In doing so, the Voyager will have the same amount of storage space as the iPhone. There is also the possibility that the Voyager can use 16GB and 32GB microSDHC cards, but since those are not yet released, there is no way that we verify this.

Messaging:

Like most other phones in the market today, the Voyager is capable of sending and receiving text, picture, and video messages. The two ways of typing in a text message are by using T9 or multi-tap with the external touch screen, which shows letters on a 12-icon dial pad, or by using the internal QWERTY keypad. . One noticeable improvement over the enV is that the Inbox can now store up to 200 messages instead of just 50.

The Voyager comes with a program called Mobile Email so that you can connect with your own personal E-Mail accounts while on the go. However, unlike smartphones that automatically check for new messages every few minutes, the program on the Voyager must be run manually to check for new messages. It comes preloaded with the ability to connect to Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail, AOL, AIM, and Verizon.net, but you can also manually configure it to connect to any other E-Mail account through means of POP or IMAP. We were able to access all of our E-Mail accounts without any problems, and could send messages through the account server. When viewing a new message, you can choose not to delete it from the server , so that you can download it later when you are connected using a PC. Even though this application is not as feature-rich as Windows Mobile Outlook, it does a fairly good job for showing plain-text E-Mails. However, it cannot open attachments or render HTML messages , which is a disappointment since the Voyager is targeted as a messaging device. Regardless of the limitations, it is still worth the $5/month access fee.

For people who like to use Instant Messaging, the Voyager also comes with Mobile IM, which will connect you to AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo. After signing in, you and can send and receive IMs, but it is basically glorified text messaging to people on your buddy list and will count on your calling plan the same as using text messages.

Connectivity and Data:

The Voyager is a dual band all-digital device that operates on the 800MHz and 1900MHz CDMA Verizon Wireless network. Non-voice data, such as Web and E-mail, are transmitted using the 3G EVDO network, but it is limited to EVDO Rev 0 speeds instead of the faster Rev A. For Mobile TV service, the Voyager uses the 700MHz spectrum on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO network.

Bluetooth version 1.2 is supported and allows up to 20 pairings. Supported profiles include: headset, hands free, dial up networking, A2DP advanced audio distribution (stereo), AVRC, phone book access, object push for vCard and vCalendar, file transfer, human interface, and basic imaging. We were able to use the auto pair feature to easily connect to our Jabra 250v and Motorola HT820 headsets. When using the 250v for calls, we were able to get up to 25 feet of static free performance, and with the HT820 we were able to get up to 30 feet of stereo music without static.

For connecting to the Internet, the Voyager must use Verizon’s EVDO network, since it does not have built in WiFi capabilities. This is no surprise to us, since Verizon currently only allows WiFi on its smartphone devices. When launching the browser, you are taken the VZW Home Page, which has quick launch icons for News, Sports, Weather, Entertainment, Optimized Web, Connect, My Account, and Help. Along the bottom are icons for Zoom in/out, Go to WWW, and Menu. Since the Voyager is the first non-pda/smartphone to incorporate an HTML browser instead of the more traditional WAP, we were interested in going to normal web site to see how it would work. When selecting “Go to WWW” you can view HTML web sites as they would appear on your PC, with properly rendered text, pictures, and formatting, but there is a lot of horizontal and vertical scrolling that must be done. You can zoom out, by pressing the magnifying glass icon located at the bottom of the screen, which will cut down on some scrolling since more of the page is shown at the same time, or you can go to Menu/Display Rendering and select Screen Optimized, which will reformat the page to only allow for vertical scrolling. We then went back to the home page and tried the Optimized Web option. This completely reformats web sites and partitions them into smaller pages. You have to click through 6 or more of these pages to view one actual HTML page. After we used this for a while, we decided to revert back to the standard non-optimized view, where HTML pages are displayed as intended. We started off by using our finger to move through web sites and to click on hypertext links, but after a few minutes we started to discover that navigating the web on the Voyager can be problematic. To begin with, when using your finger to move web sites around on the screen, the page doesn’t move smoothly, and often times would move erratically. For selecting text links, most are shown quite small, causing us to zoom in 150-200% to be able to click the link with our finger. After about an hour, we decided to try navigating through sites by using a stylus that came with the Samsung i760. We imminently noticed that pages were much easier to navigate, and selecting links were no longer a problem. We also turned the Thumbnail mode to Auto, so that a small thumbnail of the page would automatically be shown when scrolling horizontally or vertically. Despite the browser supporting HTML and JavaScript , it does not support any type of plug-ins, such as Flash, which means you cannot watch videos using the popular www.youtube.com site. We were however able to watch videos on the mobile version http://m.youtube.com but they were problematic and often would only play the first 30 seconds . After that, the video would pause, and would take us back to the Mobile YouTube page. We are unsure if this problem is related directly to the web site or to the phone. Regardless, it is a major disappointment that streaming videos from www.youtube.com cannot be viewed.

The time required for the browser to completely load graphically rich sites, such as PhoneArena.com, is 50 seconds, while more simplistic sites, such as Google, would only take up to 6 seconds. While the speed is not excessively bad, the Voyager should have been EVDO Rev A compatible to allow for faster downloads. We sincerely hope that LG incorporates this into the next version of this phone. We also recommend using a stylus if you are planning on using this device for heavy web surfing, as it greatly increases touch-screen accuracy.


Computer Sync:

The Voyager comes with a USB data cable and music manager CD. Going into the Settings & Tools menu, there is an option for USB Auto Detection (Sync Music, Sync Data, Ask on Plug). When selecting “Ask on Plug”, each time your PC is connected to the Voyager, the screen will ask if you want to sync music or data. If you select “Sync Music” the phone shows up on your PC as an external music device, where you can copy music files directly to the phone’s internal memory and microSD card. However, if you select “Sync Data”, then go to Tools and USB Mass Storage, the microSD card is shown as a Removable Storage device, where you can copy pictures, videos and music files. This is by far the easiest method, eliminating the need to remove the memory card and place it into a SD card reader. Our only complaint is that the Voyager uses a proprietary data port, which means if you don’t have the cable with you, you cannot connect the phone to a PC. A better choice would be a miniUSB port, since those cables are easier to come by.

Camera Interface

Camera:

The Voyager has a 2MP AutoFocus camera, similar to the one used on the enV, but loses the flash, manual lens protector, and “hump” located on the back. The camera takes 3 seconds to load and can be launched by the touch-screen or by the dedicated button on the left edge. From there, the entire display is used as the viewfinder and you can then press the camera button again to capture the image. With the AutoFocus is set to one-stop, it takes 2 seconds to capture the image (compared to 3 sec on the enV) and an additional 3 seconds to save. The total turn around time to take one picture, save it, and take a second picture for saving is 10 seconds . If you need to take pictures closer together, you can turn off the autofocus feature and it will cut the amount of time in half.

Images taken outside have good color representation and saturation, but details are a little soft and not as sharp as the images from the Maxx Ve. Indoor images require a good amount of light for them to come out decent looking. To take images in low light, the only option you have is to select the Night Mode, which slows the shutter speed, but in doing so, it adds a lot of grain to the image, and they have a tendency to come out blurry.



Camera Options:

• Resolution: 1600x1200, 1280x960, 640x480, 320x240
• Self Timer: Off, 3 sec, 5 sec 10 sec
• White Balance: Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Glow
• Shutter Sound: Shutter, No Sound, Say Cheese, Ready 123
• Color Effects: Normal, Negative, Aqua, Sepia, B&W
• Night Mode: On, Off
• Save Options: Internal, External (memory card)
• Photometry: Average, Spot
• Auto Focus: One Step, Two Step, Off
• External Display: On (for self portraits), Off

Videos can be recorded at maximum of 320x240 resolution, with the length being up to the available memory. Watching a recorded video on the phone is best, due to the smaller screen size. Once they are transferred to a PC, you can see how low quality they are, with blotchy color and low frame rate. It would have been nice if the Voyager could record videos at 640x480 VGA resolution, since there is no other phone that Verizon sells that is capable of this.

Audio:

It is no surprise that the Music Interface has also been customized for the front screen and is viewed in landscape mode. The music menu shows icons for Genre, Artists, Albums, Songs, Playlists, Inbox, Play all, and Shuffle. Once a song begins playback, there are several icons on the left and right side of the screen that you can select from. You can repeat the current song or shuffle all the songs of an album, as well as rewind and fast forward.. Unfortunately, the player interface on the Venus is much more customizable, and can continue to play music while the phone performs other tasks, such as sending a text message. It is a shame that the Venus can do this, yet the Voyager cannot.



The overall sound quality of music is good, thanks to the stereo speakers. However, they are located on either side of the internal display and sound muffled when the phone is closed. The only way around this is to flip the phone open (which means you stop using the touch-display), or listen to music with a wired or Bluetooth stereo headset. We would prefer the speakers be located on the exterior of the phone, so they have better sound quality and would be easier to hear.

The Voyager can play streaming videos using the V Cast Mobile TV or V Cast Video service. Using the V Cast Video feature is the same as in all other Verizon phones, where you can stream pre-recorded videos over the EVDO network, but because of speed limitations, image quality is pixilated and audio is low quality. For the best viewing experience, it is recommended to use the Mobile TV service, which uses the faster MediaFLO network, with live TV broadcast at 30fps. Unfortunately, this service is only available in select areas, which means spotty coverage when traveling. The Voyager uses a retractable antenna to pickup the MobileTV broadcasts, but it has a flimsy design to it and feels like it can break easily.

Software:

As with most other Verizon phones, the Voyager uses Qualcomm’s BREW format for all application. One of the most useful is VZ Navigator, which is used for GPS guided directions. Even though it can be accessed by the touch-screen, we found using the internal screen and keyboard to be the most effective way of typing in and viewing directions. Not to mention that the voice guided turns played through the speakers are louder with the flip open. We were able to use the application around South FL, and had no problems following the turn-by-turn directions to get to our destination. This is one feature that the Voyager truly shines over the iPhone.



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Performance:

Regardless of how nice a phone looks, or how many features are packed into it, the most important thing to consider is the Reception and Call Quality. During out tests, we had excellent reception, not only while we were in good coverage areas, but also when traveling into fringe areas where no signal bars were shown on Voyager’s display. This makes the Voyager equal in reception to the enV and Maxx Ve. However, the call quality is a mixed bag. There are 8 volume levels for the earpiece speaker, but going above level 5 can start to cause distortion to be heard. Level 8 is the worst, since there is a lot of distortion, and the speaker sounds like it is rattling around from the volume being too high, but keeping it at level 5 or lower eliminates this problem. The same is true when using the speakerphone; if it’s too loud it will cause distortion. Also, during calls we could hear a slight “hiss” sound in the background, almost like “white noise”. We have noticed this on other phones, such as the Blackberry Pearl. The “hiss” isn’t very pronounced, and as long as we kept the volume down around medium the voice quality itself was adequate and equal to that of the enV. We called several people on a landline using the Voyager, enV, and V9m. Everyone that we spoke to while we were on the Voyager and enV said our voice sounded identical, that it was somewhat hollow sounding; almost like we were using a hands-free speakerphone. Once we switched over and used the V9m, everyone could tell a difference and said the voice quality on their end sounded clearer and more natural. It is unfortunate that the Voyager’s voice quality is still equal to that of the enV, which is a step below the V9m, but it is still better than other phones, such as the Juke.

The included 950mAh battery is rated at 4 hours of talk time or 20 days of standby time on a full charge. Our tests revealed a more realistic 3.5 hours of talk time or 4 days of standby time. Charging time is 3 hours.

Conclusion:

Overall we are quite pleased with the new Voyager, and it shows a step in the right direction. It combines almost every feature you could want integrated into one device. The external touch screen can be tricky to use some times, however after a while it becomes easier. The web browser correctly renders and displays HTML site properly, but is not compatible with any type of plug-in, and is easier to navigate with a stylus than your finger. The microSD slot can accept an 8GB card, which is equivalent to the iPhone’s internal memory, and can be used for storing music, pictures, and videos. Images taken with the 2MP Autofocus camera are equal to that of the enV, though not quite as good as the Maxx Ve. Music Playback sounds good with the built in stereo speakers, as long as the phone is flipped open, or you are using a Bluetooth stereo headset. V Cast Video and Mobile TV are best used as a time consuming distraction, since their content is limited, and the TV service only available in a handful of areas. Reception and call quality are both equal to that of the enV, but is somewhat less than the V9m. The only problem we encountered here was if we raised the speaker volume to the highest level that it would cause distortion to be heard during a call.

The Voyager is truly for the consumer that is looking for the ultimate showstopper without making the leap to a smartphone. Some people have referred to the Voyager as the “iPhone killer”, but we don’t believe that’s the case. Even though it is quality device, it is lacking the caché that surrounds the iPhone. We doubt that many iPhone users will leave that behind for the Voyager, but it will keep current Verizon customers from looking around.