LG Chocolate VX8500 Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless)

Pretty phone but doesn't live up to hype September 7, 2006

Reviewer:  J. Lau "JJL"  (NM, USA) -

I really wanted to like this phone. The look of it is very sharp and the screen is nice and clear, with great graphics. It's small and fits well in the palm of my hand. The interface is slick and intuitive. It has a decent internal memory (60 MB) as well as supporting microSD cards. Most quibbles were minor enough to ignore (like button sensitivity). I liked almost everything except the reason I bought it. More on that shortly.

Some minor gripes:
As has been mentioned in other reviews, the interface is always a little touchy in some way, particularly the OK button, even after adjusting the sensitivity.

I'm not sure if this is an LG decision or Verizon, but the phone isn't fully capable out of the box. They advertise a music phone, but in order to be able to use it to its full capacity you'll need to get their Music Essentials kit for another 30 bucks, and all you get is a proprietary USB cable and some mediocre headphones. Anyone who buys Nokia phones knows this stuff is almost always included, especially if it's proprietary or required for specific features on the phone (like playing music).

The main reason for purchasing this phone, however, was to have a remote storage device along with being able to play MP3s. My previous phone was a Nokia 3300, which was billed as an MP3 phone, and worked great for that. I could put in a memory card, plug the USB into the computer, and it pops up as a removeable disk, and i could copy files to and from the phone like any other USB thumb/flash drive, no special software required (not even drivers, depending on the OS). This is great for me, because I work and go to school and am constantly shuffling files back and forth between the two and home. The Chocolate does not offer that versatility.

The only way you can copy stuff to the Choclate is using a sync feature via Windows Media Player 10; it does now show up in Windows Explorer when the USB is plugged in. That means the only thing you can copy to the phone is music, so no using it for portable storage. Also, the phone doesn't seem to accept anything except CBR mp3s, preferably ripped by Windows Media Player. Given that I've accumulated over 1000 CDs over the years and have ripped them using various methods with various software, most of my collection won't transfer. The only solution from Verizon's support (who know very little about the phone, I might add) was to re-rip everything using WMP. This is an unacceptable solution, especially since my Nokia would play just about anything I threw at it.

Also annoying, you can't use any of your MP3s as ringtones. I briefly tried the bitpim software, but the Chocolate isn't supported yet and there were various minor issues, most notably it didn't seem to recognize the memory card I purchased for the phone, only the internal memory. Bottom line is I shouln't have to rely on 3rd party software to hack my own phone to get it to work the way i want it.

Perhaps Nokia has spoiled me. No doubt some will say that means I'm just closed-minded, but I've had my 3300 for some time now and it's worked great. Everything was intuitive and versatile. Nokia doesn't intentionally gimp their products like Motorola's SLVR (why iTunes? gah!) or LG's Chocolate.

In short, if you're just looking for a flashy, stylish phone the LG Chocolate fits the bill nicely. Just don't expect it to be the great media player it's been advertised to be. And certainly don't count on it as a remote storage device.

MP3 ringtones August 9, 2006

Reviewer:  David Nestor "web developer"  (Long Beach, CA USA) -

If you get this phone, it's definitely important to buy Verizon's Music Essentials Kit as well. It comes with a headset, a USB cable, and drivers for the cable. Then you can upload MP3s from your collection using Windows Media Player, although the phone only holds 60MB of music without a MicroSD card. But also, if you download the free open-source software BitPim from bitpim dot org, you can create your own MP3 ringtones and also backup your pix and phonebook. For now, BitPim has to be set manually to LG VX8300 until it has support for the VX8500.

All in one answers August 28, 2006

Reviewer:  S. M. Thomas 

I hope this review helps some people as the reviews I read while also doing some google searches along the way helped me to configure the LG Chocolate and get it to work the best way it can for me from the way it comes out of the box.

First of all let me say that now that I have worked out some of the issues I had with this phone I absolutely love it and will have many hours of enjoyment with music, photos, rigtones, etc, etc.

1) I have seen many posts regarding battery life. The best way to save some battery life if you are not using V-Cast is to hit 0 after you enter the menu screen and then six 0's as service code. Under 1. Mode preference scroll down to 1X only. This disables the V-Cast ev-do network which puts a drain on your battery as it continually searches for the signal. If you use V-Cast you can always disable it and then just turn it back on when you are using it.

2) I have read that some people were unable to get certain songs to sync to the phone while others worked fine. By looking at the songs I had an issue with I noticed they all had a bit rate of VBR 200 something. I used an MP3 ripper to make them 128 KBPS and then tried those songs again in the syncing phase and what do you know. That was the issue. Apparently the player does not support certain bit rates. I am still trying to find a good free ripper but there are literaly hundreds of them out there and anyone of them usually offers two week trials that can at least fix your current files and an added plus is that this process compresses the file even further saving memory space while not decreasing quality in any way in my opinion.

3) ID3 tags don't work for mp3. Well I also have heard of this being a big issue and had the problem after the first time I ran a sync. ID3 tags are the coding that allows your music to sort in nice categories like artist, genre, album etc. When the player doesn't read them properly the entire filename just simply raps around in the song title line. This is happening as I found out because the player only reads ID3 V1 and does not support ID3 V2. It's silly in my opinion that a new product comes out of the box like this but there is a quick fix. A simple program called ID3 Kill can be downloaded in a few seconds. Just run the program and check off ID3 V2 and click go after selecting your music folder. This process does not change the way your files are viewed on your computer or do any damage to the files. If you format your memory card and do the sync process over again after this process you will find 85% of the files will be fixed and now sorted. For the remaining 15% it's probably just the way I have my ID3 V1 tags configured and I'm no expert in the field and will just deal with it like this.

4) Ringtones. Everyone loves ringtones but they can be expensive if you really like them a lot and want to change them all the time. Well now along with your USB cable that you get with music essentials and a free program called bitpim that you can download you are able to upload your current mp3 music to your ringtone folder. It's really simple as all you need to do is select the song, do a quick edit to make it about 30 seconds long and hit send. It's free, quick, and easy. Bitpim also allows you to send all kinds of other files from your PC to the phone like contact lists, pix, etc. Oh, and just select the VX8300 as the phone since they don't have VX8500 on there. Apparently they are very similar and it works fine.

5) Finally here is an added plus. It has nothing to do with the phone at all but a friend of mine found this site which I will note I get nothing for promoting them but I want to share because it can save people a ton of money. The website [...]sells music for .10 - .15 a track. I have used it for about six months and feel it's a fantastic deal. Songs download in seconds and are of great quality. I have even seen albums loaded on the site shortly before they are released in stores.

Hopefully this is all helpful. It took me a couple days but I finally got my Chocolate working sweet!! Enjoy.

Quick initial review August 4, 2006

Reviewer:  FightOrFlight  (Arizona or California) -

I've been using this phone for about a week, and just thought I'd give a little review. (Yes, I know, it's not in stores yet. It's been available online since July 30 at verizonwireless.com)

I probably wont ever use the phone's mp3 functions, so I won't/can't comment on that. I just like sliders because they are easier to open with 1 hand.

First off, the phone is gorgeous. I think it's the best looking phone available. It highly resembles a black IPOD nano, just not as thin and more slick looking due to the mirror finish that hides the screen when not in use. It looks and feels a lot smaller than the pictures or dimensions make it seem. Everyone who has seen my phone loves the touchpad style "buttons" and how sleek it is.

THe user interface and included animated themes are very nice as well. The LCD is very crisp and bright. Recieving text messages never looked so pretty. Verizon/LG have done a nice job on the software. Some other people that have this phone have been saying there's some UI lag, about 1 sec. I notice no lag at all. I tap a button and the UI responds instantly, usually. On occasion when i hit "OK" it does take about 1 sec, but it's rare, maybe 1/20 times.

THe phone is built very well. It feels very sturdy and solid, including the sliding mechanism. It's actually heavier than it looks. The finish, although high gloss, and prone to fingerprints, seems to have a hard coating. Lightly scraping with my fingernail the phone appears to be relatively scratch resistant. (knock on wood)

The buttons on the side are a little hard to push, but the touchpad and dial pad are easy to use. Keep in mind I have slender fingers.

As of now there's no speakerphone, a possible dealbreaker for some. However, it definitely has the ability to have that added. The voice command system operates in a speakerphone manner. Hopefully, Verizon will update the software to enable an actual speakerphone function.

Speaking of which, the voice command system is awesome. It's one of my favorite parts of the phone. It has the standard "call name" or "call number", but it has many other commands like "check battery, check signal, go to bluetooth, look up name, etc etc"

Signal strength has been good. In general, I have been recieving 1 bar more than my old slider phone, the Kyocera SE47. I haven't been to the point with 0 bars yet so I can't comment on it's performance in that scenario. However, calls have been very clear on both ends. Additionally, the earpiece is very loud on the vx8500.

Battery life has been good so far, but it's too early to tell.

I haven't picked up a bluetooth headset yet, but it paired quickly and easily to my laptop. I haven't played around much, but for those wondering, BitPim does work with this phone through BlueTooth. I haven't tried transfering files yet, but I have transfered contacts and such.

Almost perfect August 16, 2006

Reviewer:  Gillian  (NJ USA) -

I usually buy Motorola flip phones, and I was originally going to get a Razr, but I was attracted to this phone because of its ability to play mp3s. I've been using it a little over a week and I am for the most part very impressed. I'll discuss the phone first, then the mp3 capability.

The phone is definitely very attractive, sleek and glossy black (not dark brown as one might expect from the name). It's a little longer and wider than a flip phone, but still fits easily in my pocket. I find sliding the phone open to answer it actually easier than flipping one open, and you can also answer calls with it closed. In fact, most functions are available when it is closed, unless you need to use the keypad. You can access menus, dial from your phonebook, etc, all with the phone closed.

The sound and screen quality is very good, and the camera takes very decent photos. It took me a while to get used to the touchpad, but I now love it. Overall, I'd say it is more attractive and stylish than other phones with similar functions, and compares well quality wise. It seems pretty sturdy so far, too.

It's the mp3 capability that really makes this phone shine. The phone's speaker is not terribly loud, but the sound quality is good, and if you attach headphones the sound quality is very good. There is an adapter enclosed to use regular headphones, but I would suggest buying Verizon's Music Essentials Kit (about $30), which comes with headphones which allow you to quickly pause the music and answer the phone while you are listening to music. I find this very useful while commuting as I used to miss calls when I listened to my ipod. The kit also includes a usb cable to connect the phone to your computer.

Be aware that the phone's internal memory is only 60mb, or enough for about 15 songs (depending on quality). If you want more, you will need to buy a MicroSD card - I bought a 1 gig one from Amazon for $40, which included an SD adapter so it can go in a regular card reader.

Some other things you should know:

Verizon heavily advertises Vcast, but it is not available everywhere. I checked before I bought the phone, but it still turned out that the inside of my house is not in the Vcast area - and the Verizon rep suggesting I stand in my yard to download music wasn't especially helpful. Even if it is available, it costs $15 a month and 99c on up per download. This applies to all Verizon Vcast phones, not just this one.

However, you don't need Vcast to listen to music on the phone. You can transfer mp3s from your computer to the phone. The Music Essentials Kit has a USB cable and drivers which allow you to sync the phone with Windows Media Player and transfer songs to the phone. Be aware that not all computers actually work, even if they are running XP. I spent a very long time on the phone with a Verizon rep trying to get it to work on my five year old desktop computer, ending with him giving me a link to a Miscrosoft page with instructions on Registry changes that would hopefully help. Unfortunately, my Registry settings were already correct so it did not help me and I was never able to sync the phone to my desktop. Thankfully my laptop had no problems, and it took about five minutes from the time I started installing the software to me listening to my music on the phone.

Should you not be able to sync your computer with the phone, you can still get music onto it by connecting the MicroSD card to your computer using a card reader, and dragging and dropping mp3s directly onto the card. It's still worth buying the Music Essentials Kit for the headphones mentioned above.

In summary, I am very happy with the phone, especially once I got the mp3 installation kinks sorted out. Just be aware when you buy the phone that there are additional costs if you want to use it as an mp3 player.

Good phone September 3, 2006

Reviewer:  N. Shoemaker  (In Hiding) -

I have had this phone for a week now and it's not that bad. Originally, it didn't even catch my eye from the commercials. I had my mind set on the Samsung slider through Cingular. But seeing how many of my family and friends have Verizon I decided to go with this. Oh, and seeing the phone in person really helped too, it has a certain charm to it. I really like the slider feature as opposed to clamshell which I have mainly owned.

Pros:
-It's small
-Slider function is easy with one hand
-You can answer the phone without sliding it open
-Great looks
-MP3 capable
-Decent camera
-Internal antenna
-Set alarm to wake up to music stored on phone

Cons:
-I'm surprised with the lack of complaints about the jack you have to use in order to plug in headphones. This is the one thing I absolutely hate about the phone. It's a little bigger than I had imagined it would be and it sticks out of the side which is bothersome. I realize I could just use a BlueTooth headset but this would drain the battery more. Not cool.
-Texting on this phone is nowhere as easy and fast as other phones I have had. Not a big deal if you don't text a lot, but I'm still trying to get it down.
-My text inbox is near 90% full with around 40 some messages in it. And it seems you have to delete messages instead of the phone autmatically doing it. This is a pain.
-The touch pad is cool but you have to be right on when hitting what you want to. Too many times I end up somewhere else on the phone by accidently pushing the up and down arrow.
-No speakerphone. Although this really isn't that big of a deal to me I know some people like this feature. I did find myself wanting to put down the phone yesterday while working around the house. Oh well.

And this could be a pro or con depending on how you look at it:

You can make your own ringtones using the Bitpim program as stated already. However, you run the risk of having your phone freeze up or not function properly. It has happened before.


All in all, this phone is pretty cool. Go give it a look, it might change you mind just seeing it.

Like it - Like it ALOT August 24, 2006

Reviewer:  Dennis Bosman "bozhed"  (Napa, CA) -

Over the past couple of years I have had a variety of cell phones: Motorola Q, Treo, VX7000, Razor. The Chocolate is by far the best of the bunch. Here is why:

Form - The size of the phone is great, especially when compared to the LG VX7000 or the Treo.

Signal Strength - This phone has the best reception of any phone I have every used. At home, where my Treo only received about 2 bars, this phone has at least double.

MP3 - I really have never been a big user of MP3 players until I got this phone. Given the size and the mico SD slot it is great. Bought a 1GB card and it stores more than enough music for my needs. I can now be at the gym, working out to music and if a phone call comes in, it automatically switches over to the phone function. When the call is done, the music comes right back on. MAGIC!! :-)

Battery - I purchased the extended battery with the phone. Even with the MP3 player useage I get about 2 days of use before having to charge. That is excellent compared to what my Treo used to get.

Putting on personal ringtones - Here is where Verizon tries to lock things down. Interest enough though, I figured out a work around.

Here it is: First create your music clip from a song you like. To do this you will need software (ie. Roxio) that allows you to edit sounds. There is a limit on the size of the file you can use. From what I have figured out it is about 10 seconds at low MP3 quality. Once you are done, save the clip to your Mini SD card. Put the card in the phone, open your sounds and send the file to your cell phone. Once you receive the file, you will have the ability to save it as a ringtone. Someone may have an easier what to do this but this is the only way I have found that actually works.

Bluetooth - Tried a number of headsets but the best so far is Plantronics 320. Headsets tried included the Jabra JX10, Motorola H700 and H850.

Overall very happy with this phone and will probably keep for a while (which is saying something for me)

Worst phone I've ever owned December 26, 2006

Reviewer:  Dane F. Buson  (Seattle, WA, USA) -

When my phone died in August, the timing was just right for me to get the Chocolate phone as a replacement. I've always been a fan of LG's CDMA phones as I've found them to have good reception, decent UI, and were very sturdy.

After having this phone for four months, I can't figure out why anyone would want the phone.

Good -

1. Bluetooth support is good - The same headset I used for my old phone sounds much better on this phone. That was a pleasant surprise.

2. Pretty - it's undeniable that the phone looks really nice.

3. Good reception / call quality.

4. You can email yourself MP3s to use as ringtones - It's nice Verizon is finally stepping away from their total-lockdown philosophy for phones. I hope the trend continues.

Bad -

1. Verizon's customized interface is frequently laggy - When Verizon brought the phone into the market, they put their standard interface on it. However, they also added some 'whiz bang' animations and what-not to the interface - which made it laggy. The worst thing you can possibly do to a touchscreen interface is make it laggy. *tap* *tap* "Hmmm, nothing happening", *tap* *tap*. Suddenly the phone wakes up and registers all your touches and whiz off into some submenu you didn't want to be in.

2. No headset jack - I'd far rather have a headset jack than the (mostly useless) camera. Granted, the adapter is less cheesy than I initially thought, but it's still a lousy kludge. And heaven forbid you're on a long call and need to charge your phone *and* use the headset. Plus the adapter is yet another piece to lose.

3. Phantom touches - sometimes the touchscreen would register a touch when *nothing* was touching the screen. This nearly drove me insane.

4. Touchscreen does not work correctly in the cold - Guess what? Don't get this phone cold or the touchscreen will not work correctly.

5. Numberpad too small - I could deal with the small size of the numberpad if there was any kind of separation between the rows of keys. As it is, I found it more difficult to use the numberpad than it should have been.

6. Mute is a pain to use - On a long call and need to mute and unmute frequently? You'll grow to loathe this phone. You have to touch the side button to unlock the screen and then pull the phone away from your face to find the left softkey. Then hope the touchscreen didn't misregister. Joy.

7. SMS is painful - With my old phones I used to use SMS all the time. The Chocolate phone is painful to text with. It's a combination of the chiclet numberpad, the laggy touchscreen, and the tendency the phone has to 'send' by accident. This phone is so painful to use, I wrote my own custom app to SMS from my computer.

8. Music player mediocre at best - The music player doesn't read ID3v2 tags. It doesn't descend into directories on the SD card, so you can't separate your music into folders. Fast forwarding long sequences is painful - don't listen to podcasts or audio books.

9. Get used to calling people by accident - I've never ever called people from my pocket or anytime I didn't mean to, until I owned this phone. Get used to locking it all the time, or resign yourself to letting people talk to your pocket.

Ugly

1. I know a few other people who have or have had the phone. It uniformly is disliked by all of them. They're all trying to figure out when they can get a different phone.

I picked up a new phone recently (LG vx-8300) which I like *so* much better than the Chocolate. The contrast is amazing. It does everything the Chocolate does, it's cheaper, and it doesn't have the Chocolates's numerous UI issues. Granted it's not as sexy, but it doesn't cause me to have recurring fantasies about chucking the phone under a buses tires.

Style and Functionality; but at some cost.. January 6, 2007

Reviewer:  Renholder  (Boston, MA) -

My last phone was the Kyocera Phantom; a phone that had very little function besides making and receiving calls. About two weeks ago I upgraded to the LG 8500. At first I was extremely happy with it, but a few days ago I ran into some problems. I'll get to that later.

1.) Camera: For a cellphone camera, I'm impressed. You can change the capture resolution for photos, 160x120 up to 1280x960. The photos come out a little fuzzy, as can be expected with a cellphone camera. My only issue with the camera is that there's no flash. As for video, one excellent aspect is that you can change the option to record as much video as you have the space for. Considering you can expand your memory to 2gb with an SD micro memory card, this means you can record rather lengthy videos. Unfortunately, the resolution is very low.

2.) Sound Recording; Ringtones: The Chocolate can record sounds, but only up to one minute. I was a bit disappointed with this; they should have used the same feature the video camera offers, allowing you to record as much sound as you have memory for. As for ringtones.. I'm a bit frustrated. If you save a sound, you can only play it in My Sounds or txt message it to someone; you can't set it as a ringtone. HOWEVER: I have learned to make my own ringtones and get around that. What you have to do is make a sound clip, about 40 seconds long, in low bitrate mp3 (I've been using 64 bitrate MONO mp3's. Use a program like GoldWave to edit your mp3's down to this size.) I then e-mail the sound to my phone. When I open the email as a text message, I have the option to save the sound as a ringtone. Note that if you make the sound too long, or the file too large, you will not be able to save it as a ringtone.

3.) Mp3 Player Function: I was a bit disappointed with the mp3 player function. The sound is decent enough through the built in speaker, but obviously sounds much better through extrenal speakers or a headset. A few days after I got the phone I purchased the Music Essentials kit and a 1gb SD memory card. After installing the Music Essentials software, I realized that it's pretty much useless if you have a memory card. The interface isn't user friendly, and it converts all of your music to low quality WMA files. The best way to use music on this phone is to transfer your mp3's directly to the SD memory card. Some computers have a memory card port built in (I know mine does,) but you can also get an external USB card reader. This should work on a Mac as well, but make sure your music is in mp3 and not the Apple format, m4a. The mp3 playing program on the phone is just aweful. It isn't user friendly in any way. You have to put all of your mp3's onto a playlist if you want to listen to them on shuffle; scrolling through your songs is laggy and at times difficult; and to be honest, the themes for the mp3 player are just ugly. Hopefully software upgrades will come out within a few months to fix some of these problems.

4.) The touchpad, the keypad: I've heard alot of complaints about the touchpad. I have it on the highest sensitivity and I find that it works great. It did take some getting used to, but now I love it. As for the keypad.. the buttons are just too close together, and too small. Txt messaging has been an experience... I'm constantly hitting the wrong button by accident, sometimes two or three at a time.. and I don't even have large hands.

5.) Display: I love the screen on this phone. It's a great size for viewing photos, videos, and games. The screen is beautiful, though it does have a tendancy to show fingerprints a bit too much, considering the glossy finish.

6.) THE BATTERY: Alright. Here's that problem I mentioned earlier. A few days ago, my phone's battery started dying incredibly fast---in as little as 15 minutes after a full charge. I got incredibly frustrated, and last night I went to a Verizon Wireless store. Tech Support told me that the phone's battery can be drained that quickly because the phone is constantly looking for better signal. In a dead zone, like a basement, a concrete building, whatever---the phone will die within 20 minutes. They told me there was nothing I could do but turn my phone off when I'm in a deadzone. I left, obviously frustrated, because that is a TERRIBLE feature. I went home, and I was researching my phone on internet forums. I was reading a topic about the Version 4 software upgrade (which puts SPEAKERPHONE on the Chocolate!) and someone seemed to be having the same problem I was with the battery. It seems that the problem is Verizon's EVDO network. Here are the instructions on how to disable EVDO and use the standard network. With this option enabled, the battery won't drain anywhere near as quickly. (Since I switched, my phone's been on for over 24 hours and is only missing one bar of batter)
To disable EVDO:

Go into menu
hit 0 the pass is 000000
push 3 for network select
push 1 for mode preference
then go down to 1x only

This will greatly increase your battery life if you dont have evdo in your area.


Now that I've fixed the battery issue, I'm back to loving this phone. If the mp3 function was as user friendly as, say, an iPod, this would be the only device I need for music, pictures, and.. of course.. phone calls.

Do not be taken in by BAD reviews December 18, 2006

Reviewer:  John D. Hatzis  (Miami, FL) -

First of all, I almost did not buy this phone because of the reviews. It seemed like either people absolutely LOVED this phone or HATED it. It took me a month, 3 trips to different verizon wireless stores, multiple questions to employees of VW and a little research to finally purchase the phone. After two weeks of ownership, I am EXTREMELY pleased with this phone.

The Look:
A true eye catcher, everyone who see's it is wowed! It has a great compact size and is a classy look with the slide feature.

Features:
A huge A+ here, this phone does it all from fully functional MP3, to web browse, voice GPS, High resolution camera and video, and all the phone goodies.

Sensitivity:
This is where I had really been scared by the negative reviews, One word about this "HYPE". It has 4 levels of sensitivity, it takes about 1 hour of playing with the phone to get used to this. After that, you wont remember how you ever used those ancient push button menus! I had read reviews about people muting calls and dropping them because of the touch pad, ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE, those buttons are NOT even active during a call and you can't activate them without pushing a side button which is almost impossible to do accidentaly.

SpeakerPhone:
It DOES have one!

Battery Life:
Ok Ok Ok, this is one that I could MAYBE see complaints on. If you use this phone as an MP3 player for a signifigant amount of time (over an hour), you will have a dead battery by the END of the night. I charge my phone every night anyway. However, regular phone use with multiple lengthy calls and txting and even playing a few songs will still leave you with maybe ONE less bar of battery strength at the end of the night.

Signal Strength:
I have never not had a signal with this phone, but I think that is more a credit to the network than to the phone. I have had week signal strength in a place where my previous razor had great signal.

Overall:
I have had MANY MANY phones and always the top of the line. I have to say that this is my favorite so far by leaps and bounds and recommend it to any future consumers