Terrible touchscreen April 7, 2012

Reviewer:  Zeke Zero Reisen "Ezekiel Reisen"  (Buffalo) -

I have had this phone for three months now and can honestly say this is the worst touchscreen interface of any product I have ever used. It's been mentioned quite a bit in other reviews about how unresponsive, slow, and uncooperative the touch screen has been, but I cannot stress enough to some of you who think they can live with this that it is a deal breaker. It usually takes quite a few taps before it makes a selection, whether it be answer call or choosing a contact or trying to select a song to play. Half the time you'll end up choosing the wrong action because it did not understand your swipe and you'll have to start all over. Even after a few software updates it still is slow and fails to recognize taps. The screen displays pictures nicely, but it refuses to load any pictures I import via bluetooth or memory card, even if I resize them to the phones dimensions. The music player takes forever to load for just one gigabyte of songs and has a terrible interface and again poor touch controls to really do anything with. The BREW OS is awful since it makes it impossible to customize or add homebrew games and apps. The only reason it gets two stars is the good battery life, it's incredibly lightweight and thin, and does have a nice camera and displays pictures taken on the phone very well. Verizon really should let customers use smartphones without having to purchase an expensive data plan. That way we wouldn't get suckered into purchasing cheap knockoffs like this Pantech Hotshot.

Amazing March 22, 2012

Reviewer:  Stikboy202 

This is the best phone i have ever owned and iv had alot. Its has a very good batterylife. It is very userfriendly but not so simple its boring. The ony back side is the tiny touch qwerty keys.but it is a amazing phone and thats saying alot beacause i normaly hate pantech

Unreliable March 19, 2012

Reviewer:  gman  (NJ USA) -

I had great hopes for the Hotshot as a replacement for my LG Dare. I liked the thin form factor and for my use the touchscreen and battery life were fine. Within the first few days it began to lockup just sitting in my pocket with the screen locked requiring a battery pull to make it operational again. This became more and more frequent over the first 2 months to the point it became a daily occurrence. Half the time I received a call, I would have to pull the battery to reset the phone and call back. Any phone first and foremost has to be able to reliably answer and make calls anytime the phone is on. This phone simply can't, making it worthless in spite of anything else it may do well. I got this phone when the lcd on my Dare cracked and the Hotshot looked like the closest thing that Verizon offered in feature phones. Luckily I fixed my Dare with a used lcd and reactivated it in place of the Hotshot. When it works it is a nice phone but the reoccurring wonky touchscreen issue makes it impossible to recommend the Hotshot.

Worthless March 8, 2012

Reviewer:  Sully 

I thought the Pantech Hotshot would be a cool touch-screen experience without having to pay for a data plan. It is NOT anywhere near a smart phone. Myself and 3 others in my family all replaced our aging phone with this unit.

Being that I use an iPod Touch and an Acer Iconia Tab tablet daily, I may be biased towards text input that simply works.

The processing speed of the Hotshot is unbearable. It may take several seconds for a button press to be registered.

The biggest concern I have with my $0.01 purchase is texting. This is likely very important to many people these days and it does not work well. A word may be lost with slow processor speed and you only type 3 letters out of 15. Then you backspace ONCE, and it erases everything.

Additionally, the phone has CRASHED (ie shutoff and takes a long time to reboot) when making or receiving calls. I consider this a threat to safety in an emergency and I'm looking for other options. My LG env2 that I used in 2008 is still working better, and I may just switch back or get a SMART phone, not a mere touch screen.

Don't Get February 29, 2012

Reviewer:  Yelsew 

The Phones typing keys are too small and many of them take 4 or 5 times using a stylus to register. Dialing key pad keys are OK. Pantech forgot to install full upgrade of the Mobile Email so when the trial period is up you have no Mobile Email. Many free applications are not accepted by the phone for download. Skype being on of many. The battery has a very short life and has to be recharged.

eh... December 27, 2011

Reviewer:  D. Kim  (In your computer) -

This phone is a phone. Nothing special.
I decided to give this phone a shot because Verizon is lacking in quality txt focused phones. I guess they do that as a way to funnel people into getting a pricier phone with a pricier plan.

After about 2 months with this phone, I much rather have something with a physical keyboard.
The virtual keyboard on this is tiny, and I don't have the most dainty of fingers. Constantly having to rewrite my txt.

The call quality is fine, but battery life seems pretty short for a dumb phone.

Ultimately, if you are a person who sends a lot of txt messages, I'd stay away.
I personally don't txt that much so i can live with it, for now.

Very deceitful December 12, 2011

Reviewer:  Jennifer Dennis 

I usually do my homework before purchasing any new "big" item and I consider my phone a big one. So I read the reviews on this phone and thought, "I can deal with that." BUT I CAN'T! There is no way to calibrate the screen to your touch, so you have to adjust to the calibration already set on the phone. Also, there is no way to turn off the beeping sound when you press a button. So when you are texting, there is constant beeping. Also, when I am checking my voicemail and I need to enter my PIN or when I am making a call and there are options, the phone acts up and won't let me access the keypad and most of the time I get logged out from no response. It is very aggravating. There isn't any way to set your text format to T9 or anything like that. It is regular Abc texting and you have to change it every time you text if you want something else. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this phone. It looks nice, feels nice and seems like a great phone. But it isn't. I'm switching back to my LG Chocolate Touch.

Update: After a comment was made on my review, I searched Google and found a way to turn off the beeping while texting (even though it wasn't clear upon first look that that was the option for turning off the sound). However, after extensive searching, I am still not able to find where to change the T9 input setting on the text. Also, as I have kept using it, I have learned to adjust to the touch setting. I'm still not a fan, but it's not as bad as I initially thought. Still, not as good as my LG Chocolate Touch.

WORST PHONE EVER May 15, 2012

Reviewer:  NomNomNom21 

DO NOT BUY! I got this phone as an upgrade and it is UNUSABLE so i am looking for a different one. It is unusable because of the touch screen. It lacks sensitivity. When i text it always lags and skips letters that i text. The menu layout is nice, but the damn voice command button is in a horrible place that it keeps on being pressed. I had an emergency and the phone continued to lag in between button presses that it skrewed up my phone calls since i was in a rush. This is NOT a good phone.

Don't Let The Looks Decieve You January 25, 2012

Reviewer:  A(n) Honest Review 

Well firstly, the phone has a very cool look and looks nice, but it freezes up a lot, is very slow when texting, it will randomly restart. Especially when you're paying one-hundred dollars for this phone you would think that it would work a little better, if this phone would be faster and more reliable I would definitely recommend it, but as of now stick with a LG or something else.

CHEAP PHONES= NO SERVICE January 24, 2012

Reviewer:  Dave_O 

This product deserves ZERO stars!
I bought two Pantech Hotshot phones to replace my old Motorola Razrs. When verizon tried to activate them they weren't able to acquire a signal. That's right. Lousy antenna design means that there isn't a place in my house, in metropolitan Las Vegas Nv, that I can call out or receive a call on these cheap, junk, toys. Verizon offered me a solution, $150 out of my pocket for a network extender. What a deal, and no guarantee the phones will work anywhere else. I think not. These phones are junk, and that's being polite!

4 stars for decent graphics, -3 for usability, 1 star for qwerty keyboard = 2 stars December 13, 2011

Reviewer:  S. Rajagopalan  (Newark, DE, USA) -

This is a great phone that could. But that's the problem--it could do so many things--if only it had a beefier processor and/or better software, I would happily suggest it. But that's the problem. Great graphics with horrendous software--complete and utter zero when it comes to usability. It looks great, but functions as badly as it looks great.

(a) Very slow response to touch
(b) Badly designed wallpaper feature (does not show the picture up on the full screen if selected from the card)
(c) I still cannot figure out how to customize the ringtone to my mp3, not the crap that is sent with the phone.
(d) I still cannot figure out a one-click method to silence this phone.
(e) Everytime I receive a call, and go through the poorly designed interface, before i can get the "answer" button to work on the gui, the call stops.

i don't have this phone but my recent experiance with the new phones is. January 9, 2012

Reviewer:  P. Knese  (Dayton, Ohio United States) -

Iam seeing a comon problem with the phones that have blue tooth. those phones eat the bateries even if you don't use blue tooth check to make sure its off they use blue tooth to transfer your information and they don't always turn that off, so any phones that have blue tooth make sure blue tooth is off.