Best AT&T Texting Phone, but Could Be Better May 29, 2012

Reviewer:  Joseph "jck09"  (Cincinnati, OH USA) -

Update 04/04/13: See K Montgomerey's comment to my review - although I've been hoping for a firmware update, DON'T INSTALL IT until LG confirms that they've cleared the bugs.

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One of the maddening things about AT&T is that if you connect a smartphone to their system (and they catch you), you automatically get upgraded to a data plan. So if you don't want a data plan, you need to find a "dumbphone" that they will allow on their network without a plan.

The LG Xpression is about halfway between a smartphone and a dumbphone, and is made for people who want to send text messages but not to use a data plan. It runs a few apps and looks android-ish (but is not android), has a sliding keyboard, a touchscreen, and is pretty good. I got this for my daughter, who is a serious texter but doesn't need a data plan, and so far she seems pretty happy.

(Update: After several weeks, my daughter asked me to drop this to three stars because of some design flaws -- see below).

What I like:

- For the price (currently free with plan), it's pretty good. It plays music, takes pictures, sends SMS and MMS messages, and can run a few apps.

- Texting is pretty good. It has a slider keyboard, and arranges text exchanges into conversations by sender.

- Connecting to a computer is well designed. When you connect to a PC through the micro-USB charging port, you get options to mount the phone as an external storage device (requires memory card), to sync music, or to use the PC for an internet connection. I haven't finished testing that last option, but really appreciate it --assuming it works, it means that we can get to the AT&T app store without buying a data plan.

- For a free phone, the operating system isn't bad. You can customize the home screen with "widgets" like android, so you have little windows on the home screen from different apps.

- It does have a basic web browser and some social media apps for things like facebook, and is eligible for AT&T's discount data plan, so if you want to buy data, it's functional. (At that point, though, I might look at the basic android phones -- their data plan is a little more expensive, but they're a lot more functional).

What could be better:

- The keys are pretty flat, so they don't give you the same feeling as a blackberry.

- The texting length limit is odd -- the first text in a conversation can be any number of characters, but when replying to a text, the phone stops accepting additional characters after 160. (160 characters is the actual limit for SMS text messages -- phones that accept more than that actually break the messages into multiple texts that the phone on the other end then puts back together. There's no good reason to limit the length of replies, so maybe this will get fixed in upcoming firmware updates).

- The display and camera are both a little behind the modern standards, although they would have been great a few years back. A 2 megapixel camera won't blow anyone away, but is enough to take some pictures as needed.

- Compatible apps are limited. From a quick review of the AT&T app store, there are few if any free apps other than demos, and even paid apps are limited.

- It's missing some of the features from more expensive phones, like GPS, FM Radio, or WiFi. Still, for a texting device and phone, it's great.

Other notes:

- The look of the phone is probably more suited to teens and young adults, which is appropriate for a texting phone. It's fire engine red and feels plastic-y with a swooped pattern on the back cover.

In my opinion, it's a big step up from my daughter's last texting phone, and I recommend it.

Update 8/15/12: Over the past few weeks, my daughter has two new texting complaints.

First, the phone only allocates 300kb to store texts. In fact, even if you add a memory card, there's no way to expand the space allocated to storing texts. It took several weeks to reach that limit, but now my daughter has to delete texts every day to stay under the limit. Worse, there's no way to mark multiple (but not all) texts in a conversation for mass deletion, and no easy way to copy the texts over to our home computer for storage.

Second, the phone is erratic about when it recognizes the sender for a text conversation. Some conversations are identified by the sender name in the texting app, but some are identified by phone number some of the time, by name other times. (For example, if she exits and reenters the texting app, a conversation that was labeled by phone number the first time may be identified by the contact name the second time).

Maybe those issues will get addressed in firmware, but for now, we're downgrading this to a lukewarm recommendation for heavy texters.

Who Said Sliders Can't Be Smart? May 9, 2012

Reviewer:  Steve Taylor  (Only visiting this planet) -

[[VIDEOID:mo2DRI72YMLKF2Z]] LG has made a nice new slider cell phone and it seems they have corrected some of the bugs from some of the past models. Although not as smart as the full blown smart phones it does bring some of us basic phone users to a new threshold.

I mentioned in the video that you will need a cover for this phone due to it's very slick finish. Amazon carries one Body Glove model in two colors but as of this review there are no others manufactured.

[[ASIN:B007XWXANW LG Xpression C395 Inlay Body Glove Gel Case Red]]

[[ASIN:B007XX3RDO Body Glove 9258101 Hard Shell Gel Inlay Slider Case f/LG Xpression Black]]

Overall I highly recommend this phone if you do not want a phone that requires a data plan and you are not one who beats the crud out of your cell phones. The slider function seems well built but may not withstand the torture some put their phones through. I'm giving this phone five stars because for the type of phone it is I think it deserves it. However I am not comparing it the amazing smart phones that are on the market today. This LG Xpression is not in their class (or price range).

PROS:

Solid construction
Touch screen works very well
Easy to use menus that make sense
Good sound and reception
Excellent battery life with the right setting
Easy to attach bluetooth function
Sharp colorful screen
One button screen lock
Speaker option
Can add 32mg card
Replaces MP3 player
Tools such as calendar, notes, alarm, photo editing...
Icon dialing

CONS:

Phone locks too fast when on call
Flat rubber keys on QWERTY keyboard
Slick casing requires a cover
If data is turned off can not send pictures, video or audio through text
Fixed lense camera okay but not as good as it should be

Great phone May 20, 2012

Reviewer:  Gearhead  (Los Angeles, CA) -

I've had this phone for about one week, and I have been very pleased with it so far -- and I am very picky. Being a new phone with very few reviews, I was skeptical.
I was looking for something to replace an older Pantech Link, that I use primarily for talking hands-free while driving and for texting.
I didn't want another phone with a data plan(already have iphones around the house), so one can imagine the choices are limited. Further, although the Pantech Link wasn't bad for a simple phone, I wasn't thrilled with it and we haven't had the greatest luck with other Pantech models my family members have had in the past. Needless to say, with AT&T, my choices of non-data plan phones became even further limited.
I'm going to keep this write-up short, but in summary, everything works the way it is supposed to (keep in mind this is not a smartphone). The touch screen is not like an iphone, but it is certainly acceptable. It is accurate, sensitive enough and predictable. One nice plus, I'm a mountain biker and ride with gloves. You cannot operate the touch screen on many phones while wearing gloves, but this one works fine. The ringer and speakerphone volumes are plenty loud when you want them to be.
One thing I needed to get used to: The bluetooth volume when you make a new call always defaults to the setting you configure in the phone settings. This is ok if you have that setting where you want it. Some phones go to the volume you used during the last call, which is nice. Of course, you can always adjust the volume during the call, but it will revert back for the next call. This is a very minor thing, and can be annoying if you don't set it the way you want it in the settings.
The slide out keyboard is good however the buttons are not raised, and therefore are not as easy to feel. I haven't used the keyboard much so far-- I've found that I can text pretty fast using the touchscreen and T9 for shorter messages. This does take some getting use to, however.
All in all, I'm very pleased, the phone hasn't done anything it's not supposed to, and is a very well designed phone with many advanced features.
I recommend looking over the user manual (available online), to learn more about it's features.
It seems to me that LG and AT&T did a good job with this one.
It is a great alternative if you do not want a smartphone.

My wife loves it. if i didnt need i smartphone i would get one for me. June 6, 2012

Reviewer:  Aaron Alvarez 

I purchased the phone for my wife as she wanted phone with a slide out keypad. I got it as advertised in 2 days. Amazon even sent a free car charger with it. Out of the box she loved the phone. It does feel slick as some other posters mentioned but i dont think youll need a case to avoid dropping it. It is a 3G phone with decent camera for emergencies/moments you dont want to miss. I am a fan of having a camera phone if you ever get into a car accident. take lots of pictures. This will not replace a point and shoot camera by any means but it will suffice. it also records video. It has a headphone jack on the top and a spot to add microSD for music. i added a 1GB from an old phone i had and my wife has music on it already. the media player has a simple interface and lets you listen over the speaker if you dont have headphones in. the user interface is simple and smartphone like with 3 screens to slide between. homescreen is the widget screen add what you want(clock, calendar, media player, message reminder, and notes) is what my wife has on it now.This phone has no games installed on it but has a folder to add some. Batter life is great. and sound quality is very good. Better than my mother in laws Samsung Evergreen. she does not like that phone. so if your comparing the 2. this one is better.

my one gripe is they sent it with a bad battery. got it plugged it in came back 2 hours and unplugged it. it had 3 bars. fully charged. later than night the phone wouldnt turn on. i plugged it in and the screen lit up showing LG logo. never turned on. I took it to an ATT store and the lady said the battery was no good. she opened a box for a new phone and gave me that battery. no problems since. like i said the phone is amazing. i would have given it 5 stars except for the battery problem which was easily fixed by battery swap. i have already recommended amazon wireless to friends and family. as the price is amazing. to get the same phone from att online it would have been $50 after mail in rebate. i paid a penny and got hooked up with a car charger. with the 2 day wait. hope this review helps those looking into getting this phone. oh yeah it does have a gps built in but i dont use it because you have to pay extra to AT&T when you do.

Beware 300kb text storage limit September 5, 2012

Reviewer:  CONYCAMO 

It looks and works great until you realize that once you fill the tiny memory allocated to texting you will have to delete texts every day to get new ones. All obvious solutions fail:
1) can't make the phone push texts to the microSD card
2) can't find software to back up texts
3) only two options for deleting texts
a) one at a time (in a really painful way such that menu to delete then you get the chance to delete one text before getting kicked back to regular menu so you have to go through menu again for each text delete)
b) delete a whole conversation

For kids that want to keep some text history this means a big time sink each day while they go through the tedious process or pruning to stay under the TINY 300kb limit (that is about 500 messages WITH NO PICTURES).

Seriously LG. Improve the software if you want this to be a phone for today's texters. It can't be that hard.

Discover what to eXpect from the LG Xpression. November 11, 2012

Reviewer:  B LIKES 

What should you expect from the LG Xpression? Know before you go.

I regularly use the text, call, MP3 player, calender/planner, memos, audio record, and camera. Had it for two months.

I give it 2.5 out of five stars and recommend it if you want a
- "free phone" more than you want a high-functioning gadget.
- only use text and call
- don't mind pocket dialing

The gory details:

Pros

- CONVERSATION VIEW (as it ought to always be) texts are displayed with the entire history of your texting with that contact, which rules. it puts the message in the context of the larger back and forth of the conversation, so you can easily scroll-up with the flick of your thumb and see what was said in previous messages.

- GOOD RECEPTION (again, as it ought to be . . .) texts and calls through thick walls

- phone and text functions work

- No data plan

- PHYSICAL Camera BUTTON (as it always ought to be) works at reasonable speed and doesn't look too bad.

- Standard headphone-jack (as god intended) u can use your regular headphones to block-out the rest of the people on the bus so that you can go home and watch TV on the internet and read this review.

- touch screen "feels" great, it's responsive and fast whenever phone is not frozen (see below).

CONS:

- EXPECT DELAYS in all non-basic function areas -music player esp.

- FREEZES inXplicably for 10-20 seconds maybe once a day, sometimes more.

- MUSIC PLAYER SLOWNESS & FLAWS: with 1800+ songs and it's VERY SLOW and gives you a "LOADING . . ." screen for literally 30-60 seconds (no Xaggeration) when you start the "app". Then another 15-25 seconds before you can use the (genuinely helpful) search feature. Plus, the phone limits you to 2000 songs (yes a 32GB card will work . . . as long as you only use about 1/8 of it for music.) aaaand it doesn't know %90 of the artists names or album titles making it basically only good for shuffle (which is mostly what I use it for, in case you're interested).

- ALARM(s) WON'T WAKE PHONE, none of the phone's 3 alarm apps (yes, three separate alarm apps) will wake the phone from being completely off (which every phone ought to do), so if you want the alarm to go off in the morning, you have to leave it on all night, risking battery-death and close-quarters cell-vibes to your dome-piece (brain).

- CONSTANT FACE DIAL - when I talk on the phone I often find that my face has swiftly: hung up on my call, re-written some random's contact information, put my call on hold (still no success in ever coming back from hold once there: I can't find the button? I guess I'm getting old.) and begun calling someone else. My face and this phone love to taunt me.

- CONSTANT POCKET DIAL - it's much too easy to unlock the phone by accident and it has no type-a-code-to-unlock feature (only a code to type in if you change sim cards which is very rare) a friend who has the same phone says they also pocket dial people all the time and at very unfortunate times.

- CLOCK is only on certain screens instead of always visible, if you want to know what time it is you may have to navigate to find a clock.

- no CALENDER CALLs, you can't be on a call and look at your calender, so someone asks you on a date, you have to be all "let me check my calender and then call you back . . ."

-Audio Recorder is okay but you must CONVERT the files (and download a file converter if you don't have one) to listen in itunes because the Xpression records in some crazy non-universal file format.

-CALENDER reminders just say: "a reminder is happening" but you have to unlock the screen, and click to find out what it is, instead of it just telling you in the initial dialog. and the mysterious reminders disappear fast so it's easy to miss them if you didn't feel the buzz the first time.

- FYI you cannot change your ringtone so I hope you like "At&T PlayOn" or vibrate. Yep, to date, I've never been able to change my ringtone because: every time i select the ringtones the phone says "loading . . ." for literally TWO AND A HALF MINUTES (for real, no joke, i just tested it for this review) and then the screen goes black and displays the LG symbol for 30 seconds or so in a process that takes over 3 MINUTES and yields zero results.

-the qwerty buttons aren't my favorite either, but therapy is helping me increase my coping skills.

L,
B

Great dumbphone! August 2, 2012

Reviewer:  Z. Meiners "drmeiners"  (Independence, MO) -

The choices for phones that don't require data plans gets smaller and smaller by the day. thank you LG for making a great phone for those of us that just want to talk, text, and occasionally send or view a picture text.

This is the best phone i've ever had that didn't require data service.

great touchscreen, great options, great battery life.

tech-UNsavvy people may not like the touch screen or all the setup options.

but tech savvy people that don't need/want a smartphone will really enjoy this phone.

LOVE this phone!! July 31, 2012

Reviewer:  Emily 

Despite the strange color, this phone is amazing!! It's a touch screen, which I love, and it slides out. WAY better than my old phone, the Eternity II. It is super easy to text on, but I don't know much about the web (I don't have a data plan). The minor down side is that the screen locks while you are calling after a few seconds, but that's the only bad thing.

There are 3 different screens (you can go to them on the touch screen), and they you can customize all of them.

If you have any further questions, please comment below.

I suggest this phone, especially to teens who love to text.

I also bought this case ([[ASIN:B008IDN4YU Black and White Flower Design Snap on Hard Plastic Cover Faceplate Case for Sprint LG Rumor Reflex LN272 / AT&T LG Xpression C395 + Screen Protector Film + Mini Adjustable Phone Stand]] and it looks super sharp with the red.

Hope this helped!

Better off with two tin cans and a piece of string... October 25, 2012

Reviewer:  Richard A. Ward 

I bought my first cell phone in 1986, so I'm not exactly new to the market. I didn't want a phone that required a data plan, and the Xpression looked like the least objectionable phone on the very limited list AT&T will let you use without a data plan. Opened the box, and found it had no manual, just a one sheet quick reference guide. It has all sorts of useful information on how to use AT&T Social net, and ignores the useless stuff like where they hid the button to hang up the phone when you finish a call. Most phones have a green button to dial and a red button to hang up, but not this one. Went to the LG website, and printed out the manual. It was 120 pages long, and that was just the English version. No telephone should be so convoluted that it requires a 120 page manual. After using the phone for a few days, I found the following fatal flaws:

When you try to listen to your voicemail, the keypad disappears off the touch screen. Since AT&T's voicemail system requires you to use the keypad off the touch screen to delete or save your messages, this is a bit of a problem. You have to slide out the keyboard, and find where they put the asterisk key so you can end the call.

If you put the phone in your pocket, the keyboard will slide in and out slightly as you walk. If you've locked the phone before you put it in your pocket, this will unlock it, allowing you to dial anyone in your contacts without even trying, or even knowing you're doing it. It also makes it difficult to pull the phone out of your pocket when the phone is ringing to see if you want to talk to that caller without inadvertently answering the phone.

The contact list is set up in such a way that if you have a home and mobile number listed for a particular person, the buttons are so close together that you end up having to use a stylus to select between them. The only way to make it work is to enter a seperate contact for each phone number, not for each person.

If you hit a wrong number when dialing and hit the back arrow to correct it, it enters a 3. You have to hit just above the back arrow to actually use it to delete.

If you have the keypad on the touch screen and slide out the keyboard, the screen says it's dialing. Doesn't say who it's dialing.

If you set the phone ringer on silent, sometimes it doesn't ring, sometimes it rings anyway. When you go back to check your settings to make sure you had it set just to vibrate, the settings show that you did.

I think this phone was designed as part of AT&T's marketing strategy to make people buy a smart phone and pay for a data plan to get a phone that actually functions.I think AT&T needs to accept that there is a substantial customer base that doesn't want to browse the web on a 3 inch screen. I've got a desktop, a laptop and a tablet, and I've got all the internet connectivity I need. All I really want my phone to do is make phone calls and be able to handle text messages.

Not a music player November 23, 2012

Reviewer:  R. BAER  (East Lansing, Michigan) -

My son tells me not to buy a phone expecting it to be a music player. But I was hopeful here and wanted text and no data plan. Unfortunately he was right. As another reviewer notes, don't expect to use a 32 gig card and load, say 3000 songs. Refuses to create lists of songs, artist or album. Shuffle frequently repeats and must be worked around. A T and T sent 2 replacements and now replacing with a Motorola Atrix HD. Great battery life on Xpression and works OK as a text device with limits noted. I thought the limited data feature (Email, weather news) was clunky to use. Would not recommend this device.

Seems to be a good phone for lite users. November 27, 2012

Reviewer:  William M. Hodges "Mike Hodges"  (Martinez, Ga United States) -

Short and sweet. I have to agree with the other reviews as written. My biggest con is becoming the same con with phones and high learning curve software packs. The manufacturers want us to spend a whole lot of time searching the web for information on how the product works or how to use it. Just trying to find out how to transfer pictures from my phone to my computer aside from emailing them back and forth. I am no spring chicken anymore but good clear instructions from the manufacturer would be Idea although it would cost money they do not want to spend. Even a good detailed instruction pack on the web would be terrific.

Cons
Slippery Case
Very Minimal Instructions.
Nothing about moving pictures to or from a computer although most people know how it should work.

Like
Large clear screen.
Keyboard is great for the older generation that still types words out.

Great phone for what it can do. October 22, 2012

Reviewer:  ericmh95 

I got this phone back in May and I like it. I mostly use it for Bluetooth internet tethering to my Android mp3 player. Battery life is eh. Just add the 10 bucks a month unlimited internet and this phone will be great.

GREAT PHONE! November 8, 2012

Reviewer:  mjhs7english 

GREAT PHONE!

My dad bought me this phone because my sister's old phone broke and it wouldn't charge, so I kept having to switch her battery packs. My dad then bought us each this phone. The LG Xpression is a red touchscreen phone that also has a QWERTY keyboard if you slide it sideways. I really like how you have the option of typing on a touchscreen or a QWERTY keyboard.
I think that the touchscreen keyboard could' have been better, it is hard to type on it but you have the QWERTY keyboard so it is okay. I recommend this to teenage boys and girls.

Solid messaging phone with a good level of customization July 1, 2012

Reviewer:  jadedpony  (Buffalo, NY) -

Build Quality
Solid body and smooth slider operation. Doesn't seem to utilize as thick of a plastic as my wife's Pantech Pursuit II but still solid. I haven't used texting on a phone before though my last phone had an on screen keypad with which I wrote notes, this physical keypad works better and I am less prone to make a mistake so there is less backspacing to make corrections. I will add battery life to this area as so far it has been great and I have not had any problems with it dying prematurely.

OS
The three home screens (contacts, widgets & shortcuts) are useful and switching between them is as easy as swiping across the screen. Though I haven't played with Android phones much from what I have, this home screen operates similar. The transition animation between each home screen is not as smooth as other operations on this phone (like scrolling through contacts) but, it does not lag much. The main settings menu is broken into four separate tabs and navigating between each is very quick and easy. They only annoying feature of this phone is when it locks the screen in between using the dial pad for automated messaging systems.

Texting
Texts are displayed in a conversation view by default but can be also viewed in a standard timeline fashion. As I stated earlier, I have just started texting but the keypad works pretty well for me. The first letter in a sentence is automatically capitalized by default which is nice but if the shift button is pressed before you start typing, ever character is capitalized. The alternate key works the same way, press once for the first character to be an alternate character or twice to keep each successive character as an alternate.

Storage
After removing the back plate and upon inserting an SD card, the phone automatically recognizes the card, adds its own folders and changes the default storage location for photos, videos and music to the card instead of the phone's memory. Adding pictures and music is simple. Use the provided USB data cable to connect the phone to your PC and the phone will automatically ask you to sync music, use the device as mass storage or establish a data connection. Select mass storage and you can immediately add photos and music.

Custom Ringtones
Ringtones are slightly more difficult to add and use. You cannot just use any mp3 file. The file must be both less than 30 seconds and 300kb. For each of my ringtones, as long as they are 30 seconds or less, they can be encoded at up to 80kbps. Once you have files that are under 300kb and less than 30 seconds long, add them to your SD card. From the file manager, you can play the file in the audio player and it will give you the option to click the use as button in the upper right. You can also just go to sounds and then ringtone and the files that meet the above criteria should be listed to select as ringtones.

Call Quality
I have honestly not made many calls but voice quality and volume seems pretty crisp. My last phones were mostly Motorolas and their call quality sounded a bit more natural but this phone's isn't bad. Reception coming over to AT&T and LG from Verizon and Motorola seems slightly lower inside of my one story work building but I haven't had any major problems yet.

Overall
This phone has met most of my expectations and exceeded others. For a free phone the quality on all fronts is great. My only complaints would be the restrictions on ringtones and that the orientation of the screen does not change when rotating the phone. It only changes when sliding out the keypad which is fine. There is also only an option of an onscreen dial pad and not an onscreen keypad which is fine but would have been a nice addition. Also the Brew MP OS does not seem "hackable" as my previous brew or P2k phones but this is made up for in the customization of the home screens. Having a 3.5mm headphone jack sounds nice for some but I never ended up using it on my previous phone. In the end, I would recommend this phone for someone who just wants a solid, simple messaging phone.

Quite Disappointing! Too many text issues September 13, 2012

Reviewer:  Paula 

So I bought this phone because after doing alot of research I saw it was highly rated on both amazon and AT&T. I previously had a palm pre (worst phone of my life) so I figured ANYTHING would be better. Also I no longer wanted to pay a monthly fee so since everyone seemed to love this phone I decided to buy it. I must say I am quite disappointed. In the 4.5 hours I`ve had it I have decided to return it asap!

The positive thing about this phone is that its speakers are amazing! At the highest volume (5) it sounds like it could be on speakerphone almost. I like the sleek finish and the color but thats about where my positives stop. There was a handful of things I didn`t like when using this phone that I hadn`t seen on any of the reviews from AT&T or here which I was surprised at. I was willing to deal with the flat buttons, which by the way require some force to press on. (Its like a small workout for my thumbs every time I write a text) and I know that the small storage space would have become a problem but I`m going to tell you what was a deal breaker for me!

As phone focused on texting I would expect it to have a good text platform. No! #1. You have to backspace one letter at a time. If you hold down the backspace button it erases the entire message instead of a word at a time like other phones. #2. When somebody texts you an annoying notification comes up every time, even when you are already in their conversation! You can chose to either view or ignore, but if you view while in the middle of writing a text, your text gets erased. And the last but definitely most annoying #3. THERE IS A 160 CHARACTER LIMIT!!

There were other things that I didn`t like so much; it`s very thick, the graphics look dated, and my battery went from full to dead in 4.5 hours, 1.5 of which I wasn`t using it. But the three texting issues I described above were the dealbreakers for me.

OK for calling, calculator. Forget the rest. May 16, 2013

Reviewer:  Brother H 

As a pure cell phone, the Xpresion 395 is fine. And the calculator works! So who cares? As for the rest, please read on.

Texting is very limited on this phone. After a couple of sentences, you are cut off and have to continue with a new document. The calendar was easy to use when I first got the phone, but I have quit using it since I have found that it arbitrarily freezes up the phone, sometimes for an hour or more. When pressing keypad numbers on this phone, you had better be FAST. Otherwise, the call is dropped and you have to call back.

For some reason, I gave this phone two stars out of 5 when I began this post. Now I am wondering why.

Decent phone. May 12, 2013

Reviewer:  elezabeth913 

I'll admit, I'd rather have a smart phone... But that's mostly because having an iPod touch and a cell phone can be a tad weird. I've had this phone for about two months now... And I know that most people say that you should get a case, when in reality, I drop this thing at least once a day, like knocking the battery out and everything and the phone it's just fine minus a couple of nicks in the finish.
As for the keyboard, the buttons are easy to press more than once, meaning that I'll end up with a message like this, "I'llll be tthere soon." However, having them not as protruding as some phones, it's easy to slide your fingers across and get out a message.
The touch screen is nice and I enjoy the accuracy. Now, call me an abuser of my phone, but I text while I'm in the shower, and the phone has still kept up. I remember having the touch screen on one of my previous LG phones just completely stop working.
In some areas it is very slow and likes to take its time thinking. But, it's a good alternative to your mp3. One thing I don't particularly enjoy is that it stops the music to play over your notification sounds. But, it does rewind a few seconds so that you remember where in the song you are.
I have noticed quite a few glitches. One of them being that in the texting app, it'll sometimes label the conversations by their phone numbers rather than by the contact name. But scrolling a little usually fixes it. Another one I noticed that I recently had to fix was that a text message pretended to be there and it couldn't delete it and so the only way I fixed was to completely reset to factory settings. Thank heaven I had my contacts and data on external places.
Another glitch is that when you listen to music, sometime it likes to convince you that it can't find the data for your messaging app and he only way to fix it is to turn the phone off and back on. And finally, I've had it just randomly restart on me. For absolutely no reason.
Overall it's a nice phone, and it's way better than the flip phone I had previously, but it does have its issues which I hope will be fixed sometime soon.

Features - READ before you buy April 27, 2013

Reviewer:  Nana Kay  (Whitehall, PA) -

Recently purchased this phone and I did no research before hand. My mistake. I went from an older phone (7 yrs older) to this LG Xpression. Old phone -I could connect to my laptop via USB and manage contacts and photos easily. To do this on the new phone I need to purchase a media card because the LG is incapable of connecting as easily as my old Nokia.
I did not want to change phones but my Nokia finally had structutal issues however after seven years I got my money's worth out of it.
I just did not think that a newer phone would be less capable than my old standby. I will try the media card but if it is not very very easy and inexpensive I may just go back to my old phone and tape the back on so it stays........
Very disappointed.

I don't like this phone. April 17, 2013

Reviewer:  amanda_rush1 

Sadly, I really dislike this phone. I do usually like LG phones, but not this one. I got it a few months ago, liked it at first because of the keyboard feature, but now I'm online shopping for a new phone. The keyboard buttons are tiny and hard to push. I'm a girl so I don't have big fingers. The touch screen sucks. Sometimes it takes me at least 5 tries to open a multimedia message because I can't get it to hit the tiny spot! And every time you miss it, it closes the message. Also the picture quality is poor. And you have to have it at just the right angle to even see your picture clearly. You can't send video messages either, even when under 10 seconds. When making a phone call, the screen automatically locks. This is annoying if you want to put it on speaker right away or something. The clock thing is inconvenient. It is a little box on the home screen, and you can't see it unless you're on the home screen. Anyway, I'm disappointed. If anyone knows of a good relatively inexpensive similar type phone, please let me know!

Holy Cow This Screen is Sensitive April 17, 2013

Reviewer:  Stephen Churay  (Denham Springs, LA United States) -

Overall design is nice. I don't do a lot of texting so any limitation to doing so doesn't bother me. What does bother me, is the touch screen sensitivity. I have a hard time scrolling through my contacts without bringing one into the calling cue. It makes pocket dialing a given so I can't put it in my pocket. Also, I wish the alarm volume was louder. Currently, I take my SIM card out at night and put it in an OLD Razor. That alarm will wake the dead. I'd sleep right through the LG's. For a free phone it's hard to complain but the function issues are hard to get around