First Look: LG's Tasty Chocolate Cell Phone

LG's Chocolate cell phone will draw your attention as much for its high-concept name as for its rich looks. Also known as the LG VX85000, the Chocolate--distinguished by a slick design, a bright screen, and amazing sound quality--is now available through Verizon Wireless for $150 with a new account and a two-year contract. While I admired the phone's sleek appearance and excellent sound, I found its navigational controls and convoluted menus frustrating.

Smooth as Chocolate

The Chocolate, which actually has a shiny, piano-black finish rather than the dark brown you might expect from its name, is definitely eye catching. This slider-style phone is slim and compact, measuring 3.8 by 1.9 by 0.7 inches when closed--about the same size as one of its closest rivals, the Sony Ericsson W810. However, while the Chocolate slides open to reveal its keypad, becoming longer as a result, the W810 is a candy bar-style phone that is as compact in use as it is when it's riding in your pocket.

Sturdily constructed, the Chocolate's slider mechanism is smooth; the top half of the phone glides effortlessly up, making it easy to use single-handed. The keypad itself is also extremely finger-friendly, with large, easy-to-press buttons.

Its 2-inch LCD is a 262,144-color TFT, with a resolution of 240 by 320 pixels. The display looked terrific and showed lots of crisp details in typical indoor use and in the shade, but I found it difficult to see in the glare of direct sunlight.

After the striking screen, the next thing I noticed was the Chocolate's slick-looking navigation. It lacks the usual complement of buttons on the front, offering touch-sensitive controls instead. Directly below the LCD, the face of the phone features a navigational ring that consists of four programmable buttons for accessing various phone features, with another button in the center. The front of the phone also presents two additional touch-sensitive soft buttons, located at the lower left and lower right of the LCD; their function varies depending upon the phone's use.

When the unit is activated, the center controls and the four navigational buttons illuminate in red, causing the phone to glow. The buttons certainly look cool, but in use they prove to be a mixed bag, and will require some getting used to. Though the sensitivity of the touch controls is adjustable, I often found myself invoking operations I hadn't intended. The Chocolate's detailed manual actually warns about this issue, and also advises against using the phone's touch buttons in a "humid environment."

Conveniently ringing the sides of the handset are other buttons: dedicated volume controls and a voice-command/recording button on the left, and controls for music, the camera, and end/power on the right.

I have a few other gripes with the interface. The convoluted menus are hard to navigate, and the context-sensitive menu options and button behaviors don't always act as you might anticipate. For example, the clear and back soft touch key doesn't always take you back; sometimes you have to use the end button instead.

In addition, the camera button on the right side of the handset shows only a camera icon, not a camera and video camera icon, even though it serves both purposes. When you go into the camera mode, the video camera isn't even an option, as you might expect it to be (you have to push the camera button twice to invoke the video camera). Once accessed, however, both the camera and the video camera seem to work well; I was particularly impressed with how the camera handled tricky lighting indoors.

The Chocolate does let you customize which menu items you'd like to see on your home page, but it would be a much stronger phone if the interface were cleaner and more self-explanatory from the outset, as not everyone will want to read the 118-page manual. You will need to break down and at least read the handy quick-start guide, if not the full manual, to figure out which buttons do what.

Feature-Packed Phone

The Chocolate is no slouch on features. In fact, it's so chock-full of capabilities that I'll start by calling out the one glaring omission: It has no speakerphone.

If you can get past that detail, you'll find tons of functions inside. The unit supports Web-based e-mail and instant messaging, and includes support for Verizon's high-speed EvDO network. It also has a microSD Card slot (no card is included with the basic phone package); support for playback of MPEG-4, 3GP, 3G2, and H.264 videos and MP3 and WMA audio; a capable 1.3-megapixel camera/camcorder; an alarm clock with music; and stereo Bluetooth, a boon for music fans who want to listen to tunes wirelessly. It also comes with a calendar, a notepad, and two calculators--one for basic math, and the other for helping determine how much you should tip.

Verizon Wireless's Web site says of the Chocolate: "Part MP3 player. Part phone." And, like LG's Fusic phone before it, the Chocolate features an iPod-like design. The buttons in the circular navigation pad on the phone's face double as controls for the audio player.

While the handset offers some impressive audio (and video) playback features, you'll need to purchase extra accessories and services if you want to take full advantage of its capabilities. The basic $150 handset that I tested lacks a USB cable for connecting the phone to your PC, a microSD Card for storing your music, and software to help you transfer your tunes. Verizon is offering a $200 package that includes the handset, a leather case, a car charger, and a Music Essentials kit consisting of a stereo headset, Music Manager PC software, and a USB cable. Another bundle, which features everything found in the previous package plus a 2GB microSD Card for storing tunes, costs $250.

If you're interested in acquiring songs or videos from Verizon's V Cast service, you'll have to pay an additional $15 per month, on top of your voice plan. For this fee you get the ability to download tunes to your PC for 99 cents (from there you can transfer them to the phone for free), or to the phone directly (via a messy interface) for $1.99.

The external speaker at the back of the unit produces reasonable sound quality, given its small size. But since the unit lacks a speakerphone, the speaker is there only for playing back audio and for sounding the alarm.

Sound Amazes, Interface Disappoints

The Chocolate's sound quality on calls impressed me. Generally speaking, I found it to be one of the best phones I've heard: virtually crystal clear, with little noticeable background noise. I heard a bit of an echo once, but the reason was unclear; it subsided shortly after it started, and didn't return. Another time I had crackling on the line; again, it went away, and the source (the phone itself, or the connection) was indeterminable. Of course, the sound quality of a phone is dependent on its connection, but some phones never sound good--and most never sound as good as this one did.

Beware if you don't plan on using a headset with the Chocolate: Our review unit got warm after a 20-minute phone call. Even the LCD felt a bit toasty (although not unbearably so) next to my cheek. I confirmed this phenomenon with a colleague who bought a Chocolate this weekend and had the same experience.

We're still completing our lab testing on the Chocolate, so check back to find out how well it performed in our tests of its talk-time battery life, and to see our final rating.

The hard-to-use navigational controls and messy menus temper my enthusiasm for the Chocolate and its far-out design. But its sound quality was stellar, and for that alone I can heartily recommend the phone. It also has strong potential as a multimedia device, especially if you're willing to upgrade to one of Verizon's music bundles.