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Review: LG Xenon

Form Basics Extras Video Wrap Up Comments 2

Is It Your Type? Body The Three S's Touch

Screen

The screen of the Xenon reminds me a lot of the screens we've seen on other LG touch devices, such as the Dare and Versa. It's not the biggest touch screen out there, but it provides enough real estate to comfortably use the phone and view content. I found it to be nice and bright, though icons and screen animations had just a hint of pixelization. Being a touch device, keep in mind that you're going to get your fingerprints all over it. Reading through finger grease patterns is simply a way of life with touch phones, and the Xenon is no different. This is really only a problem outdoors. If viewed at a slight angle, the screen can be difficult to read, but viewed head-on, even in sunlight, it is readable.

Signal

The LG was a 3G signal champ. It showed a full 5 bars no matter where I took it... outdoors. Buildings, such as our New Jersey "vault", interfered with the Xenon's signal gathering capabilities, but only a little bit. It held onto 2 bars in the vault, where my iPhone - also on AT&T, of course - lost signal altogether. In my time using the device, I never saw it revert to AT&T's EDGE network; it always had 3G connectivity. How does this add up to real-world usage? No dropped calls, quick data performance, no hang-ups and no missed calls.

Sound

Call quality of the Xenon was good. Even in noisy coffee shops, I had no trouble hearing callers at all (with the earpiece volume set to 60%), though they had a little bit of trouble hearing me. Set all the way up, the earpiece could easily overcome a noisy city street, but probably not a rock concert. Calls were clear. I didn't hear any goofy sounds or static at all. Ringers could be set at nice, loud volumes. The vibrate alert was a little weak in my opinion.

Battery

Battery life was acceptable. I charged it up over night, unplugged it first thing in the morning, and it ran for three days straight with regular phone and messaging use. Firing up the browser seemed to drag on battery life a bit, as did consistent use of the camera (w/ flash). You should expect to get two full days of use out of it if you do a little bit of everything, but I'd bring a charger when traveling for the weekend.

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LG Xenon GR500

2.8" display 240 x 400 pixels
950 mAh battery
Memory Card Slot, Hardware Text Keyboard

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