Review: LG Xenon
The Xenon seemingly has it all in the messaging department. SMS? Yup. MMS? You got it. Email? Been there, done that. IM? Yes, indeedy. Since messaging is what this phone is all about, let's take a close look.
First up, SMS/MMS. The Xenon does a solid job of making SMS/MMS composing as simple as possible. Open the keyboard, hit the dedicated SMS button, and away you go. You'll see a generous amount of the screen space dedicated to the content of the message. On the right side of the screen are some icons to let you take certain actions. The options menu is up at the very top, followed by a "send to" button for addressing messages, "insert" button for placing media files into the message. Below these are my two favorite icons: Function and Caps indicators. In other words, if you've pressed the Function key to get at some of the symbols on the keyboard, you'll see an on-screen indicator that the Fn key is active. Same goes for the Caps key. Nice touch. Once you're all done, send the message on its merry way. The "messaging" department appears to be strictly for SMS/MMS communication.
When it comes to email, pressing the email button on the keyboard launches the POP3 email system, which is browser-based. it works identically to that of other feature phone email systems. AT&T has loaded settings for Yahoo, AOL, AIM, Windows Live Hotmail, BellSouth and "other providers". The others include Comcast, Earthlink, Juno, Mindspring and NetZero. Oddly, there is no GMail client (major failing!), and you can't add POP3 / IMAP email from anyone other than the included email systems. An oversight, perhaps?
As for IM, AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger are all built in. Signing in is a snap. You can also save conversations, set sound notifications and have access to all the same tools (Fn and Caps indicators) when typing out your IMs. You can easily adjust your status to invisible or busy, see your list of online and offline friends, as well as add contacts and manage some lists. You can choose to leave your connection up and running in the background if you wish, making it easier to receive messages from friends.
The Xenon also has AT&T's Video Share service on board.
In sum, the messaging tools are what you'd expect and need from a messaging phone. Lack of GMail and Exchange access aside, it covers most bases.
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