LG Fusic / LX-550
Phone Scoop Review
Jul 7, 2006 by Eric Lin
Our In Depth review of LG's stylish and unique new 3G music phone for Sprint. NEW: Video Tour read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Best Phone I've Ever Owned
It's been about a week and a half since I got the Fusic. I've had Sprint since 1998 and have 5 lines on my account. I worked for Sprint for 4 years and have had more then a dozen phones. I can honestly say that this is the best phone that I've ever owned.
Pros:
-Good looking phone, the ability to change the face plates is nice. Over all good feel.
-Very nice quality screens both inside and out.
-Well designed menue system. It's very customizable and easy to use. I can check my Gmail in only 2 button presses after opening the flip.
-Well designed hard covers for the MicroSD, Headset, and Data ports.
-Ability to assign a movie as a desktop image.
-Power Vision. This phone is my first experiance with Power Vision, and it is very impressive. Google maps is very quick and responsive with power vision, where it was barely usable with regular vision service.
-Strong vibration function.
-Good battery life.
-T9 works well, has a nice drop down menue for options, and suggests the next word in a sentance for you.
Cons:
-Outside media controls are not very well designed, but also not really needed.
-Bluetooth won't allow the transfer of files, only contact scheduler information between phones.
-Can't assign videos to play as caller ID. Not a big deal, but it would be nice.
-Phone won't lay flat when sitting open.
-Not possible to transfer files out of the "assigned media" folder. This is the folder that the phone puts files that are being used for a phone function, for example, the screensaver.
-FM transmitter needs to be right next to my stereo to sound good. I was able to let it rest in the change holder in my dash, but would be nice to be able to put it on the seat.
Over all, the this is a great phone and the complaints that I have about it are very minor. I never was a fan of LG and was a die hard Sanyo fan. This is the first LG phone I have had for a very long time and it has very much impressed me.
Great Buy! for the geek at heart
I just received my phone a few day's ago, I went from an LG PM-225 to the LG Fusic, This is my review on what I have seen so far.
PRO's
- This phone has very good signal, (had signal's where I didn't with the PM-225)
- Great Display
- Text Messaging is very easy and fast to do with this phone
- The video and music play with both good picture, and sound quality
-This phone is also very customizable to make it feel to your personality
-Great Music tool's
-Download your own MP3's (different Music format's as well) and listen to them, and the song will resume if some one calls after the conversation is complete
- Lot's of good feature's such as:
Notepad / World Clock / Scheduler / Blue tooth / Calculator (Tip Calculator also) / Alarm Clock / Music Transmitter / Music Composer / Memory Card
Blue tooth - Great for wireless headphone's for music and headset for talking
Music Transmitter - Playing music while in your car, On their Car Stereo.
Music Composer - Make your own ring tones
Memory Card - Expandable, Formatting tool's as well.
The phone comes with a USB cable, 4 Faceplate's, Headphone's for listening to music and answering phone calls as well as 64 MB Micro SD card.
CONS
-If you use text messaging alot your battery will die very fast
-With the screen being a TFT your battery dies faster
A few problems!!
I was very skeptical of buying a LG phone. I have always been a big fan of Sanyo but decided I would give the Fusic a try. I would have to say the LG fusic would be a great phone if they fix the problems. I upgraded to this phone from a Sanyo 8300. I also had a Samsung A900 for a short time. The fusic was great except when it was on "vibrate all" mode the phone would vibrate even when there was no call or message coming in. I exchanged my first one because of the problem and the second one I got did it also. I have now traded that in for the Samsung A920. So far no one at the Sprint stores (two different ones on MN) have any clue why the phone would vibrate every few minutes on its own. I am not sure if its just my luck or if others have had this problem too but it is really anoying. I did like the screen quality, reception, camera/video camera. I think the phone could be a bit smaller but the size is ok.
Because of the vibrate issue I would not recommed this phone to my friends. I would recommed the Samsung A920 or A900 over the Fusic. The only thing I didn't like about the A900 was the battery life is horrible. The A920 and A900 are very similar except the size/shape and battery life. I wish the A920 was smaller but it is a great phone.
Hope this helps!
Fusic is the sweetest newbie for Sprint
I just got the handset today, only one thing i would is this phone greatest as a hell, i didn't expect that it will give me a such attention and
lovings. overall i got this phone for free, with free activation too. if any you guy try to purchase this phone just e-mail me, i will definitely tell you where should go in order to pick up this great deal. anyway i think this is great phone beside the sonyericsson walkman phone. ^_^
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
I just recently bought this phone. 2nd day actually! I have Sprint in Charlotte, NC and have always had Samsung phones. I bought this because I wanted one device for phone service and music. I considered the Samsung a920 and the a900 but the LG had just come out and I was intrigued by the FM Transmitter.
Menus seem pretty cool and easy to navigate. The screen is a bit smaller than I'm used (or seems so in comparison to the size of the device) but it's really bright with vivid colors. The menus and most other stuff if pretty customizable... as are the faceplates. (I'm currently using the blue one!)
Camera seems good... haven't taken anything more than a couple just to try it out. Haven't used the camcorder yet... but that's not why I bought it.
I don't think it's the most attractive phone on the market. Very Boxy... trying to look too much like an ipod. I also noticed that when I open the clamshell, there are button keypad imprints on the screen. The Keypad though is pretty cool and have a textured outline. They also are a cool blue at night.
Music quality of the mp3 player is phenomenal over the included earphones, but over the external speaker it's not very good. The included earphones are awkward in my ears.
Bluetooth works great. I have a Sony/Erickson hb8608 and it rocks (but it's my first exposure to bluetooth).
Downloading music onto the phone is easy - connect via usb then turn the feature on from the menu.
One big problem I have is that the mp3 player does not have a shuffle mode. I mean, what's up with that??? That really bugs me.
Another small thing it's missing is a birthdate field in the contacts listing (Samsung has this), but it does have an EZ tip calculator with all the other tools.
I tried to use the FM transmitter, but haven't had any luck. I'll try again after I'm done with this review.
I'm told the battery life is great, we'll see... signal strengh is the same as others. Overall good phone.
The best Sprint phone I've ever had
I got this phone for (full) Bluetooth feature.
I have an Hp laptop with Bluetooth and to create
a contact list all I had to do is type it into Microsoft Outlook and send to Bluetooth device.
Although I've not used it, you can use it as a Bluetooth wireless modem , I've tried the Bluetooth file transfer and it works great. There are so many things I've not tried but I just got this phone 6-9-06.
Pros: Great phone
Cons: None yet , but I will post later if their are any.
same constant vibrating problem
i love my new phone... but i've been having the same vibrating-every-2-minutes-problem that someone else wrote about. i've been trying to search in the manual to see if it's an indicator of some sort... i didn't realize that it was a defect until i found this site. i am hoping that the radio shack i bought this from will exchange it for me even though it's been over 2 weeks.
another problem i have with this phone is taht the MP3 player doesn't work with the earphones. even when the earphone is plugged in, the sound transmits through the speakers. really annoying...
if these two problems didn't exist, my rating would be much higher. my only hope now is that a new one will not have these (or any other) problems.
stupidest phone ever!
worst phone ever
PRO's:
nothing!!!
Con's:
everything!!!
-1/2 the time you can't get the internet or even the music. the network sucks!!!
i would have expected better from LG
Mostly good, but few things unmentioned.
This phone is overall good. In general most people got the PRO's and CON's spot on. The only thing I did not see anyone else mention was the issue I had with it with the original fusic I purchased as well as the replacement Sprint gave me.
The issue was; On occassion, the phone's MP3 keypad lighting on the outside would remain turnned on for days at a time. Restarting the phone would usually fix the problem. This Problem is minor, and in all honesty, having the little blue lights on all the times sometimes looks cool. But i just think that maybe it drains battery life. (The Battery life on this phone is one of the best i've seen, if not, then is good)
I've read that people had issues with the phone turrning off while looking at their picture mail. I Havn't. The original phone I got did turn off on me once, and that remains a mystery to me. Now that I think about it, I might have been looking at picture mail, but that's a big maybe.
disappointed with the music player
If I am wrong on anything I say here please tell me. The phone works good, I have a bluetooth headset for calls and it works well but I can't listen to the music on it so I am switching back and forth (really not using the bluetooth much) . I downloaded a cd on the phone and found out that you can only use the folders for music bought from sprint. music from cds has to go in the media folder. You can put it in a folder you create but it won't play. I thought it would work like an ipod with folders and shuffle. I bought a 1 gb micro sd. I am waffeling on taking it back and getting a lower priced phone and a seperate mp3 player. I thought this phone was going to be wonderful and now I feel like sprint is trying to make me buy my music from them and even then it wouldn't be as good as I thought it would be. If I would have know this before I would have chosen a different phone.
