LG enV2 (VX-9100)
Phone Scoop Review
May 2, 2008 by Eric M. Zeman
Successor to the popular enV, the enV2 pares down on the size and makes improvements on the hardware. The only thing preventing it from being a superb phone is the software. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
A fine messaging phone.
Overall, it looks like a fine piece of engineering. As always, compromises must be made in any design. I haven't become a text messaging madman yet. I still like my voice calls. Overall, I find some glaring design flaws with this phone with the voice quality. Speaker-phone sound quality does not come near other phones I have used. (Defective speaker?) The phone has this annoying blown speaker sound like a speaker is being overdriven and is bottoming out and buzzing. When I use the phone normally ( without speaker), sometimes the person on the other end of the line cannot hear every word I say. I hate repeating what I already said. Another dislike I have is the ease of placing a call with the phone closed. If you don't open the phone, finding the person on the contact list is difficult. I set my speed dials to avoid this annoyance. Still, it is a significant design flaw.
Signal strength does not seem to be as solid as the previous phones I have used. (Motorola E815, LG enV and others) Battery life in standby is dependent upon how close you are to a tower. At my house, it is poor. Elsewhere, battery life is as good as reported in other reviews.
Now, some positives, it is very high on the geeky tools scale. Internet and the Navigator are very useful. Screen size is good. If I never made a voice call, I'd rate this device as superior.
For my uses, I rate this phone fairly low because it fails to improve upon the fundamental functions of a cell phone. Placing and receiving a call should be the foremost design criteria.
Horribl
Pros yes the battery life is awesome..mine lasts about 3 days as I don't use it alot.
nice big screen inside
Cons
You have to flip the phone open to do most everything.
The ring volume is very low and the vibrate is almost non existent.
BIG ONE...this phone is so uber sensitive I have had to replace it THREE times 5 months. Once because it got "wet" meaning I picked it up with a damp hand when it rang while I was washing dishes.
If you are someone who is in wet weather alot then dont get this phone because it can go haywire and stop working just on a misty day.
The screen will break if you set it down too hard also
cool looking. horrible phone.
okay, so i got this phone in November and once i got home it started messing up. it wouldn't let me send text messages, so i took the battery out and put it back in. then it wouldn't let me receive it so i did the same thing again. it was fine for about a month after that. but then i got a call from my friend and it wouldn't let me answer it or ignore it or anything. it froze my whole phone. about 5 minutes later it said call from unknown then it got to "voicemail is calling you" HOW THE CRAP DOES YOUR VOICEMAIL CALL YOU?!?!? your supposed to call your voicemail! so today it stopped working officially and now i am going to upgrade to the dare. goodbye ENv2, i wont miss you.
i did not like it
I had the original Envy phone and switched to the Envy2. I did not like the Envy2. You could not do a lot of things from the front of the phone like you would be able to on the first Envy. When receiving tex messages the phone had to open the phone to read the messages and to reply. The ring tones sucked and so did the zoom on the camera. Stick with the original Envy you would be happier.
LIVING FOR THIS PHONE
just got this phone yesterday i think its sooo attractive and functional.
All the pros
nice internal screen
amazingly loud and clear speakers and sound
nice big outside keyboard for dialing
and the voice command works like perfection
i was shocked, ive never had a phone where the voice command worked so well and was so intuitive. Im at a loss for words about how well this feature works.
The only downfall of this phone is
#1 they should have just made a switch along the right side of the phone for locking and unlocking.
#2 there shouldve been a shortcut choice for notepad which i use very often to organize my day. there currently is no shortcut setting to go right to the notepad. you can set the keyboard to start typing right into a notepad template but then when youre done and you save it, you have to go through 97 steps to get back to notepad to view your entry. THAT IS CACA!!!!
G HELLO CAN YOU FIX THIS WITH AN UPDATE THEN THE PHONE WOULD BE LIKE BUTTA!!!!!!
Im going to try the bluetooth today to see how well that works. Can anyone give me some feed back. For instance if you create a 30 second ringtone on your pc, can you bluetooth it right into your My ringtones section?
Any guidance would be welcome.
Thank you to all
Be Well, Be Safe, but most important Be Nice!
not all that
I have had the EnV2 for 5 days and I cannot stand it. It ranks almost as high as the Q as one of the worst phones I have ever owned. It is not intuitive and or quick to maneuver. There is only an up down button and no right left like on most phones I've ever used. The front screen is incredibly small - even smaller than you would find on a clamshell and that means you will need to open the phone for most activities and honestly I don't want to have a big clunky rectangle open all the time.
LG did reduce the size from the original but it awkward to hold and you will want to have a headset if you are going to talk on the phone for more than a minute unless you want a hand cramp.
The phone has big buttons on the front and inside keyboard but are really too big if you compare them texting or typing on something like a blackberry. But don't even try doing it from the front because as I said the screen is so small you can't see much of what you type or receive.
Finally, 2.0 MP camera is one of those things that I find incredibly irritating to say the least. Now understand I don't buy a phone to be a camera but I do find I am grateful to have it on my phone when I am somewhere unexpected without a camera. So back to my point. The camera has NO FLASH! Now that is something that should be noted if you plan to actually use your camera because without one the camera is fairly useless in lowlight settings and I've tried it several situations.
So basically you've got a phone with:
BIG buttons on the front and inside.
It's bright with nice sound.
Allows for standard headset plug-in
Cons
Awkward to hold
Front screen very small
For most uses you will need to open the phone
Chunky heavy phone despite the reduction
No Flash
Not intuitive - no right left button only up down.
This phone may be an improvement from the original but still has a long way to go. Maybe some people only text and this phone is for them. For me I'm going back to the Samsung Alias.
Nice phone!
Battery life is great..Over all a very good phone... Much better than most phones out there.
This Is An Awesome Phone
I love this phone, it's amazing. I got it in July 2008 and I really wasn't all to excited about it but then I started getting used to it and fell in love with it.
Pros
1. nice camera
2. qwerty and regular keyboard
3. music player
4. has instant messenger
5. has shortcut keys
6. has microsd
7. small, compact, can fit in pocket smoothly
8. can have slide show for background
its like a mini computer
Cons
1. the external does not have left and right arrow keys ( for when your texting)
2. can only use unlock password after you turn it on
its a great phone, i love it and hopefully you do to. its great for first time phone users and people who want a nice, not complex phone
owned for 5 months
I got two phones 5 months ago, its a great phone for texting, love the key pad, using as just a phone works just fine, there are some issues now for owning it for this amount of time.
Pros:
Great picture quality for a phone.
easy short cut keys
great key-pad for texting
Cons:
Scratches very easy.
chrome peeling off.
phone changes background after sending a pic.
shuts off sometimes when deleting texts.
get voice mail with out it ringing.
video isn't the best.
the two phones I do have will be going in for warranty, I will receive two more and will try them once again. I do like the phone and I searched around there really isn't another phone out the like this one that has the same features
I dint like the EnV2 very much
Pros:
-its a very nice looking phone and its small so it will fit in your pocket
-i like that it has a keyboard
Cons:
-The space bar is in a weird spot.
-Front screen is not the best for accessing the menu.. you gotta flip it open to use most applications
-No flash on the Camera (though it takes great pics in the light!)
-Only up and down on the front. No side to side.
- camera lacks autofocus and takes okay/not so great photos
- Like a few other reviewers here, I too have had the issue of it unlocking while in my purse a few times...no phantom phone calls were made, but I still think it's a pain
- The music button on the front is kind of pointless
- have 2 resend messages if u get an incoming message (no big deal, it politely asks you if you want 2 try sending again and you hit yes and your good to go)
- No cover for camera lens
- It isn't a touch screen
- If you take a photo or video and forget to hit the "save" button they won't save and you'll lose them
