LG Ally / Apex / Axis
Phone Scoop Review
May 19, 2010 by Eric M. Zeman
LG's first Android phone for the U.S. scores well on most counts, but misses the mark in a few places. It feels like a smartphone that has been stuffed into the shell of a feature phone. Does it fit? read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
LG Axis
This is my first smartphone, and I've only had it for 4 days and I completely love it. I got it when our cable/net provider started providing cellular service. I can do everything on this phone that I can do on my pc. The touch screen is fluid, and I am able to navigate pretty efficiently.
The only con I have found so far is that if I am constantly using the radio or playing a game for a while eats up the battery. Which should be obvious.
Other than that, I love this phone and definitely recommend it.
LG Axis
I have been wanting a smartphone to be able to do what I've basically been doing on a computer... checking email, and basic surfing on the internet. Not much gaming. My laptop has been suffering, and I've been thinking about just replacing my laptop with my smartphone... thought it might be a little bit cheaper, and a little more convenient. So, when my carrier eventually started carrying the LG Axis, I had to check it out. When I first saw it, and tinkered with it a bit, I loved it! I eventually got it, and I've had it for four days now, and it's just been awesome! I would strongly recommend it!
Great "Starter" smartphone
We recently picked this one up for my wife. I've been using a Droid myself for the past year, while she had an older messaging phone (the LG Voyager). She was eligible for an upgrade on her line, and we've found that when we're out together she was borrowing my Droid more frequently, to my annoyance.
She DIDN'T want a super high-end smartphone, and she REALLY wanted a decent texting keyboard, not some touchscreen-only solution.
For her needs, the Ally is a near-perfect fit. It gets her "enough" smartphone features to keep her happy, and a good little keyboard that she can actually use, along with a respectable battery life.
For my use being on Android 2.1 and the limited internal storage space would be detriments, but for her those aren't an issue.
Great phone for specific needs, we just happen to fit those.
Great easy to use step into Androids
My rating is based on phone for the bucks.
I wanted a phone that would provide dependable good quality calls (afterall it is a phone first and foremost).
I also wanted the phone to allow me to get on facebook and online to websites if I so desired. I wanted a phone that I wouldn't get bored with and it needed to be budget friendly and easy for me to use from the start.
The LG Ally fits the bill on all of that. With the ability through the apps market to change up the apps on your phone, you can change up what your phone offers. The only concern I have about the phone is that the Youtube video quality is grainy. For me it wasn't worth spending $150 more to get better video quality.
WOW!!!!
I just got this phone a couple of days ago and i must say i love this device.
After testing the droid and the incredible i was somewhat unhappy in the bulkiness of them both and the lack of physical keyboard on the incredible and the lack of a good keyboard on the droid.
This phone has it all android os pysical keyboard and resposive touch screen.
I may add i live in a very very coutry area about 30 mins from town and i get great 3g service with it.
Pro's
Great Battery Life for smart phone( use phone all day and only charge at night)
Very responsive Touch Screen
Beautiful Screen clarity
Loud Speaker phone
Keyboard board is leaps and bounds better than Droid
Signal (Southern Il fatm land lol)
WiFi
Camera is fast to what I have been using
Gmail is fast
Con's
none that i have found yet
all in all to sum it up
the lg ally is a great phone for anyone who wants android without all the bulk that comes with certain devices or is on a budget
The BEST Driod available now!
I am not a fan of Motorola or HTC, so I have waited for this phone for sometime. I have been using the BB Storm 2 for the last 18 months. I heard others say that if you ever gave the Android system a try that I would lay down the BB. Its TRUE! I love the ability to customize the phone. For a smartphone, the battery life is the best I have experienced and I have used a "Q", Curve, and the Storm 1 & 2. There is not a comparison. If you have never had a smartphone, you need to realize they will not compare with a regular cell phone on battery life.
Positive:
Battery Life for smartphones
Touch Screen
Screen clarity
Loud Speaker phone
Apps (Free Apps I paid for on BB)
Keyboard board is lots better than Droid
Signal (Georgia)
WiFi
Bluetooth great with my car system
Camera is fast to what I have been using
Gmail is fast
Cons:
None at this point
I wasn't UNhappy with the phone...
Ah the LG Ally, my first smartphone and my introduction to Android. (Insert lovey dovey hearts and harp music here)
Without comparing the phone to something better or worse I can say it's average. I loved it as my first smartphone, with all the wonder and excitement that comes with finally not getting lost or knowing exactly how many bowling balls can fit in a olympic sized pool. The excitement fades, as it always does, and from there I had a phone (great service Verizon, thanks!) and nothing much else.
Funny thing is that it was doing fine up until the 2.2 update. Once that hit (another wave of excitement) I noticed that the phone would randomly turn off during long calls. I don't know if it over-heated or what but it got unbearable. Not crushing, but annoying none-the-less.
And now just a few quick points:
Size: Small but a little heavy.
Slide: One of my favorite aspects, I much prefer the motion of this phone than that of say the Droid 2.
Screen: Small but irrelevant. (In my eyes, it all looked rather nice anyway.)
All in all, I didn't hate it. Wouldn't go back to it now that I've upgraded, but I didn't hate it; and I'd recommend it to new smartphone users as long as my shutoff glitch was just because of my phone, and not a model-wide problem.
surprisingly bad
I picked up a used LG Ally on Craigslist really cheap as a way to test the Android waters (I'm a previous Blackberry stalwart). If I had relied on this experience I'd think pretty poorly of Android. A couple of weeks later I got tired of the issues I had with the LG Ally and picked up a Droid 2 Global. Here are my gripes with the LG Ally.
The Ally has a very small amount of ram and internal memory, so even with a few basic apps the device would run out of memory and you'd have to reboot it or clear your cache. Thus, you would have to futz with the phone to ensure you could do basic things like continuing to text message.
On the text messaging front, about 8% of the outgoing texts would fail to send, and I'd have to resend the texts. It would also take a long time to send texts.
Getting a GPS fix would take anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes in clear sky with the Ally. In contrast, the Droid 2 Global gets a fix nearly instantly outside, and within seconds under a thin roof.
As a phone, the LG Ally sounds alright, and signal strength was acceptable, no issues there.
Yet another issue is the speed of the phone. It is slow and because of the low memory, you'd have to wait for the icons to reappear if you went to the home screen.
Hardware wise, the phone seems pretty durable, and the screen quality and resolution are decent.
As for rooting, it actually took some doing to root. The phone preformed much better with the Velocity rom as opposed to stock. One benefit of this phone is the very vanilla nature of the Android on it.
So, I'd recommend this phone for people who want a cheap phone that does the basics in a somewhat acceptable way, or perhaps for those who end up dropping their phone in the toilet on occasion. They are cheap to replace on the secondary market. Otherwise, look at other phones.
Not for me
I got this phone almost three weeks ago. This phone started out very good and I liked it. At about a week and a half the new wore off and I didn't l like it anymore. My advice to you is to get the Droid or another Android phone.
The Pros
quality built phone
feels good in your hand
very few dropped calls
Android OS
The Cons
takes forever to charge
battery
phone is slow and not smooth
There is a reason that this phone is so cheap!
Awesom!
I have owned or at least tried almost every single phone (except smartphone) that Verizon has offered over the years, and this is my very first smartphone.
Granted I cannot compare it to any of the other smartphones out there as I have never had one, but for my first one, I'd say it's a great one!
Call quality, ease of function, build quality, overall all function are amazing. This phone is easy to use even never having a smartphone before.
I have always been an LG fan and had to get this phone and am so glad I did.
