LG CE500
Average Ratings
Good Phone, awesome MP3 player
I have been using this phone for a little over a week now as a demo, and so far, it's a very good phone. Just going right into pros and cons.
Pros
Outstanding MP3 player equipped. I'm quite the audiophile, and the sound quality is excellent. I've tested the Motorola Rokr, and this handset kills it through and through.
Great form. I like the sleek glossy black finish on it. Keypad/functions are very user friendly. Overall weight/feel is spot on.
External display has a surprisingly high resolution.
Stereo headset/handsfree unit that comes with it is very crisp.
Call quality is good. Haven't dropped a call yet. Great reception. I get reception in places (my apartment, Chandler AZ) that I did not previously with my Nokia 6620.
Uses Micro SD, which I like a lot. Saves a ton of space.
It comes with Tetris
Cons
Only comes with a 64mb Micro SD card. A 512mb card like the Rokr would have been nice
No bluetooth!
Camera isn't that great.
Limited default ringtones
I'm personally not a fan of external antennas, but that's just me, and not sure if that would necessarily constitute a con, being a personal opinion.
That's it. If you have to have blutooth, don't buy it, but otherwise, I love this phone!!
GREAT PHONE!!!
Im in the wireless business and i can tell if a phone will sell or not, and this one sells. My company sold these phone for such a short time because we sold too many at once and there was a backstock. I got the last phone in the area and i love the phone. I have had it for 5 months now and i cant complain. The signal is great and its sooo easy to use. the only bad thing about it and it could just be me, is the music to download is hard to do but every thing else is great!!! i love this phone and it will be hard to upgrade from this phone!
pros: MP3
easy to use
great signal
big buttons
cons: music is hard to download
Review & How to Transfer Ringtones/Graphics
Like many others, I think this is a good phone, but it could have been great. LG dropped the ball on some pretty important features.
Pros:
Excellent MP3 player
Very good signal reception
Clear call quality
Cons:
No speakerphone/voice dial
No bluetooth
Poor camera/video
THE GOOD
1. The sound quality on of the MP3 player (w/incl headphones) sounds as good or better than many cd players and dedicated mp3 players I've listened to. The best EQ preset, imho, is Country. Headphones provide clear highs and good bass tones.
2. Signal reception is among the best I've had on a cell phone. Since the antenna is NOT removeable, this is a very good thing.
THE BAD
1. With the external speakers, you'd think they'd provide speakerphone/voice dialing capabilities...but they don't.
2. Very poor camera. Pictures I've taken are way too overexposed and almost always slightly blurry.
TRANSFERRING RINGTONES/GRAPHICS TO CE500:
If you want to transfer ringtones (incl mp3 tones) and graphics to this phone, forget the included cable and software...it's only good for mp3 song files. There is a web site that provides a FREE service that allows you to transfer files to your phone via WAP. To do this you must have internet access on home pc and have WAP browser enabled on your CE500. Follow instructions below to transfer files:
ON HOME PC (first)
1. Place files to transfer on your PC
2. From PC, go to http://www.mobilatory.com
3. Click on "Send to Phone" link
4. In section 1, click on Browse button and locate the file to send to your phone.
5. Fill out the info on the page, then click Send button
FROM CE500 (second)
1. Select Menu, 5, 3 to go to the "Enter URL" page for your WAP browser
2. Enter http://mobilatory.com in the "Enter Address" field
3. In space provided, enter unique identifier provided from the Mobilatory website, then click "Get File" link
4. On the resulting page, click "Get File" link again and file will be downloaded to your phone
could have been a great phone!!!
Pros:
1)mp3 player sound is so GREAT!!!!
2)nice colorful icons
3)has a big external display where when in camera mode, you can actually see the camera; therefore, you can use it as a mirror cuz u can see yourself or take a pic of yourself
4)like how you can control the mp3 player from the external part without even opening the phone
Cons:
1)CANNOT make your mp3 ringtones to be your ringtone for callers
2)the camera is not all that good, don't even think it has a zoom
3)when on the phone, you can send text messages, but you can't read a text message if u receive it while on the phone
4)no speakerphone on the phone!!
5)using the software that is included, it takes kinda a long time for the song to transfer. I wish they could allow you to select more than one song to transfer.
6)the material of phone leaves fingerprints all over the phone when touched
7)when using the mp3 player, you CANNOT do anything else(like play game, text, search numbers, ets)..when using the mp3 player that is the only thing that you can do at that moment
8)NO BLUETOOTH!!! it has IR, but bluetooth is the new thing so i don't know why they would put IR on it
9)The included software does not have a place to transfer mp3 to aac files
10)sometimes the phone just makes this beeping noise like you have a incoming call on call waiting--i don't know if anyone else phone do that, but the other person that i know have this phone has the same problem
11)it kinda has a bulky size to it
Man, this phone could have been so much better!!!!let me stop before i keep coming up with stuff wrong with the phone
Excellent Choice
I base my reviews on facts.
Based on other reviews, they are rating on mp3 ringtones, alarm snooze and memory.
Why not buy an alarm clock, what other phone has an excellent mp3 player at all, since when was the quality of the phone based on how many ringtones it can hold?
I recently purchased the moto razor and had to have it replaced 6 times due to white screen rebooting issues. I switched over to this LG CE500 and have yet to have a problem out of it.
Pros
Excellent screen quality
Nice camera
Best reception phone period
Excellent backlight
Unlike motorola, has the best menu design (moto menu looks cheap)
Nice tools
Sleek phone- outside and keypad
Cons
(Mentioned by others)
mp3 ringtones, memory, alarm snooze.
(these cons do not bother me, I did not buy it for these reasons.)
In regards to someones review about the external backlight going dark, in settings you can change the default 10 seconds to 30 seconds and it will light the room up.
Excellent phone, would recommend to anyone.
Could have been great, but it's a mixed bag
This phone had potential to be something special. I really wanted this phone, and I really wanted to love it.
It has a great interface, very easy to use, customizeable, great reception. It's lightweight and looks good. Plus it has an MP3 player!
However, it really dropped the ball in a few key areas (for me anyway) that are making me take it back. I'm very disappointed.
First is the lack of MP3 ringtone support. It claims it has it, but I haven't been able to get it to work. I use custom made MP3 ringtones, and they work great on my Moto V551. Load them to the memory card, or thru the software and you can't use them. Even tried converting the tones to an MMF and it still wouldn't use it. Couldn't find information on sites like these to get these to work.
Same thing goes for pictures. I have pictures of family and friends for photo caller ID (some I don't see very often) and also pics of my kid and pets for wallpaper. Tried to transfer those to the memory card and it wouldn't read the pics.
Bottom line with the memory card: it's for MP3 player ONLY. Big mistake.
I think the above are to force you to use Cingular's MMS service to move files around and download ringtones. I'm not paying for something I already have and should be able to move easily with the included memory card.
One thing that bugs me is that the alarm clock doesn't have a snooze button. Every phone I've ever owned could be snoozed. Not very useful when your phone's your alarm clock.
External display doesn't display information after backlight goes off. Other LG phones and my Moto show signal strength, time, voice mail waiting, battery, etc. External LCD is pretty much useless.
Camera flash doesn't flash, but rather stays on.
If the above don't bother you, I think it can be a great phone. For me, there are just too many annoyances that make it a deal breaker. The phone would be nearly perfect if the memory card could be used for all file types and not just the MP3 player.
LG CE500 A great phone for the pice
Pro:
I love this phone it has all of the features that I need.
Not a bad camera.
CD quality mp3 sound with the ear buds.
Sounds great with the external speakers too.
Almost always has a good signal and I have not experienced a dropped call.
Con:
It doesn't have a speaker phone feature or Blue tooth capability.
The battery life is very limited when using the MVP feature.
The usb cable and software, "That you really don't need, but could be fun are useless."
Just use the ring tones that come with it.
Over all I am very happy with this phone.
An Okay Phone.
I had this phone for a short time, also, during my short time with Cingular (the new at&t, or whatever).
Cons:
Low video memory
VGA camera
Small memory
Pros:
Mp3
Video/Camera
Not too big or small
All things considered, it was a decent phone, but I also see why it didn't last long.
GREAT PHONE!!!!!
I've been using this phone for over 2 years now. Ive dropped this phone too many times to count and its never been broken or malfunctioning. I like the fact that you can change the face plate and the battery cover to different colors. Here are my pro's and con's.......
PROS
BIG color screen
Easily accessible menu
Good ringtones
Quality camera
Great signal strength
Bluetooth
Assign different ringer I.D's to each person in your phone book instead of by groups
Backlight is extremely bright, lights up an entire room
very nice calendar
Unique keypad, takes a bit to get used to
Internal antenna
CONS
Only has 1 alarm clock, but its better than none
Battery life sucks!
Memory sucks!
You can use pictures you take with the camera as backgrounds but they don't fit the screen
Picture caller I.D. is WAY too small
Picture quality could be a bit better
Opening different programs and redial is VERY slow
The phone is a bit bulky
OVERALL
I think the pros outweigh the cons by alot. There are more great things about this phone than bad. I think if they improved some things with this phone and came out with a new model with some extras like MP3 player and radio, it would make this phone the #1 phone in history!
