LG VX9400 TV phone launches on Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless has launched its second MediaFLO mobile TV handset, the LG VX9400. Mobile TV has been a major talking point at the CTIA conference and LG has been showing off the VX9400 proudly. Sporting a unique form factor (the screen swivels into landscape orientation) and MediaFLO, the device is designed to work with V Cast TV.

Features of the LG VX9400 include:

QVGA screen with 262k colors
EV-DO 3G data
Bluetooth with A2DP stereo support
1.3 megapixel camera
microSD card slot
Because of the TV technology, Verizon Wireless will keep an exclusive on this handset. It's available now for $199.99 with a 2-year contract. Note: V Cast TV is only available in select markets, but the list is expanding.


For those looking for one of the most stylish and feature rich phones available, the LG VX-9400 truly delivers. The LG VX-9400 is not only a phone, but is also able to receive from Verizon mobile streaming TV. In fact, the phone itself looks amazing with the phone's screen able to slide from a normal vertical position to a very cool landscape orientation for TV viewing. The phone is incredible looking and definitely delivers the WOW factor. Besides its main TV related features, the LG VX-9400 delivers a QVGA screen, Bluetooth, a memory card slot for adding addition storage, a high quality music player and EVDO high speed data.


For those that want to watch TV on the go on your phone, the LG VX-9400 delivers a great individual viewing experience. Mobile TV is available through Verizon wireless and may require a separate subscription. The price for this subscription may vary and this service may only be available in certain areas in the US.
While this phone plays TV, it also offers a high quality MP3 player. Two great features included besides being easy to use is the loud and clear speakerphone and the 2.5 mm jack to add almost any headphone.
The phone is a slide down model and is pretty slim and small. It fits into your pocket nicely and for the most part is very easy to use. It shouldn't take that much of a learning curve to start using it. The battery is decent, although if you plan on using the TV and other media functions expect to charge it every night. If not, you won't have to worry about recharging the battery for several days at least.
The LG VX-9400 includes a 1.3 mega pixel camera, however I wished they would have upped the resolution and made this camera at least 2 mega pixels. The QVGA screen is so good, the phone can benefit from having a top of the line camera included.
As far as normal functions go, the LG VX-9400 is very intuitive and includes all the bells and whistles one expects from a phone. While expensive (especially when mobile TV subscription is included), the phone definitely delivers.
Pros
One of the best looking phones available
Watch TV on the go (subscription required and the service may not be available in all areas)
QVGA screen is incredible and can be either vertical or turned sideways for landscape mode
Music player is high quality and includes a loud and clear speakerphone, as well as a standard 2.5 mm headphone jack
Bluetooth and EVDO high speed data transfer
Cons
There are not that many cons, but a few annoyances:
Battery life is not that great when playing media
Camera should be better. 1.3 mega pixel should be upped to 2 MP
Price of phone is expensive, price of Verizon's V-cast is expensive also
Phone is not loaded with enough ring tones and no games
Overall
This phone is incredibly sleek and beautiful. For those looking to impress, this phone definitely delivers. While perfect for those looking to watch TV on the go, even if you are not, this is a feature filled phone perfect for everyday media use.

This Verizon service costs $25/month for all 8 channels plus V Cast (video and music) and Mobile Web. The $13/month Limited package gets you 4 channels and the $15 TV Basic package gets you all 8 channels but no V Cast video/music or Mobile Web. The 8 channels are NBC, NBC News, Fox Mobile, MTV Mobile, Comedy Central, CBS Mobile, Nickelodeon and ESPN. We're in one of the metro areas with Mobile TV service and reception is generally good. The picture is stunningly clear and sharp when in a good reception area but can drop audio and/or video frames in marginal coverage areas (say in a large building or in the center of a large house). When in a good coverage area you'll have no problems recognizing your favorite actor's mug, but digital blockiness and dithering in weak coverage spots will make it harder to ID his or her tiny visage. Remember, this is a broadcast digital TV service from MediaFlo and it does not use Verizon's voice and data networks, so your phone's 1x and EVDO signal bars bear no relation to the TV signal.


To watch TV in landscape mode and reveal the number pad, twist the front display clockwise. When closed, the two softkeys, clear and TV buttons, send and end keys as well as the directional pad are accessible (only the numbers are hidden under the display section). The design is interesting, and it's one of those you'll either love it or hate it things. The telescoping TV antenna is a whopper: thin but long with a large plastic end cap. Fortunately you need only raise this when watching TV. In a decent signal area you can get away with having the antenna at half mast with minor degradation, but you won't see or hear much of anything if the antenna is completely down.

The display is superb: very sharp and clear with vivid colors and a glossy look. In general, LG phones have very good displays and the large 2.2" VX9400 display is at the top of the heap among feature phones. Sound through the rear firing speaker is plenty loud and clear enough for TV watching, though you'll want to use a wired headset for better stereo sound when using the music player.

Phone Features and Reception

The LG is a digital dual band CDMA phone with EVDO for data. Reception is good and is a bit better than the Samsung u620. We had no problems downloading apps and music nor did we drop calls in a very signal-challenged area that gets 0-1 bar of 1x and 2 bars of EV on average with most Verizon phones. The LG managed 3 bars of EV and held onto that single bar of 1x for voice. Voice quality is very good both incoming and outgoing, though the speakerphone is tinny sounding (albeit loud) and our call recipients commented on the speakerphone's lesser voice quality.

The LG comes with Voice Signal's excellent voice command software that does true speech recognition (no need to record voice tags). The software can read out the contents of screens to you and it works not just for dialing by name and number but for common actions such as starting a text message, getting account info and launching applications. The voice command software doesn't take dictation (give them a couple more years!).

Camera

We were pleasantly surprised by the VX9400's 1.3 megapixel camera. LG generally does a good job with cameras and though 1.3MP is now bottom of the barrel, the phone took pleasing shots. Colors were reasonably accurate, noise is acceptable for a camera of this resolution and the shots were fairly clear by fixed focus lens standards. Not bad! The LG did better than the Samsung u620 with more vibrant colors, less white out and better focus.

The 2.2" display acts as the camera's viewfinder and you can launch the camera by pressing the dedicated side button. When in portrait mode the viewfinder takes up only a portion of the display. Switch to landscape mode by swiveling the display and it uses the entire screen. The camera can take still photos in JPEG format in 1280x960, 640x480, 320 x 240, 176 x144 and 160x120 resolutions. There's a self timer (3, 5 or 10 seconds), an LED flash (you can turn it off), white balance settings, 3 shutter sounds plus silent, color effects (sepia, black and white, negative), brightness control and selectable spot or average metering (a feature you don't usually see on low end camera modules). You can save photos to a microSD card or internal memory and view them in the photo viewer application.

The camera can record video with audio at 320 x 240 or 176 x 144 which is suitable for MMS. You can set it to record as long as you wish (as long as there's enough room on your storage card) or limit it to 15 seconds for MMS. Video quality is typical camera phone stuff: good color, but there's blockiness, especially if you're moving to follow your subject or there's a lot of movement in the scene. Sound quality is good as is volume.

Battery Life

As with most Verizon V Cast phones, EVDO is hard on the battery. If you're a V Cast video addict, you know what I'm talking about: an hour of V Cast video can eat half the battery. Fortunately, Mobile TV is much more battery friendly since it doesn't use the EVDO radio and the battery indicator didn't change after watching an hour long TV episode. With average use, the LG should last two days on a charge, including healthy use of the phone, texting, some web browsing and music playback. If you're a heavy V Cast video user, expect less and if you watch 4 hours of mobile TV each day, you'll charge nightly.

Bluetooth

The VX9400 has Bluetooth 1.2 with support for headset and handsfree profiles including car kits. The phone supports voice dialing over Bluetooth and it worked well with a variety of headsets including the Plantronics Discovery 655, scala 700 and Gennum nX6000. Incoming and outgoing audio were loud and clear and average range was good at 20 feet (tiny headsets like the Gennum had shorter range with the LG and all phones with which we tested it). The phone has a wide selection of Bluetooth profiles including DUN (dial up networking), serial port, Object Push and A2DP with AVRC for stereo bluetooth headphones. We were impressed with the LG's audio quality using A2DP with the Plantronics Pulsar 590a: it sounds better than most A2DP phones with strong bass and rich-sounding music.