LG eXpo Windows Phone
Posted by adminJan 2
- Innovative Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone with touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Qualcomm 1 GHz processor, and optional pico projector for presentations
- Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA 3G connectivity (850/1900/2100 MHz) for global roaming; compatible with optional AT&T Navigator turn-by-turn GPS, AT&T Mobile Music
- Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g); 5-megapixel camera/camcorder; Bluetooth PC tethering and stereo music; microSD expansion to 16 GB
- 1500 mAh lithium-ion battery for excellent talk and standby time
- What’s in the Box: handset, rechargeable battery, charger, stylus, USB cable, 3.5mm headset with adapter, quick start guide, user manual
Amazon.com Product Description
The perfect balance of powerful computing and thrilling multimedia, the LG eXpo for AT&T is the first smartphone in North America to use the Qualcomm 1 GHz processor, which offers fast processing speeds for running multiple applications without losing performance. In addition to a responsive touchscreen interface, the eXpo offers a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard.
The LG eXpo smartphone with optional pico projector snapped onto the back. … More >>
This phone is the best phone ever. the hardware, touchscreen, fingerprint scanner. everything is great but winmo 6.5 it needs so work but lg does a great job with its apps and menu. it is a great phone.
Rating: 5 / 5
The phone is a great piece of hardware that has a solid feel to it (I like the metallic feel, if you don’t mind and like plastic look at the Droid, feels a cheap and ‘plasticy’ as they come) The feel of the phone is great and feels solid like the Iphone (my wife has a 3GS).
Great speed, very responsive, the camera is cool and the keyboard has a great solid feel to it as well.
The only reason I give it a 3/5 is the OS. WinMo 6.5 has too many shortcomings to list and just does not have a great experience. No guestures like on the Iphone for browsing the web, (ping zooming is way cool) and all of the functionality is still not designed for touch but for a stylus. Trying to close buttons is annoying to say the least.
You can overcome the shortcoming of WinMo 6.5 with using some 3rd party programs like SPB home. It’s enough to make it usable. It’s a shame to see such a great product hindered by such a poor OS. WinMo 7 is 22 months late and now pushed out to end of FY10 from what I hear. From what I hear, it’s not 100% compatible with WinMo 6.1/6.5 apps and is still based on the WinCE core.
Rating: 2 / 5
This phone is great for people who know how to work technology. Windows Mobile has a high learning curve but once you get use to it, it is easy. Have not had to use my stylus once but there is some instances, ie using the internet, when the OS could be more finger friendly. The fingerprint detection and 1GHz processor is amazing! The phone has not froze on me yet and I usually run 6 different windows at once. With wifi, the internet is faster than my PC. Camera and keyboard works well. I wish Windows 7 came out sooner so this phone would have it, it would make it a lot easier to use the interface. People are starting to hear about this phone and are amazed to see the fingerprint detection and the high CPU speed in action. I am very impressed with this phone so far and cant wait to use the projector when it comes out.
Rating: 5 / 5
My carrier is AT&T and I didn’t want to go through the hassle to switch carriers so I stuck with AT&T, and I wanted to get a smartphone so my choices are basically iPhone, WinMo or Blackberry. I read some reviews and decided to pick the LG eXpo over the HTC Tilt 2 or other phones.
First Impression:
+ Cool looking phone, with a chrome-plated rim on the side,
+ Impressive specs, Quad-band, HSPDA/UMTS, Wi-Fi
+ has QWERTY keyboard, the keys are easy to press
+ Has dedicated button for access to task manager, by default set to the LG Task Manager, you can change it to the WinMo Task Manager or something else
- Takes a while to boot up, feels like 10 secs
- The touch screen takes a while to get used to, it’s not bad, but not as responsive as iPhone
+ Fingerprint sensor doubles as scrolling control
+ dedicated volume buttons
o By default the “today” screen is set to the WinMo default screen, but LG also implemented it’s own, so I switched to that one, which is an improvement over the WinMo apps in terms of finger-friendliness (the WinMo ones were mostly designed for stylus use).
– The contacts manager is unintuitive and hard to use. Functionality as simple as “jump to contacts that start with C” is lacking.
– The task manager: has screen shots for the opened applications, but the close buttons are too small
After playing with the phone a bit more:
- Fingerprint sensor is cool, but don’t be surprised if it takes more than a few swipes to recognize your fingerprint, you have to swipe slowly. Also, it traps dust.
o Camera is 5MP, but quality is so-so
o No dropped calls yet, but I haven’t seen the reception bar reach full yet.
- Loaded with tons of trial software that I can’t get rid of (they’re in the ROM, so unless you flash the ROM they’ll be there forever)
- Internet Explorer is slow, so I replaced with Opera Mobile 10 beta, but some AT&T specific links now won’t work (all those Media Net links)
- The LG (called LGIdle) shell is better than the WinMo default Today screen, but would be great if I could customize some of the buttons (e.g. replace IE with Opera and remove links to the trial software)
- Replaced the LG contact manager with iContact, which looks like the iPhone contact manager
- Looking into replacing the shell with PointUI (good) or SPB Home (best!)
- Some apps try to connect to the 3G network even when I have the WiFi connection
- Some apps (esp, WinMo Marketplace) tend to lock up when they’re accessing the Internet and the phone become unresponsive.
Conclusion:
It’s a cool phone but the software that comes with it out of the box is lacking and be prepared to spend time researching (and $$) to get some better apps.
p.s. I’ll update this review when I get more experienced with using this phone
Rating: 4 / 5