LG eXpo Phone Review
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 by Kelly Sutton I was able to get my hands on the new LG eXpo, which has some pretty humorous commercials floating around the 'Net. It's biggest selling point is the "Pico Projector" that you can buy for it.
That's right: it's the first phone in existence that has a projector you can attach to it. Why would anyone need a tiny projector that projects a screen smaller than 4 feet? I don't know. If you find out, please tell me.
On the whole, I found the phone to be generally unusable due to the lousy touch screen on the thing. The keyboard is decent, but even the phone's fast processor is not fast enough to keep up with the sluggish Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.
I recommend using you Christmas money to get something better, like an iPhone 3GS or a Verizon Droid.
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Reader Comments (7)
ha lol, good review ... bad product, clearly
"The Mom Test" lol awseome
A phone with a projector???
funny,thanks for tis info
Bad review. I have the phone. I got it three days ago from the UPS man. The projector is not available for sale yet.
The 1Ghz Snapdragon processor is smoking fast. The touch screen is made to take advantage of the stylus, which I admit should have been made to go inside of the phone for storage, not dangle from it. If you have a long fingernail, you can use it just as easily. There are changes I will be making to the WinMo 6.5 through PowerShell and registry hacks to get a little boost, but I like it more still than Android or iPhone.
I reluctantly got my wife an iPhone for Christmas 10 days ago. She already hates it and wants to take my phone from me. The iPhone lacks a real keyboard, so she has difficulty typing. The iPhone's screen is heat sensitive, not heat or touch sensitive. Her nails make typing difficult. The iPhone does not pass a three-foot drop test very well. Please try it yourself and post a picture of the screen afterward if you don't believe it. It is also much slower than my eXpo.
After a two-week study on the phone, I will be doing my own review and posting it. Five minutes of study is not enough to give an accurate review. I have found a few cons, like the stylus, but it is still better than the iPhone.
As for the projector, I do intend to get it. I do independent IT consulting to a lot of small companies. Usually, I take my tablet PC and show everyone the screen. Most small companies don't have the money for an elaborate set up in a conference room. With the projector, I can drop a PowerPoint presentation onto a plain white board. I can even make it a peka kucha presentation (sound and limited to 20-second slides) because the speaker on the phone is a real beast. After I sign my deals, I'll take a picture and use the flash on the phone when snapping 5MP pics. I fail to see how an iPhone can compete with this in a business environment. If you are only surfing porn and music, get your iPhone. I am happy with my purchase.
@MadWhiteHatter
I see we disagree quite a bit about the LG eXpo. Here's a few things that I should clarify in text:
The phone does have it's cool parts. I like the little fingerprint reader/scrolly nub. It's pretty nice and it works.
The speed of the phone is not really the problem, it's the behavior of many of the applications and lack of any HCI guidelines on the Windows Mobile 6.5 platform. People knock Apple for being stringent with their application review process (and it does suck in a lot of cases) but Apple is also making sure that their applications perform the same to some degree.
Decisions like these are reflected in the platforms. WM 6.5 has two "home screens," the iPhone has one. It's not the biggest deal, but it definitely increases the learning curve.
While Apple/Google are not as religious about Palm at this, you can definitely tell there's some reverence for the "three tap rule" throughout the system. Most applications can be made to do something powerful within 3-4 taps/gestures. The fact that WM 6.5 has a selection scroller thing that must select something before I click it is asinine. There is no hope of a three-tap rule after that, because it takes 5 taps--some of them not registering on the screen--to just launch an application. The interfaces on the phone were merely added for the sake of having them: there is no cohesion to this phone at all. Looking at the specs it seems impressive; using it feels disjointed.
All of this being said, you have much more control over what types of applications you allow on your phone. It was weird to be able to visit a Web page and download an application without thinking.
I received the projector yesterday in the mail, and it's a novelty. It only works in a pitch black room at a maximum distance of about 6 or 7 feet. If you were really in a crunch, you could use it. For now, this phone is still a big pass in my book.
hi. There. They. Say. The. Picko. Projector. As. Big. As. 120. Inches. Or. 10. Feet. Or. As. Small. As. 14. Inches
I am amazed at the color display, the durability and touchscreen capabilities of this phone. It looks sleek and sharp. I like the locking of the display when using the keyboard which, I think is very nice.