I have a new cell phone and I absolutely love it. LG's new Env is an amazing phone that I prefer considerably to the iPhone.
The phone has two keypads. The one you see to the right also opens up into a pretty decent sized QERTY keyoard.
For me, the highlights of the phone are:
- The keyboard. I can use this to send meaningful text messages, IMs, email, etc.
- Navigation. It is the best GPS navigator I have ever used. Thanks to its seamless Internet integration with navigation, I can easily get the latest points of interests that go far beyond anything I've ever used. In addition, the voice navigation is outstanding. It doesn't just say "take next right" it says "Take a right in 400 yards at Vine street." where it pronounces the names of the streets with eerie accuracy.
- Email. I can pull my work email without a problem with it.
Those are the 3 biggies. Other nice features include the ability to identify a song you are listening to (it's like magic. You hear a song, let the phone listen to it and it will tell you what song it is and offer to download it for $1.99).
The included multimedia capabilities are reasonably good. I can buy music from the built in service. It's more pricey than iTunes but for the occasional gotta have song, it's fine. The built in 2 megapixel camera is okay but not great. The video it can take is okay but not great.
I do like the abilty of being able to take a picture and email it right then and there without having to jump through hoops. Same for video that's under 30 seconds in length. The instant messaging features support MSN, AOL, and Yahoo and work better than I had expected.
The phone isn't perfect though. It uses the icky BREW operating system which means it's web browser is terrible, it's UI inconsistent and clumsy, and it's Internet features somewhat limited (you can't use things like Yahoo to go or Google Maps mobile).
The other problem is that the phone is fairly crippled if you aren't within Verizon's network which gets patchy when you're in the sticks. For instance, up north at the cottage the phone works but none of the key features (including GPS) work because I'm outside Verizon's network (phone works through roaming which is free through my plan).
But these are nits in the bigger scheme of things. I wouldn't even contemplate ever going on a business trip again without a phone with the 3 major features again. And the iPhone only has 1 of them.