LG Venus Pink Cell Phone
In-Depth ReviewWhat’s Good: Beautiful display; Context-sensitive menus; Extensive feature set; VZ Navigation works very well
What’s Not Good: Half a touchscreen sometimes feels gimmicky and frustrating; Touch controls sometimes unresponsive; Poor voice quality with unacceptable hiss on some calls; Somewhat bulky overall
Bottom Line: Venus’ half-touch/half-not display is an interesting idea that ultimately frustrated me more than it charmed me. The screens are beautiful and the morphing menus great, but I found myself wanting to touch the entire screen and not just the lower portion. Some won’t mind this, though, and for those Venus may be a dream come true: it’s a feature-rich slider with a beautiful high-res display and access to all of Verizon’s multimedia offerings save VCAST TV.
Specs:
Make/Model: LG Venus (VX-8800)
Network: CDMA
Data: EV-DO (1x EV-DO r0)
Carrier: Verizon Wireless (Locked)
Size: 102 x 51 x 15.7 mm
Weight: 107 g
Form Factor: Slider with Half-Touchscreen
Display: 2” Color LCD, 320 x 240 resolution, 262,000 Colors
Memory: 64 MB built-in, microSD card slot
Notable Features: Touch controls with content-sensitive menus; VCAST Music and Videos compatible; 2MP camera
 Check out Noah's sneak peak at Verizon's Voyager and Venus smartphones scheduled for release this November What’s Good: Beautiful display; Context-sensitive menus; Extensive feature set; VZ Navigation works very well
What’s Not Good: Half a touchscreen sometimes feels gimmicky and frustrating; Touch controls sometimes unresponsive; Poor voice quality with unacceptable hiss on some calls; Somewhat bulky overall
Bottom Line: Venus’ half-touch/half-not display is an interesting idea that ultimately frustrated me more than it charmed me. The screens are beautiful and the morphing menus great,... LG is not the world’s leading manufacturer of mobile phones but they may just be the leader in consistently bringing super hip, gotta have it cell phones to market. In the past six months or so they’ve unleashed an armada of eye catching handsets, including the Voyager, Prada, Viewty, Shine, Glimmer, and Vu. Not to be left out is the Venus, a Verizon Wireless slider phone with a unique split-screen display. At first glance Venus looks like a full-touchscreen device, but... Venus looks like the hi-tech luxury item it is. Slightly wider and larger than today’s average slider phone, Venus has an eye-catching chrome rim around its display and a grippy faux-leather backside that feels nice in the hand. My review sample was finished in classic black, and a pink version is also now available through Verizon. The back panel houses handset’s 2MP camera lens, and also snaps off to reveal the battery slot. Slide the display panel up and Venus... I tested Venus on Verizon’s CDMA network in the San Francisco Bay Area with less than pleasing results. Signal strength was generally good but voice quality was pretty shaky. Calls often exhibited digital distortion making the person on the other end sound a bit “robotic” or garbled. In a handful of cases calls came through with enough static that I hung up and tried again. I checked around the Web and noticed that a third or so of the reviews (professional and... Venus is quite the eye-catcher, as any product with its name should be. I might be a bit jaded since I get to test and write about almost all of the latest handsets, but I wound up thinking Venus suffers a bit from style over substance syndrome. At first glance the handset’s sleek slider design and beautiful front panel displays promise a world of interactive menus and enhanced ease of use. And they do deliver on that promise - but only to a point.
Many users may find... I'll be honest with you: I'm probably the only tech blogger in the world who hasn't played Guitar Hero or Rock Band yet. Yeah, that's because I'm a big loser, and also because I don't own a gaming console and when I do play I get oddly fascinated by weird games like Katamari Damacy and Wii Rock, Paper, Scissors and never make it to the more popular titles. The one chance I had to play Rock Band came at CES a few months back when some company or another had a console set up at their... Pros: It is a amazing phone. Camera is superb. Cons: none Summary: The venus is a very well thought out phone. E verything about it is great. The video and music features rock. The slider feature is helpful and texting is easier then it looks. I thought you might want to see a pic :)
Get your Pink Venus online today - same specs, but it's much prettier now :)
Buying choicesWith new service  with a Verizon plan from $49.99 With pre-paid service This item is not being sold with a pre-paid service service plan by any online merchant. Purchase phone only Accessories Purchase compatible accessories for this phone Ringtones & MediaShop for compatible mobile content for this phone
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