LG VX-8500 Chocolate
Phone Scoop Review
Aug 11, 2006 by Eric Lin
An In-Depth review of LG's sleek new VX-8500 Chocolate slider music phone for Verizon Wireless. NEW: Video tour read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
The Chocolate you dont want to have
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This phone is nothing but a joke, but hopefully LG and Verizon were able to remove the glitches and issues in the newer version.
Pros: Good Music Player
Cons: Low battery life, Constant freezing, accidently dialed calls
Forced to buy "new" chocolate by Verizon & LG
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After more than a year of satisfactory hard use I decided to have my early Chocolate 8500 phone flashed at Verizon's suggestion to bring it up to date. MISTAKE!!!
Up until the re-flash this phone functioned flawlessly for me. No mistakes in dialing. No inadvertent dialing or activation of soft keys. No lost entries or erased photos. No difficulties texting. No problems that were related to the phone as opposed to the carrier (dead spots, network busy, etc.) The phone had a fantastic locking and unlocking feature that prevented accidental activation of the controls regardless of how it was banged around in my pocket, backpack, etc. Sure, it got scratched up and dirty looking but every time I pulled it out it was its same old black featureless self ready to go.
Not so any more. The phone now "activates" itself at the slightest touch and begins, with even lighter input, to run through all sorts of weird escapades. It will make calls on its own from your pocket or hand bag or alter entries or even turn on and order music from V-Cast! What's worse is that there is no way of shutting down the soft keys at all short of entering your lock code. A real pain when you need to make a call or do anything else with the phone.
Why would Verizon and LG disable a convenient, quick, and easy to use safety feature (double tap one particular side button in quick succession) to activate the soft keys and eliminate the ability to turn off the keys (with a tap on a different button) before putting the phone away?
Because they want to sell you the "new" Chocolate 8550
phone which has a dedicated locking and unlocking button for the lighted soft keys! You can always tell it's a scam when your phone is rendered useless by your provider before your contract expires. If you can find a phone with the early software versions (1,2) fine, otherwise do yourself a favor and avoid these LG products with planned obsolescence.
Pros: Small
Cons: Pain in the...
the chocolate is so bitter
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i got one for my b-day last last summer and it isnt as good as it sounds. the company sucks and the phone is so ugly. i still prefer t mobile as a company. and i still prefer the sidekick slide.
i guess its alright
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i currently have this phone in the mint green and so far so good. though i am getting tired of it so now i might get the new samsung gleam. anyway,........
Pros:
-cool colors
-pretty good themes
-vcast
-nice graphics
-pretty good reception in NJ
Cons:
-sensitive get annoying eventually
-kinda a fingerprint magnet
-a bit slow
-slide up,slide down
-low battery life
i mean it's really not that bad of a phone, but it just gets really irritating sometimes. now, the gleam is a whole other story, lol
BEST phone on the market!
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PROs:
Excellent reception, when traveling the last to lose service and first to regain.
Excellent call/sound quality
Very above-average battery life (days without charging even though used music and internet)
Good themes
VZ Navigator works great!
Touch screen
Touch screen sensitivity adjustments
Supports 2GB MicroSD
The only sliders that I have ever liked.
Lithium-Polymer battery
Lots of memory without an extra card
Great camera
Easy to use navigation.
Easy to load music files onto the Micro SD card, and very easy to activate the music player.
Great sounding speaker quality for music files.
When the ringer is set to "Loud" or "Volume 7" it is very loud.
Ear piece volume is very loud even when on a lower volume setting.
Text messaging is very easy to use and the messages send and download extremely fast with EVDO.
Good night(vision) mode
Over an hour video recording time w/ card.
Vibe + ring at same time option.
Big screen.
Speaker phone
Both mp3 and wma file types.
Strong and durable.
Small for everything it has on it!
Can open and close phone while talking even if its not on speaker.
VERY fast at everything!
Connects to car stereo w. right connections
Best vibrate I have ever felt!
Cons:
Fingerprints easily
Bad hollowy bluetooth (only wit Jabra)
Hard to press buttons while wearing cotton gloves.
You can only buy chargers and batteries from verizon.
Annoying battery flap on side of phone.
I have had this phone for about 8 months now and unless they come out with a faster phone with more options on it, my next phone is another chocolate as well.
This review is based off of the following phones that I have owned.
Pantech 215
Audiovox 8600
Audiovox 8610
Audiovox 9900
Audiovox 8910
Kyrocera 2235
LG 8500
LG 8300
LG 8100
LG 6100
LG 6000
LG 5200
LG 3200
Motorola V3M (razor)
Motorola E815
Motorola V265
Motorola V276
Nokia 2125i
PN-215
Samsung a930
Samsung u340
Samsung a870
Samsung a670
Samsung a650
Samsung a630
VX 8300 BETTER
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Poor Reception as compared to 8300
non verizon UI hard to see in sunlight 8300 silver spin much better
no speaker phone, plastic case shows smudges and scratchs easily.
I wanted to like this phone because I do not like flip phones but for right now In my opinion the VX 8300 is the best phone Verizon offers
Excellent phone
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I have demo'd this phone and without going into huge detail I can state that if you do not have an iPod, this is the phone for you. reception and voice quality is great it has a good feel and a very unique look. also with all the high end features packed into it I do feel it is worth a try. If you don't have an iPod and you want one, this is the phone for you.
Love the Chocolate
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This is definately the best Verizon phone I've ever had. Just one missing feature. I'm almost debating returning the phone because there is no speaker-phone. This is a feature I can't live without. I use this phone for work and experience a lot of on hold time listening to annoying music/advertisements and like to set the phone down so I can do other things while I'm waiting. I tired a few different headsets but still can hear as well as just using speaker-phone. Hopefully they can fix this with a simple software upgrade. Also a flash would be nice. The keypad is awesome and the mesic player is pretty cool too.
Not that great
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Pros:
- looks cool
- flash UI
- good mp3 player
Cons:
- battery is horrible (could have been just mine, but I could barely talk on it without having the battery die. Had to buy an extended battery and now it works fine.)
- camera quality is not good compared to other 1.3 megapixel phones (like the 8300 for example)
- heat sensitive touch buttons can be very annoying
- keypad is very small
- fingerprint magnet (the original is the one i have)
It isn't really one of the best Verizon has to offer.
LG VX8500 Chocolate Phone "Excellent"
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I don't know what the RAZR owner is talking about. HE OWNS A FREAKEN RAZR. The worst phone to come out yet. Anyways, back to the Chocolate phone. I've had it for more than just a few hours and carry it in my pocket (till the pouch comes in about two days) and it doesn't bother me. The screen display is awsome, and the camera part of the phone works and looks great. There is some getting use to the soft keys on the phone, but it's like that with anything new. The phone hasn't given me any trouble with reception or drop calls. Texting is a bit different for now, but again. It falls in getting use to the buttons. I love the fact that you can still have the music playing in the background while checking messages, surfing the web, etc..
The one downside to this phone is the earphone adapter, if you bought the music essential kit, the earphones already came with the special adapter, so no biggy, but if you haven't (like me) you need a adapter (comes with phone Thank God) to plug 2.5mm earphones in.
ps: I gave it a 4.5, cause it doesn't have a speaker phone mode. hopefully a software update unlocks it.
