LG CU500

Hi all,

just picked up my lg cu500 on friday and i'm super happy with it =). Cingular definitely has better reception than t-mobile where i live (chicagoland area). The call quality is absolutely excellent! I have had many phones before and my current phone is an unlocked sony ericsson w800i (got it last fall). As you know, it's not a shabby phone.

The keys are excellent to press. Slighty raised so you know their there and can easily dial without looking down, but not big enough to be clunky or have need to press hard.

Even though the phone doesn't currently sync with outlook (biggest downfall of this phone, any phone, imho) There is enough room to put a mobile number, fax, business, home, email etc and multiples of each. You can assign groups and place specific rings to them. There is room for a picture and a memo to write anything miscellaneous. When you are searching through the address book it responds INSTANTLY. I know it's only the name listing but i've had many phones that had to think for a second, or had a little hiccup. Makes finding people so much easier.

Even though it doesn't have voicedial, you can assign 9 speed dial numbers, and for me, that is enough. One thing i LOVED about the verizon phones i looked at (chocolate and a930) was their intelligent voicedial. So you just press ONE button and then say "Call John" and it looks it up and calls the default number. Pretty sweet.

But my current phone has voicedial and i've only used it once or twice in a years time. I guess i would use it more if i was one of those people that obnoxiously where their bluetooth headset EVERYWHERE they go, just praying for someone to call them so they can start talking loudly and look important

. In my opinion, it's just as easy to open phone and hold down 1 button as it is to voicedial. Now if you have more than 9 people you call regularly or you are a power bluetooth user, i could see this being a big deal. Cingular has a voicedial feature you can add for $5/mo but it's not really worth it since you press *83 and then say who you want to call. Again, pressing 1 speed dial button is easier and going to the address book and pressing 2 numbers to get to right name is just as easy and saves you $5/mo.

As i said reception's great. One very nice thing is the stereo speakers on the inside of the phone above the screen. This is also where you listen to the caller. B/c the speakers span pretty much the width of the phone, you don't have to find that "pinhole sweetspot" you do on many other models. So you can casually hold the phone to your head at any angle you feel lilke and still hear the other person great the whole time.

Cingular Video is stupendous! there are 2 MAJOR problems though

. First, asking permission everytime you want to watch a clip. I think it's a warning since if you don't have the unlimited you could EASILY have a bill over $1,000 if you streamed enough video each day. (i think a 3-min clip would be about $20, so 50 of those would be $1,000. very doable in 30 days). i think i found a thread on howards forums that has a hack to get rid of this permission thing. If it works (many people have already tried it and say it does) that would be a HUGE +.

The Second major problem with Cingular Video is when it goes from EDGE to 3G. So, the store i bought the phone from, which was only 4 miles from my house, has a floor model and it was running all the clips in super fast 3G and it was wonderful. When i brought the phone home, i got 1 bar of 3G reception upstairs in my room and barely any 3G downstairs. So while i was watching the clips, it would try to switch from 3G to EDGE and back to 3G (whenever it could find the better signal) and every time it did that the clip would re-buffer

. i couldn't watch 15 seconds w/o this happening.

Then i read on another thread how to turn your network to 2G only (so it stays on EDGE) and when i did that, the clips obviously took longer to initially download, but once they started playing it was a perfect framerate and no buffering hiccups

. So i wish i didn't live in a fringe area or the phone could handle the EDGE/3G transition better, but oh well.

Camera:
haven't used it yet so can't comment. my thought on a camera phone is it's to be used for taking pictures of your friends so that when they call, their pic shows up. or for taking funny shots when you are out hanging with them to put up on facebook or myspace. I just bought a Panasonic Lumix dmc-fx01 and took it on vacation to take pictures. Excellent camera and i will keep these pics in photo albums.

You can get a 3.2 MP camera phone (k800, nokia n73 etc) but you have to pay $400-$500+ for it!! this phone was $80 with a new contract!!!! buying the vastly superious dmc-fx01 for $250 i'm still out ahead $70-$170. Anyways, i think it will be great once you can do videocalling as the camera swivels from back to front on this phone.

MP3 player:

haven't used it yet but outside controls are nice and when i play the sample tunes included on the phone the volume and sound is top notch (open or closed).

Screen:
sure its only 65k instead of 262k and its 1.8in instead of 2.2in but it's still very nice and video is easily watched on it. In other threads you can read about how the human eye can not tell the difference between 65k and 262k colors on a screen this small (2 inches). So that is kinda a non-issue (except for people that like to say their number is higher than yours....). 2.2 inches would be nice but again, it's not a deal breaker when this is the fastest internet phone currently available for only $80.

I haven't even hooked it this up to my laptop yet to see the download/upload speeds but you can read about that in other threads. The fact you can do it with Cingular for a measily $20/mo is sweet. Of course some people will try to tell you that you need the $59/mo data plan to tether to your laptop but that is just not true. You only need the $20/mo media max 200 plan and then you are good to go. When you stream Cingular Video clips that is like 3 MB's every couple minutes which is a LOT more than if you tethered it and just browsed the internet (yahoo, google, cnn, etc). I really don't think Cingular can track this. But if they can, it definitely says in the fine print you are NOT supposed to tether your phone to a laptop with the media max plan and i'm sure they can cancel your service and then you are screwed

.

I would also like to comment on the overall feel of the phone. In a word it's: solid. the thin battery clips in and there is no wiggle room. I have been pressing all the keys a lot to manually enter some new contacts and there is none of the squeaking you find on so many plastic phones. It's a tight package. Make sure you get one with a solid hinge. My first one had quite a bit of wiggle so i asked the lady to exchange it and she did and the 2nd one was tight all around

.

Another thing i was worried about was it is does NOT have a GPS chip inside of it so when Cingular comes out with an app next year to compete with VZ Navigator, this phone won't be able to use it. I thought this was a big thing, as i am absolutely addicted to my in car navigation system (mazda3) but it really isn't. I tried google maps on this phone and it instantly responds to the addresses inputed (3G) and then you just click the right key to see the next turn. So basically instead of just putting in your destination address like you would on VZ Navigator you have to put in starting AND ending addresses (nice but not a huge deal imho). But VZ Navigator is $10/mo AND uses airtime, whereas Google Maps or Rand McNally Maps will be $2.99/mo and only use Data (media max 200 plan and you are all set). then as long as you don't wander off the path you are OK. (other advantage of GPS is when you miss turns, it reroutes you. now that is a NICE feature

)

All in all i would say this is a sweet phone that absolutely can not be beat for the price when you consider all its features (highlight of course being HSDPA which is a TONNNNNN faster than all those EDGE phones out there...w810i, d807, Razr, etc etc)

PROS:
+ i'm NOT Razr owner # 50,262,378 and counting

+ Call quality on both ends! (it's a PHONE first)
+ battery life (though there are a dozen or so 7-9 hour talk time phones out there, including the w800, w810)
+ fastest phone currently in US while surfing the internet (HSDPA baby!)
+ solid construction, light, thin
+ nice screen

CONS:
- switching from EDGE to 3G makes videos rebuffer
- doesn't sync with Outlook currently
- no voice dial
- asks permission every time you try to access videos

Accessories to buy:
1. stereo bluetooth headset (moto ht820)
2. case (sold out at my store)
3. 1 gb microsd card

does anyone know if the CU500 will send audio via bluetooth to an a2dp stereo adapter like the scosche, logitech or apple adapter? Ie: send music via bluetooth to the adapter which sends it to home receiver via rca jacks??
thanks

Great phone, just can't find data software from LG. Their site says the cu500 is NOT supported. Any HELP! out there?

What do I do to sync with outlook?

I just bought the cu500 and I want to know how to listen to the radio. I have subscription to XM. Can you pick that up with your phone. I also would like to know if you can use your transflash card and put it into your SD port and record your mp3s from there?

Thanks for answering.

The cu500 is an awesome phone i have had mine for a couple monthys now.

A couple of notes:

You can not take the acending ring off it will always do that

Cingular locked the mp3 as ringtone feature. you have to download and pay for a ringtone to use it as a ringtone (SUPER LAME!!!)

To connect it with your laptop you must use it with the cingular connection manager software (on the web site for free) and sign up for the 80$ a mo laptop connect feature.

and lastly you can not use the 2gb micro sd cards they will not see them. it will only support the 1gb. (i found out the hard way!)

IF ANYONE CAN GET PAST THE 2GB ISSUE PLEASE HELP I BOUGHT TWO CARDS AND I WANT TO USE THEM!

Thanks all hope this was helpfull.

This phone is absolutely awesome - love it! A few things I don't think you can do:

- Customize the Voicemail notification ringtone (I have a really cool one I've used before)

- Customize the menues as much as Mototrola..

Other than that LG kicked a$$ on this phone - way better than my old Motorola v550. Awesome!

Alert to all who buy this phone...If you're going to buy an SD card for it, the only manufacturer that works is SanDisk. No other manufacturer will work with this phone!

This may not be the case for long. Since LG says nothing about manufacturer specific cards, only that it accepts the transflash format, if they do not come out with a firmware update for this phone to support other manufacturers, it looks like they will be facing a class action law suit.

It's become quite a stir on other forums about this phone.

Dont make the mistake of NOT buying the SanDisk transflash card for this phone!

Yes, I heard that SD is the only one that works. So I got a 1GB SanDisk for $40. WORKS PERFECT!!!

LG CU500

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