Michael Oryl briefly lays his mitts on LG's VX8000 at CES, finding a powerful and speedy clamshell performer with battery life to spare.
Verizon Wireless chose the 2005 Consumer Electronics show to debut their new consumer oriented EV-DO 3G video service, called V CAST. Right there as part of the announcement was LG, who's new VX8000 handset is being featured by Verizon for the new service.
The VX8000 is a reasonably large phone, perhaps similar in size to the Motorola V710. The handset has a rather large 262k color TFT display that is quite easy on the eyes, fitting nicely into LG's plan for the VX8000 to be a true multimedia entertainment handset. LG goes after that idea in two ways, accessing multimedia content, and the creation of it.
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In terms of accessing content, the VX8000 is capable of both video and music on demand (VOD/MOD) via both streaming technologies and more traditional downloading. The VX8000's stereo speakers mean that you can truly enjoy the show without the use of a headset, too. Verizon's V CAST service fits in nicely with all of this, offering all sorts of video and musical content for a flat rate of $15 USD per month. Video clips last for up to 3 minutes at a very respectable 15 frames per second, and like other handsets on Verizon's network, the VX8000 can also download games and graphics from Verizon's Get It Now service.
The VX8000 also does well when it comes to multimedia content creation. Housing a very adjustable 1.3 megapixel camera, the VX8000 can take still photos and record short video clips alike. The camera has a myriad of settings, including adjustable ISO (film speed) setting. There are a number of white balance settings, resolutions, image quality settings, and even shutter sound effect settings - even a close-focus macro mode. Throw in a self-timer, and you end up with a cameraphone that has just about everything you'd expect in a dedicated point and shoot digital camera. About the only thing missing is some sort of memory card slot. In any event, captured images can be sent from the VX8000 via MMS or EMS messages.
While I was discussing the VX8000 with LG, they commented on the very large 1100 mAh battery that the phone contains. I asked if this was due to a high power draw from the EV-DO system, and LG responded that the EV-DO system was actually very efficient and should not cause significant drain on the power resources. The extra power is for the display and speakers, which they expect people to be making much use of. I can believe that.
LG and Verizon expect the VX8000 to be available as of February 1, 2005.
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