For users who insist on talking on the phone while driving, LG offers a hopefully safer alternative. Larry Garfield gives "driving mode" a try on LG's LX5550.
Design
The LG LX5550 is a fairly basic clamshell, although its coloring gives it a somewhat antique look. Measuring 89 x 48 x 24 mm and weighing 110 grams, our test unit was finished in silver and mahogany plastic, which gave it a pleasant antiqued appearance. Other carriers stock a verison that is all silver plastic instead. A large hump on the front cover holds the large external display area.
 | The LX5550 is something of a one trick pony
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The external display itself is actually a modestly sized monochrome OLED, which despite its single gentle teal color is quite attractive and offset with seemingly decorative dancing colored lights. Unfortunately, the internal display is entirely unimpressive. A dim and grainy color STN display with ghosting problems, it ranks as one of the worst color displays on the market today. The display also appears smaller than it actually is due to the large border around it.
The numeric keypad is a simple and traditional layout with distinct buttons that have a good feedback when pressed. They are all made of metallic plastic, as are the directional pad and Left and Right soft keys. Large numbers make the blue backlight for the keypad less annoying that it could be, but it's still annoying. Thin volume rocker and voice control buttons sit on the left side of the phone along with a covered headphone jack, while a long flexi-antenna is alone on top.
Ergonomics
The slender design of the LX5550 gives it a good feel in the hand, as well as spreading the weight out so that it does not feel heavy. Keys are slightly on the small side but still quite usable, although they are too flush with the face to be completely blind-dial friendly. The directional pad and soft keys are well-built, with the directional pad also launching four applications on the phone from the main screen, although a decorative metal strip beneath it begs to be pressed as a button even though it isn't. As mentioned, the blue backlight is irritating, although the key design does compensate somewhat.
Features
The LX5550 is a dual-band CDMA phone, supporting 800 / 1900 MHz CDMA 1xRTT networks as well as older AMPS analog networks. Lacking Infrared, Bluetooth, or even a camera, the only standard mobile phone features the LX5550 offers include polyphonic ringtones, SMS support, animated wallpaper and themes, a basic PIM suite, and the OpenWave WAP browser.
The main draw of the LX5550 is voice control, which it handles in spades. When closed, holding the volume rocker toggles the phone between normal mode, "manner mode", and a silent-all mode, with manner mode being a fancy name for vibrating alert. Holding the voice control button switches the phone into "driving mode". In driving mode, opening the phone activates a voice-prompted speaker-independent control system supporting name dialing, digit-dialing, voice mail access, and read-only (hear-only?) access to the built-in calendar. It also activates a loud and clear speakerphone.
While a novel and welcome concept, the driving mode has two key flaws. One, after a command or set of commands (such as the multi-step digit dialing) is finished the mode terminates, requiring the user to close and reopen the phone to issue a second command. Two, it requires the user to use a hand to open the phone in the first place, a hand that is then not on the steering wheel, thus defeating the purpose of a driving mode. The same voice features available through a connected headset (wireless or wired) would be far more useful, as well as safer.
Performance
In both normal mode and speakerphone audio quality on the LX5550 was crystal clear. Signal reception was always strong. The removable 950 mAh Lithium Ion battery is rated for 150 minutes talk time or 144 hours standby, very short for a modern mobile phone. Unfortunately, LG's estimates are accurate and the battery life really is that poor.
Availability
The LG LX5550 is as of this writing available in the US through multiple carriers for between $29.99 USD and $69.99 USD with service agreement, depending on the carrier. Price without service is $249.95 USD.
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