LG's followup to the first US 3.5G phone, the CU500, improves the design of the original. Do its multimedia features keep up, or does it belong in the bargain basement?
Review summary of the LG CU400:
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 While it boasts a sleek design and solid calling and messaging abilities, the CU400 loses points for its unwillingness to take advantage of the HSDPA network for better video and audio content, and for its lack of next-generation features, such as stereo Bluetooth and GPS. With its $30 list price (with rebates), Cingular clearly intends the watered-down CU400 to be its bargain HSDPA-enabled phone, but when you consider that two of the carrier's high-end HSDPA handsets -- the music-centric Samsung SYNC and LG's own CU500 -- are each only $20 more, the middling CU400 loses much of its luster. Release: November 2006.
Pros: Good call quality. Sleek, modern design. Plenty of dedicated messaging options.
Cons: Dearth of multimedia features, including audio player, stereo Bluetooth, GPS. Camera image quality is lousy. No included accessories.
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Full LG CU400 Review:
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Design
Where the LG CU500's boxy design placed it squarely in the last generation of phones, the LG CU400 is much more modern, with distinctive design cues such as the glossy black external screen on the matte black finish, and the slightly rounded curve of the keypad. The phones claps shut securely with hardly a millimeter between the two clamshells. It is overall a light, simple phone, with no side buttons except for a volume rocker, camera button and a push-to-talk button.
Calling - Good
Good call quality is certainly the saving grace of the LG CU400. In our lower Manhattan offices, we generally got about four bars of "3G" service from Cingular, and calls never suffered from static or disruption. The earpiece was among the loudest we've heard, uncomfortable at its highest volumes, and the speakerphone was satisfyingly clear as well. The phone handles Bluetooth headset and hands-free profiles, and setup was simple enough. Conference calling could have been easier; it required some menu digging, but nothing we haven't seen. The contact list makes room for just five numbers and an e-mail address -- fewer fields than we would have liked -- and while the CU400 allows for while-you-type searching, the phone lacks any voice dialing options. Talk time was better than average, at about four-and-a-quarter hours, but still fell short of the manufacturer's promise of five hours.
Our favorite: You can't beat good call quality.
Our request: Speaker-independent voice dialing is a favorite feature, it would be a welcome addition here.
Messaging - Good
With presets for AIM, MSN and Yahoo instant messaging and e-mail accounts, the LG CU400 makes for a capable messaging phone. The comfortable, nearly flat keypad has rows that curve slightly, making typing easy. The phone features a dedicated key for SMS messaging and another to IM, mapped with an icon printed on the four-way button. SMS messages displayed a healthy 162 characters, more than a full message worth. While sending messages, you can type your recipient's name, from your phonebook, into the "To:" field, though this causes the phone to plug in the first phone number listed, so if you want to send a text to your pal's second number, you're out of luck. We prefer the Palm OS solution: auto-completing the name and offering you a choice of numbers.
Our favorite: A comfortable keypad with plenty of buttons dedicated to messaging.
Our request: More options for e-mail setup, such as POP3 and IMAP4, would make the CU400 an even more robust messager.
Multimedia - Poor
All around, the LG CU400 does not live up to its HSDPA (or even EV-DO) cousins when it comes to multimedia performance. Even the LG CU500, among the first 3.5G phones on the U.S. market, did a better job handling media, and especially audio content. The CU400 has no built-in audio player, though it does access streaming radio through MobiRadio. MobiRadio has a fine selection, but doesn't come close to XM or Sirius satellite radio programming. Beyond MobiRadio, the CU400 has no musical abilities, which is fine because it also lacks stereo headphones and a USB cable for data transfer. Streaming video is not up to par with Cingular's better offerings, such as the Samsung SGH-A707 "SYNC." Buffer times seemed longer on the CU400, and the overall selection of video was sparse, with only a few Comedy Central clips providing original content. HBO mobile is available, but it costs extra beyond Cingular's MediaMax bundle.
The VGA camera on the CU400 takes poor quality photos that look as though they have been manipulated by Photoshop's "Stylize:Sketch" filter. There are no options for manipulating photos on the phone, and photos can only be transferred via Bluetooth 1.2 or MMS; the phone cannot send photos by e-mail. The Web browser is also a disappointment. It coughed a bit loading our own infoSync World homepage, sizing pictures strangely, and choked completely on The New York Times homepage. Finally, the phone lacks the GPS navigation we're growing more fond of every day.
Our favorite: Slim pickings; we'll have to say MobiRadio is our favorite feature
Our request: A music player with full Cingular Music (Napster and Yahoo Music) capabilities. Maybe stereo Bluetooth to go with it.
Related phones: Cingular 3.5G HSDPA flip phones
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LG CU500
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Score: 50% When: July 2006 Worth: $50 Carrier: AT&T
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Will the LG CU500, Cingular's first foray into the speedy world of HSDPA handsets, lure customers to all that 3.5G has to offer? Philip Berne puts the new clamshell through its paces.
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