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 verizonwireless.com
Suggested Price: $200 (before $50 rebate; $3 per month extra for photo service) |
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Photograph courtesy of LG Phones
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Tech TIME Archive
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By WILSON ROTHMAN
While most other nationwide carriers offer a camera phone (or six), Verizon Wireless, the country's largest cell phone service provider, is only just now rolling out its first. Fortunately, LG's VX6000 is ready for its close-up.
Following basic camera-phone trends, the VX6000 has a maximum resolution of 640 x 480, with no zoom or flash. The picture's not so hot in low-lit rooms but it's fine for close-up portraits or far-off landscapes in bright sunlight. Sending images is easy — just click OK after snapping the shot, and it embeds it straight into an e-mail or short message. Just as crucial is the one-touch "Reject" option, which saves you from a gallery full of "Huh?"
Once you've taken some pictures, you can set them as wallpaper or the power on/off screens, as well as affix them to individual entries in your phonebook for picture caller-ID, one of my favorite pointless perks. You don't have to leave behind your favorite baby pics either: Verizon's new GetPix photo manager allows you to e-mail other images to the phone, and will re-size them so you can save them in your onboard gallery.
Besides the camera and photo software, the phone is a major improvement over previous models. There's a larger, brighter interior LCD screen, and a scrolling-marquee external screen, complete with dancing colored dots. The rounded styling obscures the fact that it is actually about the same size as its predecessor, the VX4400. Battery life could be better — the phone couldn't run two full days without dying, even though it was on standby for all but a half-hour. Still, between the aesthetics and engineering, the VX6000 is ready for a leading role.
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