LG VX8560 Black - Chocolate 3 (Verizon Wireless)

Calls: Calls made using the LG VX8560 Chocolate 3 cell phone are loud, but not always crystal clear. We definitely needed to use the volume keys on the cell phone’s spine to lower the volume on the handset. That said, callers did say they heard us clearly, we just occasionally had a little difficulty hearing them. However, using the speakerphone on the LG Chocolate 3 cell phone was a good experience. We also particularly appreciated having one-touch access to the speakerphone via the dedicated button on the keypad.

Audio playback: We found playback of songs from the Verizon/Rhapsody music service and our own MP3, AAC, and WMA files sounded clear through the cell phone’s built-in speaker, which is on the front of the cell phone. That means you don’t have to turn the cell phone face down to hear the music clearly. Since there is a 3.5mm jack, we tried listening to music through our own 3.5mm earbuds that we use with other MP3 players and found that listening to music was surprisingly impressive. Additionally, the LG VX8560 does support the stereo Bluetooth profile, so you can listen to music in stereo via a stereo Bluetooth headset.

Menu/Phone book: At the heart of the cell phone is the typical Verizon Wireless user interface. You can still tab over to different menus once viewing a specific menu’s options. Use the center button in the 4-way navi-key to launch the menu, and the surrounding keys to help navigate the rest of the menu features. On the cell phone’s exterior, there is the scroll wheel that is found on previous versions of the Chocolate. When the cell phone isn’t locked (it locks automatically when it’s closed after just a few seconds) you can scroll through music options when in the music player application and press the scroll wheel in either the north, east, south, and west directions and it acts just like a typical four-way navi-key that you can use to navigate the phone’s interface. After using this cell phone for a while, we found our favorite button is Clr– it basically backs you out of any feature one screen at a time.

We particularly appreciate how easy it is to use the phone book. You can store five phone numbers and two e-mail addresses for each of 1,000 contacts – sorry, no slots for address info. You can find your own phone number by selecting My Name Card from the main Contacts menu. You can also send your phone number to another phone via message or Bluetooth.

Camera/Video: The 2-megapixel camera in this LG cell phone is actually pretty good. The cell phone lacks a flash, but it has adjustment options for brightness, white balance, photometry, night mode, and color effects (normal, negative, aqua, sepia, and black and white). There’s also a self-timer, which comes in handy when you use the external display to snap self-portraits. Overall, image quality is good, providing plenty of detail – especially on the highest setting. While an image might not look in focus when you’re ready to snap a pic, it actually appears a bit more in focus when saved on the cell phone. This LG Chocolate 3 cell phone also has a video recorder. You can record 30-second videos if you want to send them or longer videos if you want to save it on an external MicroSD memory card. . The picture quality is pretty good, but the sound isn’t as clear as we would have liked.

Music: As is the case with previous Chocolate cell phones, the centerpiece of the LG Chocolate 3 VX8560 is its MP3 player. As noted, listening to songs played through the cell phone’s speaker is pretty good, though a bit tinny when playing songs with a lot of bass (Note: This is typically the case with music phones). This cell phone lacks audio-centric controls such as bass and treble; however, it does have other audio effect such as Concert Hall, Classical, Bass Booster, Vocal Booster, Treble Booster, and Flat. We’re pleased to report that these extra effects do affect audio quality. It does have other MP3 player features such as shuffle, repeat, and playlists that you can create on the fly, which incidentally provide one of the easier ways to play back music on this cell phone.

For starters, the LG VX8560 cell phone will support an optional 8GB MicroSD card – you can store approximately 200 albums of music on a card with that much storage capacity – that’s a lot of tunes. We highly recommend getting an external MicroSD card if you want to use this as a music phone since the internal memory is small. Although you still can’t transfer music via Bluetooth, getting music onto the cell phone is easy via the included USB-to-micro-USB cable. Of course, the easiest way to get music onto the cell phone is by downloading music from the Verizon/Rhapsody music service. Once you install the application onto a PC you can just drag and drop playlists onto the cell phone’s external memory. If you want to use the Rhapsody service for Verizon, you’ll need to go to Verizon’s website to download the application. Additionally, if you are subscribing to the service you’ll need to sync the cell phone monthly to keep the subscription up-to-date.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to easily pair the cell phone with a Motorola Bluetooth H700 headset. As noted, you can’t use Bluetooth to transfer music stored on a computer to this Chocolate cell phone, but this version of the Chocolate supports stereo Bluetooth. However, kudos to Verizon Wireless for allowing customers to do a little bit more with the Bluetooth in the cell phone.

Look and Feel: Departing from the sliding form factor, this LG Chocolate 3 sports a flip phone design. Overall, the cell phone is fairly thing – almost Razr-like. The back of the cell phone has a black rubberized casing, which adds to the cell phone’s durability. Read: We dropped the cell phone a couple of times and it still worked fine. As noted, when the cell phone is closed there’s a scroll wheel and a decent size external display that’s visible in most lighting conditions when illuminated. The scroll wheel still has grooves similar to the lines on the face of an LP record. When you flip open the cell phone, you’ll see a spacious display that is sharp and easily viewable in most lighting conditions. When you have such a slick-looking cell phone, there’s bound to be a couple of issues. The biggest downfall: Like its predecessor, the internal display attracts grease and fingerprints easily.

Keypad: The LG Chocolate 3 keys are well spaced and soft to the touch. The white backlit keys are separated by a slightly raised grid, making it easy to dial in a dark room and easy to use (read: misdials are at a minimum on this cell phone). The keys on the cell phone’s spine are well placed especially when using it as an MP3 player. There’s a lock key for locking and unlocking the external display, volume keys, a micro-USB port for charging the cell phone and synching music, a voice recorder button that’s low enough on the cell phone’s spine so you don’t accidentally press it, a music key for launching the music player, and a MicroSD slot.

Our favorite LG VX8560 feature is the identifying side key labels found on the display, so you always know what each button on the cell phone’s spine does. For example, where the music key is on the side of the phone, there’s also a corresponding box with the word Music, so you know when you press that button you’re activating the music feature.

The LG Chocolate 3 has better battery life than expected from such a feature-rich cell phone. We particularly appreciated that we could use the cell phone to play music for quite a few hours before needing to recharge. If you want to conserve battery life we recommend keeping the display backlight at the lowest setting. Heavy cell phone users who make a ton of calls, send/receive loads of text messages daily, and listen to tunes stored on the cell phone regularly will need to recharge it every three to four days. More moderate users will be able to make the cell phone last close to a week before needing to recharge. If you are a light user, making just two to three 10-minute calls a day along with light texting and listening to the occasional song, the Chocolate 3 cell phone will last over a week on a single charge. Another plus is that you can charg the LG VX8560 when you connect the cell phone to a computer via the USB cable.

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