LG Dare (Verizon Wireless)

Calls and speakerphone: We found calls for the most part to be loud and clear on the LG Dare. We did occasionally use the side volume keys to adjust the sound both up and down. Using the speakerphone didn’t seem to degrade call quality on our end, however, callers said that we did sound like we were using a speakerphone. Additionally, you don’t have to be too close to the cell phone when using the speakerphone to be heard by callers – a definite plus.

Audio quality: Playback of songs is loud through the cell phone’s speakers, and songs didn’t sound too tinny at all, which is more typical than not. The LG Dare sports a 3.5mm headset jack so you can use your own stereo headphones to listen to music on the cell phone. Since the LG Dare supports Bluetooth stereo, you can also purchase an optional Bluetooth stereo headset if you want to listen to music without wires.

Menu/phone book: Like many Verizon Wireless cell phones, the LG Dare has a standard menu system; if you're already accustomed to it, using the LG Dare should be a breeze. That said, this is one of the more straightforward menu interfaces you’ll find on a cell phone. The interesting feature about this cell phone is the touch screen. There are five quick-launch keys at the base of the screen for messaging, the phone, a favorite contacts list, a basic menu, and the address book. If you press the button with the four dots on it to launch the main menu, the categories appear scattered on the screen. It’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s just different – like many other features found on this unique cell phone. However, if you want to quickly view a bunch of apps, tap the arrow on the top right hand of the screen and it launches a even more menu options, where you can change any of the pre-loaded quick launch app keys to another feature. Another fun feature on this cell phone is the jot application, where you can essentially use your finger to draw letters and symbols instead of inputting them on the screen via the numeric keypad or the virtual keyboard. While the application is fun to use, it’s hardly intuitive. That said, once you actually look at the reference in the manual it’s much easier to master. We particularly like how easy it is to use the phone book, which can store 1,000 contacts, each with five phone numbers, two e-mail addresses, and a picture – sorry, there's no slot for addresses.

Camera/video: The LG Dare sports a 3.2-megapixel camera that can take photos and record short videos. It even sports a flash, which actually helps. Additionally, the shutter on this camera phone is pretty quick, meaning when you snap the button to take a picture it’s typically the picture you’re going to get. About that picture-snapping button: We particularly like it’s placement on the spine of the cell phone – aligned perfectly with where you’d expect it to be on a digital camera and you can easily launch the camera application just by hitting that button if the cell phone is unlocked. Unfortunately, it’s hard to snap self-portraits since there’s no mirror next to the lens. On the plus side, the entire screen turns into a viewfinder (similar to digital cameras), so it seems like you have more room to frame your photo. As for image quality, we were overall impressed with the quality both on screen and downloaded to a computer. We found colors to be vivid and the images sharp and clear with lots of detail.

Music: The LG Dare sports an MP3 player and comes with a spacious 148MB of internal memory, so you can store tons of music (at least a couple of albums' worth of tunes) and pictures on the cell phone. If you want more storage, we recommend buying an optional MicroSD media card, as this cell phone will support up to an 8GB MicroSD card. You can play MP3s and WMA (Windows Media Audio) files on the MP3 player. As noted, the audio quality is pretty good through the cell phone speaker.

Although the LG Dare lacks the ability to adjust audio-centric controls such as bass and treble, there are Shuffle, Repeat, and Skip songs options. We should note that we really liked the interface for playing and controlling music. While it looks like the cell phone is launching a Web service to play music, that’s simply not the case. Additionally, playing music through the cell phone did not drain battery life any faster.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to pair the LG cell phone with a Plantronics 925 Bluetooth headset. We found call quality to be acceptable with the a headset.

Look and feel: The LG Dare doesn’t look like any other cell phone we’ve seen from Verizon Wireless to date. In fact, at first glance it looks like anything but a cell phone: a gaming device, a digital camera, a portable GPS unit. You name it, but cell phone is definitely not at the top of the list. And, yet, the fact that is actually a good cell phone first makes it that more desirable. It’s shiny silver casing and minimalistic approach to side buttons gives the Dare a streamlined look. Additionally, it feels comfortable in the hand, fitting just right so that you can still easily maneuver through the cell phone’s features one handed if you so desire. It also isn’t too uncomfortable when you hold it up to your ear or cradle it between ear and shoulder for longer calls. However, since the screen comes so close to your face, it tended to attract a lot of face grease, and we found ourselves wiping it off often.

About that screen, it’s pretty bright and it’s got the right amount of sensitivity for the touch screen out of the box – meaning we didn’t have to adjust it. We are also happy to report that we found the screen easy to view in direct sunlight. We must admit that since this isn’t your typical cell phone form factor, using our finger to scroll through menus was not initially intuitive, however, after about 10 minutes of use, we became much more accustomed and fond of scrolling and swiping across the screen to say, maneuver through the photo album.

Keypad: We’re just going to come right out and say it – we really like the cell phone’s touch screen. We didn’t even have to adjust the settings to be more or less sensitive to the touch. We like the huge numeric keypad that appears when you press the phone icon at the base of the main screen and the QWERTY keypad that appears on a reoriented horizontal screen when you touch the keyboard icon on the side of the number keypad. In particular, we like that the letters on the numeric keys mirrors a standard keypad – meaning we never had trouble trying to figure out if we were selecting the right keys when we dialed a number or short code that included letters.

In the battery life department, the LG Dare fared well. But before we get into that, let’s talk about the charger. It’s essentially a synching cable that can either plug into the computer or into the wall charger. Talk about multifunction. Now for the overall battery life: We found that the cell phone could last about three days before recharging when using the LG Dare regularly to make calls, occasionally surf the wireless Web, and send/receive text messages. Users who barely use the cell phone to make/receive calls and send/receive messages can probably last closer to a week before needing to recharge, while heavier cell phone users will likely need to charge the LG Dare every other day. We should also note that leaving the cell phone's Bluetooth activated does not have an adverse affect on the battery.

• LG Dare Video

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