Digital Trends

LG Voyager

February 4th, 2008 | by Mike Kobrin

Syncing Up

To sync the phone with your PC, you have to install the drivers on the included CD. You can also install the VCast music software, which is a cross between iTunes (layout) and Windows Media Player (sync method). You can also use WMP 11 or any other MTP-enabled music management software, like MusicMatch Jukebox. Alternatively, you can load the phone in USB Mass Storage mode, but only in Windows.

We attached the included USB cable to the phone and our MacBook Pro (running Windows XP) and , it took us 2.5 minutes to load a 192Kbps MP3 copy of Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde -- that's not terrible for 100MB, but it's still a little slow for gadget fans. The VCast software automatically converted any of our MP3s that were encoded at more than 192Kbps to a lower bit rate, though Windows Media Player 11 did this noticeably faster.

The Voyager supports MP3, WMA, protected WMA, unprotected AAC, and AAC+ for audio. But although it can play MP4, 3GP, and WMV videos, resolution is strictly limited to 320 x 240 -- bizarre given the phone's pair of 2.8-inch widescreen LCDs.

In addition to side-loading media onto the phone, plenty of content is available from Verizon's VCast service. Downloading Cannonball Adderley's "Work Song" (tracks are a hefty $1.99 USD each) over the air took about 2 minutes. That's slower than the iPhone's WiFi iTunes store but normal for Verizon cell phones. We're not as excited about the quality or pricing of the VCast video downloads, but we do like that you can save songs and videos to the phone's internal memory (enough for a few albums in AAC format) or to a microSD card.

We're annoyed at how difficult it is to sync contact and calendar information with programs like Outlook. We were unable to do it via USB, though we could set up Bluetooth file transfers and send Vcards and Vcal entries, which are compatible with most calendar and email programs. This is one area where the Voyager falls miles short of the iPhone.

Call and Response

We're picky about audio quality for our phone calls, and it's something we hate about the iPhone. The Voyager does marginally better in that area, and people could understand us with average clarity on the other end, but we're still not 100 percent satisfied with the earpiece's audio.

The built-in speakers are loud but tinny with no low end -- very useable for speakerphone, but not for all kinds of music. The bass on John Coltrane's "Blue Train" and The Killers' "Read My Mind" disappears completely, though the bottom end of Jay-Z's "Takeover" still holds some of its punch. Horns, voices, snare drums, cymbals, and guitars come through loud and clear with less distortion than we expected from such small speakers.

Our test videos (Episodes of Weeds at 320 x 240 in MP4 format), looked acceptable on both screens, with adequate color on each 262K-color LCD. We are disappointed by the lack of widescreen support, given the screen's 16:9 aspect ratio.

Image Courtesy of LG

Mobile TV looks just about good enough to justify the extra $15 USD a month. Watching an NCAA basketball game was easier than an English Premier soccer match (go Manchester United!), but scores at the bottom of the screen were readable, at least to our sharp eyes. Shows like MTV's Made and Reno 911 looked the best, with good color and less-noticeable motion artifacts. We didn't have any trouble with reception around New York City, but you can extend the 4.5-inch telescoping antenna that pops out of the bottom of the phone.

The headphone jack is only 2.5-mm, which means you'll have to pick up a 3.5-mm adapter that's compatible with the Voyager to use your own headphones. We opted instead to use our Etymotic ety8 and JBL Reference 620 Bluetooth stereo headphones, and we got listenable results for music, though we could easily hear the effects of the Bluetooth 1.2 compression. Audio was generally well-synced with video via Bluetooth, though it occasionally slipped out of sync for a few seconds during mobile TV watching. But at least the Voyager supports A2DP for stereo music playback, unlike the iPhone.

Battery Life

4 hours of talk time and around 20 days of standby isn't bad, though it does mean you're going to run out of juice pretty quick if you use Bluetooth, mobile TV, and music/video playback a lot. We had to charge every 1.5 to 2 days unless we watched a lot of mobile TV, which knocked us back to daily charge cycles.