Tracfone LG 800g ReviewPrepaid Touchscreen PhoneApp-capable phone with 2 MP camera and MP3 music playerI got the touchscreen Tracfone LG 800g for my wife a couple of months ago when it first came out, and she let me borrow it for a couple of days to write this review.This LG phone was a lot of firsts for Tracfone: first touchscreen phone, first megapixel camera phone, first music player phone, first app-capable phone. The whole package is a combination of awesome features and some not-so-awesome stuff that can be improved on. I’ll go over all the features, but let me start with an embarrassing tidbit. Update: Now available with Triple Minutes for Life How to Answer the LG 800g!Embarassing but True!After we swapped cellphones, I got an incoming call on the Tracfone LG 800g, and I saw that my wife was on the line. It was then that I realized I didn’t know how to answer the phone!I tried pressing on the (auto) locked screen and nothing happened. The display said “incoming call” but gave no indication on how to pick it up. On the other Tracfone’s you can usually press “OK” to accept which is what I do, but this one didn’t say that. This made sense since there was no “OK” button. Finally, I just pressed the green Send button and managed to pick up the call. Then I had to explain why someone who publishes this web site didn’t know how to answer a cell phone. It turns out you can set it to answer on either just the "send key" or "any key". You have to press a key, however, not just use the touchscreen. Anyway, as you’ll see, once you get used to the phone, you’ll love the features. Let’s start with the main feature Three Inch Touch Screen DisplayThe Tracfone LG 800g has a 3 inch touch screen display with the screen dimensions of 2 3/8 inches by 1 3/4 inches. The display itself is nice and bright, and the touch response is pretty good. When you press or drag something on the screen, you get a confirmation tone as well as vibration. You can adjust the both the sound level and vibration level of the confirmation response which I like. Note, I suspect that if you have the vibration response to be very strong it might eat up the battery a bit more because it has to make the whole phone vibrate.Luckily, making calls and sending texts was not as complicated on the phone. To call you can click on the phone icon and start dialing or click on the person icon to bring up your contact list. Text using the Virtual QWERTY Keyboard
The Virtual QWERTY keyboard on the Tracfone LG 800g makes it quick and easy to send text messages. As you touch type the words, the interface suggest word completion. I much prefer this to the T9-style predictive text input (probably because I've never really learned how to use it). It did take some time to get used to the virtual keyboard. Since you don't have physical keys, I couldn't quite tell where my fingers were on the screen so I had to watch the screen closely until I started to get the hang of it. New User InterfaceOne consequence of having a touchscreen display is that the user interface has changed a bit. New features for the Tracfone LG 800g display includes the ability to add shortcuts to the display so that you don’t have to go into the menu, and the ability to quickly swipe screenfuls of shortcuts across the screen in case you want to add a lot of them.Other than a volume control, there are no other dedicated keys on the side of the phone. So, you really do rely on the screen and the three buttons below the screen. So one of the first shortcuts you may want to have on the home screen is for the camera. Take Pics with 2.0 Megapixel CameraWith the 2.0 megapixel camera, you can really take some nice photos with your Tracfone LG 800g even if you don’t have your regular digital camera with you, such as when you’re helping out at field day or on a field trip at your school. The camera take 1600 x 1200 pixel photos at full resolution. You can also take QCIF resolution (176 x 144) videos with sound.I’ve been pretty happy with the test photos I’ve taken with the phone. As always with cell phone cameras and their usually small lenses, it helps if it’s nice and bright to capture all the details especially indoors. Here’s a photo I took one afternoon inside a coffee shop. You can see a reduced version of the full photo as well as a full-resolution crop of a portion of the photo.
Full photo reduced
Cropped (medium quality) version of full-size photo. Transfer Photos via BluetoothOnce you’re done taking your photos you can easily transfer them from your Tracfone LG 800g to a bluetooth-enable computer or via picture message to an email address. In terms of storage, a photo of a detailed scene at full resolution can be about 500KB in size, so you’ll be using up the internal memory pretty soon but not to fear, you can insert and inexpensive microSD memory card into the back of your phone to give you all the memory you’ll realistically need.A memory card is also needed to make use of the phone’s music player. That bring me to the next little widget-shortcut that you’ll want to have on your home screen. MP3 Music PlayerThe Tracfone LG 800g has an MP3 music player with a 3.5 mm jack for regular stereo earphones or for hooking up to one of those external speaker systems. You can transfer music from your computer via Bluetooth or directly to the memory card. Once you start the music playing, you can go back to the home screen, where the little icon with show that the music is playing along with an abbreviated track and artist name. After a few seconds, the screen goes into locked mode but still shows what’s playing at the top of the screen above the clock.Good Quality SoundI don’t know what specs are in terms of bitrates, etc., but the sound quality of the MP3 player can be really good. I heard a piece of classical music on the Tracfone LG 800g, and it sounded great through the earphones. I had ripped this track from on of my own CDs.A pop song I downloaded online sounded OK but not that great. (Note: I like pop music.) After relaxing (or rocking out) to some good music, you may want to get online. Mobile WebWith the mobile web on the Tracfone LG 800g, you can get on Facebook, Twitter or My Space and see what everyone’s up to, search the web using Google, Yahoo, Bing and more, check your email at Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail and even AOL.Even though the phone does not claim to be a full HTML web browser, most web pages load okay. Sometimes you may get a “Page too large. View mobile site?” message. There’s also a full screen viewing mode to make the best use of the 3-inch screen. Watch your Airtime Charges – or choose a cool alternative.Checking out Facebook on the phone is especially addictive of course, so you do need to keep in mind that getting on the web does cost you airtime. If you know you’ll end up doing that a lot, you may want to consider getting the Net10 version of the phone because you’ll have to option of switching to their unlimited plan. If you check the web only now and then when you don’t have access to a computer, then sticking with the Tracfone LG 800g may save you money on a yearly basis.Once you’ve gone and caught up with what’s going on around you, you may want to go back into the phone and check out the games and apps. Games and AppsGamesThe Tracfone LG 800g comes with two games installed, Container Blocks and Castle DefenseContainer Blocks GameContainer Blocks is a puzzle game where you have to slide various blocks out of the way so that you can move the containers across the screen. The game even has "skins" which changes the appearance of the containers. You use your finger to drag the blocks in one direction or another.While a pretty simple game, it was a hit with the kids – they got all the way up to level 158 before I took it away from them. The game measures how many moves it takes you to get the container across, and it gets more challenging as you go up the levels. In the beginning when they hit a tough level they asked me for advice, but later on, after I made a few bad moves, the kids resolved to tackle it on their own. Castle DefenseCastle Defense is an action game about a war between humans and monster. Among the highlights featur a bunch of Goblins running around mazes with explosions. Trading gold coins also appears to be involved. I have no idea how to play this game but it looks like fun once you learn.Full Games, not DemosThese are the only two games pre-installed. However, one nice thing, again, is that these are full-featured games not crippled demo versions. If you want more games you can download and install them yourself.These games are great for this phone because you actually use the touchscreen interface when you play. AppsThough the Tracfone Lg 800g can run Java apps, none were pre-installed on the phone. However, we ordered our handset the first weekend it was available so I don’t know if that is still the case with the current version or with the Net10 version.Installing an AppTo test that apps really do work, I did what I usually do, which is download the Maps application from Google’s website. It worked.However, I was disappointed to find that moving around the map required pressing up/down and left/right buttons on the touchscreen interface. I wasn’t able to drag the map with my finger in the same way that you can drag it around with your cursor on the computer. So one thing you have to watch for is that the Java apps you download may be not be designed to take full advantage of a touch screen interface. Airtime ChargesIn addition to downloading apps via the phone, you may also use up airtime with some apps because they connect to the internet. This can be the case with simple-seeming free apps which access the internet in order to display advertisements. So choose carefully.Basic FeaturesWe've covered the highlights, so let's go over the basic features.Physical FeaturesThe Tracfone LG 800g is a lightweight phone at 3.06 ounces and has okay battery life at 4 hours talk time and 8 days standby. The dimensions of the phone are a convenient 4 inches in length and 2 inches in width. It's thickness is about 7/16th's or an inch or just under half an inch.Tool and UtilitiesThere are all the usual set of tools and utilities included with your Tracfone LG 800g. At first glance you might think some of the usual ones are missing. Not to fear. All the menu options do not show up on the first screen when you press the menu button. Things like the calendar, stopwatch and voice recorder are on the second screen which you access by quickly dragging your finger the display.BluetoothI had no problems pairing the Tracfone LG 800g with my laptop equipped with a Bluetooth adapter. I was able to send photos from the phone and music to the phone.For more details you can access the . . . ManualYou can download the LG 800g manual (pdf) here. It is from the Net10 sister site. The manual is mostly text, there are no screenshots, but it should still be pretty useful.Get One?
Both versions cost $49.99. Tracfone Free Shipping OfferFree Shipping on orders $19.99 and up!If the Tracfone version is not in stock or you prefer the Net10 plan, then try the . . . Net10 Free Shipping OfferGet Free Shipping at Net10 Wireless!Got One?Do you already have an LG 800g? Great, tell us about it.Your Tracfone LG 800g ReviewTell us about your experience with this phone! What Other Visitors Have SaidClick below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
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