LG UX830 Glimmer Review

The LG UX830 (glimmer) is overall a very nice phone once you get used to using the touch screen. However, I have heard of a lot of technical problems with it and had a few myself. The main features of the phone include a touch screen, Bluetooth, an mp3 player and a 2 mega-pixel camera. All other features are on most other phones or are not there, for example the phone can store no games on it. It is not a phone I would strongly recommend to another person. While it is nice and for the most part I have not had problems with it, the problems I have had were not worth the money for the phone. After my contract is up I will be going back to a cheaper phone.

The main feature of this phone is the touch screen. When I got this phone, in October of 2008, it was the one phone that was not a smart phone that had a touch screen. So for me this was the major selling point. I was just beginning my senior year of high school and I was thinking about getting this phone for the touch screen feature. The reason why was because I thought it would be awesome that I would not even have to open my phone to text all I would have to do is use the touch screen and it would be silent. This would allow for texting in class, which was against school rules. I did text in class and ended up getting my phone taken away. Moral of that story do not text while in class. But enough about me, you probably want to know how the touch screen is to use. If you get a case for it and do not have a stylus it, it becomes very difficult to touch the edges of the screen. When you first get your phone go to the main menu->options->sound & touch->touch calibration. If you do this it becomes easier to use the touch screen as it is calibrated and when you touch it your touch will register in the right spot. If you do not it will be very difficult to hit the smaller buttons on screen. If your screen breaks you are done unless all you want to do is call and change the volume of the phone because any other feature must use the touch screen. I know a few people who have had their screens break or get messed up and currently mine is not working the greatest either, sometimes the touches do not register.

Bluetooth is a major feature on many phones today. With this phone over Bluetooth you can send contacts, images, audio (not from your list of mp3's), calendar events and video. I have not had a single problem with Bluetooth and I do not know anybody who has with this phone.

The camera and mp3 player both have given me no trouble. The camera is nice however it is really easy to get a blurry picture, I have seen better taken with cheaper phones. The mp3 player works perfectly, however, I wish it had the ability to send songs over Bluetooth.

This will be my complaint section on the phone and the reasons why I would not recommend this phone to someone. When I purchased the phone I thought, cool I can finally have an expensive phone like everyone else seems to have. I was so sick of that cheap phone. However, with my cheap phone I never had a problem in the three or four years of having it, except the outside screen did break which really was not that big of a deal for me. This phone has presented me with a few things I did not like but did not find out until after I got it. First, there are no games on the phone and you can not store games on it. They are stored on Easy Edge, US Cellular's Internet to buy stuff for your phone. So unless you have an unlimited access plan for Easy Edge, you have to pay data charges every time you want to play them. Next, as time goes on my touch screen seems to become less responsive to touches. Sometimes it will register the touch in the wrong spot, sometimes not at all. I have already had to take my phone in to get the USB/charging port fixed because it broke after never having dropped the phone. Also, since I got my phone back I have not gotten 3G service anywhere. This is really annoying because sometimes text messages will take a long time to send or not send at all. I do not want to take my phone in again even though it will be covered under warranty because the loaner phones are not very good.

Overall the phone is very nice and looks awesome, however, some of the features just bring it down. I would not recommend this phone, but that should not stop you from getting one all phones have problems, this one has just seemed to give me a lot. It is worth noting that the entire time I had the loner phone I wanted mine back.