Welcome to the PhoneArena.com review of the LG Rumor. The Rumor is a midlevel phone and is available exclusively through Sprint. Notable features include a 1.3 mega pixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0 and a Micro SD expansion slot that can handle up to four gigabytes.
However, the main ‘drives’ of Rumor will be a slide out QWERTY keypad. This marks the first time that Sprint users will be able to get a QWERTY keypad without buying a smartphone. Overall, the Rumor has a very good in-hand feel. The main display is two inches, it features 176 by 220 pixels and is fairly easy to read. However, the default color scheme is pretty dark, which makes it harder to read in direct sunlight. The user can choose from four different colors schemes, so this makes it a little bit easier.
On the left of the phone, you will find a volume rocker and a dedicated camera button. At the bottom is LG’s proprietary charging port, and on the right side of the phone, the user will find the Micro SD slot as well as the two and a half millimeter headphone jack. The back features the 1.3 mega pixel camera and the phones loan speaker as well as the battery.
The keys on the Rumor are slightly raised above the surface which makes them very easy to use. There are two sets of soft keys, one below the display, one is closed and the other set below the display when it’s open. As you can see, the directional pad and actually all the other keys are usable while the phone is open.
When the phone is slit open, the user is taken directly to the messaging menu. Here, there are plenty of options such as sending a message, which includes text, email, picture mail or voice SMS. They also have AOL instant messaging built in as well as direct link to Facebook.
The Rumor is obviously targeted towards the teenage crowd and we feel that it hits that mark. Given the lack of EV-DO, it’s no big surprise to find out that the web browsing experience on the Rumor is only so.
The main Sprint deck enough to navigate and offers quick links to news, whether, sports, downloads and other content. This is all optimized for a WAP, so the experience isn’t too bad. One thing that we do like is that when you open the phone to use the full keypad, the screen automatically re-orientates itself and then does the same when you close it again.
Trying to browse the HTML sites, it’s fairly impossible, it’s fairly impossible. The sites eventually do load but the phone does not render them well and they’re very tough to navigate.
Given that this is just an entry to midlevel phone, it’s not a surprise to see very features. To understand the set of tools, the user can set up the three alarms as well as the quick alarm and there is a also features such as the calculator, scheduler, voice memo, notepad and a world clock.
We also find the ominously sounding D-Day Counter which is nothing more than a countdown utility as well as the unique converter. This is similar to the ones we have seen on Motorola phones recently and the user can convert between common features.
The Rumor does feature 1.3 mega pixel camera, however, overall we found the picture to be pretty poor. We preferred using this in landscape mode. In 1.3 mega pixel setting, the phone cannot zoom at all. In good lighting conditions, the pictures were okay, but overall, we found them to be pretty poor especially in low lighting. Options are decent, there is a self timer as well color tone, brightness and white balance control, and the user can choose between a couple of different settings and qualities. The image enhancer didn’t seem to make any difference to us at out test.
The camcorder was equally poor performing, the user can choose between 30 second video mail or long video which is dictated only by the memory available. Here, we find basically the same controls. The resolution is in the QCIF or sub QCIF, both of them very low quality, not even food enough for YouTube use.
Again, it’s very obvious that the Rumor is targeted towards a younger a crowd, a crowd that won't notice the differences between this and higher quality videos for the most part. The Rumor does not have EV-DO and therefore, does not have advance multimedia support such as Sprint TV, radio and the Sprint music store instead LG uses Sony media player. Kodak support is actually fairly good on the Rumor and among others, the Rumor can handle mp3 and AAC files.
The user can drop full folders into the memory card and the Rumor will recognize them. However, there is no sorting and all they do is put every track alphabetically. The media player itself is decent, nothing too special. As you can see, it does read the artist and album, however, it doesn’t read the track title. The only thing we have is the file name at the top, which in this case happens to be the title of the song. Options are relatively spars and the only thing you can really do is set the player to repeat or randomize songs.
All in all, it’s a decent media player but nothing is going to replace the standalone mp3 player. All in all, we think the Rumor did a good job of accomplishing what it’s set out to do. Namely, to achieve messaging device, aim toward the younger crowd. The slide out QWERTY keypad is nice and easy to use and with direct access to Facebook and built in I'm client, teenagers will find features that they will utilize. However, to more advance users, the poor camera is and slow web experience will have them frustrated. We have no problem recommending this phone as long as you are doing it to the proper crowd.
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