Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's not all bad, but a bit of a let down, 12 Mar 2009
My primary reasons for buying this were the camera, web browsing, and being able to use msn.
First of all, the camera is pretty good - 8m pixel, good quality pictures, a flash too! And the video quality is ok, with the option to record super slow motion at 120 frames a second. So far so good.
Browsing on the internet - well, the phone supports wifi, so if you have access to a wireless network you can take advantage of potentially quicker speeds than 3G, and avoid eating into your monthly data allowance. Or you can use the phone network. The browser allows you to have up to 2 windows open at once (tabbed, so only one is visible). You can store bookmarks - the bookmarks can be viewed in a list, which is great as you can see more of them, or one per page in which a snapshot of the page is shown - nice idea but means you'll be using up more clicks to find the one you want if it's at the end of the list. And the browser doesn't remember the view mode - it defaults to snapshot. Grrrrr. But anyway, browsing is ok. You'll probably need to use the stylus... more on that later!
Ok... now, MSN chat - yes, ahem. LG what are you playing at? THERE IS NO CHAT CLIENT APPLICATION!!! An unforgivable omission!!!! You can use browser based versions - MSN have a webpage for mobile users, but it's really horrible to use. There are 3rd party applications available, but I've yet to find one that works acceptablly on the Renoir.
Right - the stylus.... it isn't stored within the phone. You have to use a fob thing to keep it in, connected to the phone by a piece of string. Nice. Not. My cat loves to play with it though...
Battery life isn't great - 2 days tops. I think this is fairly common with this type of smart phone though.
Connections - you want to connect the phone to your PC? You have to use the supplied non-standard cable. So if I want to connect to my work and home PC, I need to carry the cable around, or buy another one. Not good. And as for headphones, again.... non-standard connection! Arghhh!
But as a phone, it works well. And texting is great too.
The upshot, for basic phone features, texting, camera, and to a certain extent web browsing, the phone is fine. For music and instant messaging, it's far from ideal.
Have a look at the Nokia 5800 instead!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but there's lots of room for improvement, 18 April 2009
I've had the LG Renoir for about a month now and here's my take on it...
GOOD POINTS
* The headphones are good quality and loud but some might not like the immersive "swimming pool" feel of them.
* In good light and with no motion, the camera is excellent - the pics look great once you've transferred them to the PC and the level of detail is astounding!
* Xenon flash - why do they still make camera phones with LED flash?
* Big screen - very good for video playback
* DIVX support - no conversions required - brilliant!
* The touch interface is quite good (there's better out there) with numeric keys getting it right most of the time (even with my sausage thumbs).
* The handwriting recognition and QWERTY keypad are good with the stylus (no good without).
* Fully predictive text - this is great for big words as it will suggest words as you are typing to save you typing the full word in
* 8GB Micro SD included and support for larger
* Able to lock the phone whilst in video playback - I know this is a strange plus point but I found it irksome on my old phone (N82) that as soon as you breathed near it, it changed orientation or quit out completely. If you have a 2 year-old, button-pressing daughter who you like to keep quiet by playing episodes of Peppa Pig you have on your phone, this is invaluable!
* Good battery life - If used as a phone with the occasional photo, you'll get 4 days on a single charge. Use it as an MP3/MP4 player and you'll have to charge it as you would an MP3/MP4 player.
* Looks good - I'm normally not that bothered but this is a nice looking phone
* Nice default sounds (except the SMS noise) - A small point but the little dinks and ditties are melodic and inoffensive.
* Status Summary dropdown is useful with shortcuts to switch on wifi and bluetooth.
* The central button brings up more useful shortcuts and a task manager which is great for quitting apps and going back into running apps.
BAD POINTS
* No decent offline GPS software available making internal GPS receiver largely useless (for me anyway).
* The lens cover opens in your pocket sometimes - it won't unlock the phone but it does put your lens at danger.
* Calls are sometimes answered while in your pocket - I guess this can happen with many phones but I've not had one that did this before.
* Handwriting recognition only works in portrait - this is a problem for big words or large writing as you're restricted by the narrow screen.
* The keypad auto-locks too quickly in call - if you're going through an automated system, you'll have to unlock and re-display the keypad between every choice!
* Browsing photos takes ages - it takes about 10-20 seconds before you can do anything, then it is tedious to browse through your files and sometimes mis-interprets a swipe at press due to the phone OS being too busy showing you the file - basically, this is down to a slow processor.
* Audio tracks played in alphabetical order only - not the order on the album
* There is often a 1-2 second delay between pressing the shutter button and the camera actually taking the picture which makes for unpredictable results.
* Low light performance is not great - indoor shots without a flash will produce some motion blur.
* No anti-shake for video capture will produce amateur looking videos.
* User manual is not very good.
* No slot for the stylus.
All-in-all, I'm satisfied with the phone but I think I preferred my Nokia N82 as I had Tomtom on there, the phone performed a little better and the camera produced more pleasing results for stills (albeit, at a lower resolution) and video (anti-shake).
The only things I don't miss on the N82 are the microscopic keypad, the smaller screen and the look of it.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Oh dear..........., 13 Feb 2009
I was really excited about getting this phone as it seemed to do all that I wanted.
However, it has one major(and several lesser!) flaws which means I'm returning it after just one day of ownership!
The MP3 player is just completely nonsensical, as you cannot play albums in album order, ie proper track order!
It arranges everything alphabetically, and unless you have them in shuffle order, plays them alphabetically too!
Also, whilst the sound quality is very clear, it is also very quiet, and it is difficult to hear the ringtones in a noisy environment and therefore easy to miss calls.
The camera is top notch to be fair, but it's not worth keeping just for that.
I noticed that the sound quality on videos shot on the camera was very clear too.
Finally, the build quality feels cheap and plasticky, I don't think the phone would happily last the length of my contract!
So, a nice idea, but back it goes, and I'll give the Samsung Pixon a go instead!
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