cellrater

So apparently AT&T is going to be selling a new variant of the LG Shine (the successor to the ever so popular chocolate series). I had the opportunity to own the original shine model and the first thing that stands out to me is that the new Shine (AT&T) no longer has the scroll wheel on the front below the screen. Instead AT&T has gone with a boring 5 way nav button like every other phone.

Now don’t get me wrong, the shine wasn’t the worst handset I ever owned, if nothing else it is definitely a gorgeous phone and all the pictures you have seen don’t do it justice. The brushed metal and reflective glass screen are as beautiful as they are easy to get dirty. The thing is though that the shine didn’t really have a lot going for it, and maybe I am just biased having owned so many smart phones, but it just kind of struck me as a middle of the road kind of phone. The only real reason to buy this phone for the price they are selling it for is if you just want something pretty and the scroll wheel (although kind of a gimmick) was a big part of the style and allure of the phone. Once you add on the locked down AT&T operating system and you take a mediocre phone to kind of lame.

I don’t know, maybe I am being to harsh on the LG shine. Sure it comes with a 2 mega pixel camera, HSDPA and video share support but are any of those features really so great considering the phones price tag?

My dislike for the shine may also be due to the fact that I only owned the phone for 3 weeks before dropping it for the first time off my desk one evening. The first and only drop ever received by this phone which caused the mirrored glass screen to crack on each end. I have owned a lot of phones in the past year, and have dropped the occasional handset but I have never had one crack a screen… I think the worst part about it is that the shines looks were all I really cared about, and the mirrored screen was the biggest part of the novelty so having a glass screen killed the last ounce of respect I had for the shine. Lets hope that AT&T took the time to beef up the screen issue before they hit the streets.

Have any of you purchased a shine? Let me know what you think about it.

Popularity: 87% [?]

Ok so I know what you are thinking, I just talked about the apple cellphone and now here I am taking about a banana cellphone… what is up with the fruity phones coming out lately? The LG-SV80 is a new phone by LG that actually curves when open; making it look like… well… a banana. Hence the name. But doesn’t this phone concept seem mysteriously similar to the Motorola RIZR Z8?

Anyway, this phone is sporting 142Mb of memory, 1.3 MP camera, and an integrated MP3 player in its little shell. I am not too wild about the orange though.

Popularity: 19% [?]