The LG 800G cell phone is the first touch screen offered by TracFone, and in my opinion, the best TracFone yet offered. But don't look for it on LG's website you won't find it. It is a special prepaid model for TracFone/Net10 only. I don't even find it listed overseas.
I have had mine for about four weeks. It is not a full smart phone, more like half-smart, when compared to something like the iPhone. It doesn't have accelerometers, it doesn't have WiFi, and you only have limited capability to change orientation of the screen.
But at only $50 or less, it is a very good value for the features it does have a very good cell phone -with a music player, HD camera (stills and video), external memory (optional), data cable (optional), a qwerty keyboard app, texting, and included apps for games, alarm clock, stop watch,voice recorder, calendar, memo pad, tasks list, scientific calculator, and World clock. And, you can add hundreds of your own apps, provided they are java apps.
You can surf the internet and access your email and text message all costing you minutes. I personally don't have anything important enough to pay for cell phone internet connect time and downloads. But if you do, you can do it with the LG 800G.
While the external memory (microSDHC card), and USB data cable, are not included, you should consider them essential and buy them. The reason is that it is much cheaper to download apps to your computer and transfer it to the LG 800G by data cable. The data cable must be a USB-typA to a micrUSB-typeB. The data cable can only access the microSD card (external memory) and not the internal memory.
You can also use Bluetooth to connect to a Bluetooth headset, or to transfer files to/from a computer (if it the computer also has bluetooth.) You can set file transfer to be either to internal memory or to external memory.
The LG 800G comes with double-minutes-for-life, and if you catch Home Shopping Network just at the right time, they occasionally have triple-minutes for life. The cost per minute is around ten cents, and even less.
The LG 800G has just too many features to discuss here. You will find the TracFone User guide that comes with the LG 800G to be pretty basic -mostly devoted to activating the phone. You will want to access the TracFone LG 800G on-line Tutorial. There is no link on the TracFone website to the tutorial but you can find it, and the best user forum/blog, by Googling "TracFone LG 800G Tutorial." The top three or four hits should take you to the tutorial and to the Turk Forum LG 800G discussion.
All in all, I very much like the LG 800G, and would recommend it to a friend. My favorite app is the music player, which also has an equalizer and Bass Boost. With a good stereo headset, especially one that also receives calls, it is as good as it gets.
I decided to get a Trackfone because I just can't justify nearly $100 per month from AT&T when a Tracfone would only cost me about $100 per YEAR. This phone does everything and more for me especially since I only use my phone to talk and text message, occassionally check facebook or e-mail online with it, but that's about it. It's the perfect phone, so lightweight, easy to use, easy to see for someone with low vision like me which is perfect, and just neat with the touchscreen capability. Definitely get a cover for it though because without it it is EXTREMELY slippery and easy to drop. Love everything about it otherwise though.
UPDATE: July 14, 2011
After leaving my glowing review a few days later I also began having the texting problem most people seem to have. I was receiving the same message over and over and OVER again and couldn't get any new ones either. I called costumer service and spoke with a very friendly, very helpful woman who reset my text message service and within a couple hours it was up and running again and has been great ever since. I adore this phone and wouldn't want any other as of now. So rest assured that if you do get this phone and IF it did develop the texting problem then it can be easily fixed. I still give it five stars!!!!
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I got this phone for $40.00 and put a 60 day NET10 card on it to try it out. So far, here are my observations based on how I use the phone. (I don't do texting)
1. Lightweight and size are fine. Phone fits easily into the hand.
2. The 'touch' screen sensitivity is chosen obviously to filter out accidental 'presses' to icons on the screen, but---it filters a little too strongly for my taste and I wish this was adjustable.
3. The camera is said to be a 2mp design, but it does not seem as good as the camera in the LG 900G, which is also a 2mp camera.
4. The camera 'take a shot' button is virtual, not a real button, and I find that this causes some shots to blur, since in trying to 'push' that virtual button, the camera can easily move and you get a blurred shot as a result.
5. There is major shutter lag, so that the pic you see and want to capture might not be what you get, aka, with animals and kids or any kind of action.
6. The phone seems plenty signal sensitive, based on my use of other phones.
7. Battery life is ok, not amazing.
8. From what I got in an email from NET10, the phone needs an external memory card in order for the USB data transfer to work. I decided to use Bluetooth
to avoid putting a memory card into the phone (you hve to remove the back of the phone and take out the battery to see the memory slot)
9. Since I don't do texting I cannot offer an opinion. I have read on other sites that this phone has texting problems and that NET10 is going to fix that problem with an update.
10. Overall, I like the phone, but wish the camera was as good as the one in the LG 900G which I found to be truly excellent. The 900G also has a real shutter button and less lag and images come out less blurred.
It's not a smart phone but for the price and NET10's service plans, it's an excellent value in my view.
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Got this for a Net 10 plan and I think this is a fantastic phone. I use it mainly for phone calling and occasionally checking Gmail or Facebook wile I'm away from home. It's not a smart phone but for my use it is perfect especially with a $25 a month 750 minutes a month NET 10 plan. I don't browse on a phone, not even on my iPod touch because phones are too small for browsing the web, I save that for my laptop. No apps on this phone so if you are looking for that, look for a smartphone.
Pros: Size. It fits well in my pocket and isn't as bulky as a Iphone or Blackberry sized phone. Easy to see dialer. Touchscreen. Easy to turn to silent mode and back as well as locking the phone. Nice clock display when in lock mode. Sound quality on calls are excellent. Hasn't dropped a call or missed a voice or text message. Customizable to an extent. MicroSD slot inside. Bluetooth. Sleek looking and slides right into my pocket.
Cons: I think the Bluetooth is just to connect to an earpiece because i couldn't connect to my Ipod. Np biggie. No GPS or Google maps unless you go into browser mode. The touch-pad is not as precise as a Iphone but it still has qwerty features (though not in the default browser). It even has handwriting recognition but i find that slower than the qwerty. I love how easy it is to spell qwerty haha.
All in all a great phone for $39. I had originally purchased the LG 900g but returned it for this one and i am quite pleased. It's poor mans IPhone.
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I've recently moved from being a contract cell phone customer to prepaid. My contract with T-Mobile expired some time ago with a shared family plan, two phones, and a 1000 minutes per month for $49.99. Pretty cheap, right? That's what kept me as a customer for quite awhile in that I really couldn't find a better deal. Then I noticed we got dinged 10 cents for every text message somebody sent us (our Motorola Razr's were difficult to text from so just didn't use it). I also couldn't do any wireless web access without paying a big fee. And after taxes and fees we were up to around $64 a month. I also noticed that my wife used the bulk of the minutes while I only occasionally used mine. We thought that if we could get her onto a reasonable plan with lots of minutes and me on a cheap plan with few minutes that would save us some dough.
After doing a ton of research I found that my wife's phone could be moved to a prepaid plan with 1500 mins/texts for $30 a month. After switching the plans I then discovered the Tracfone LG800G at my local Target. I saw from the reviews that many folks liked it a lot while others really hated it mainly due to issues with texting. Not being a big text sender myself, I figured I'd give the phone a shot. After buying it, I went to Tracfone's website to activate it while transferring my existing number. Halfway into the process, the web site went down for "maintenance" UGH. Not a good start. Being patient did pay off about 4 hrs later I was able to complete the number transfer request. I braced myself for the possibility of having no phone at all while the process played out in the systems. An hour later, I saw that my current phone was indicated as "cancelled" at T-mobile's web site PROGRESS! About 20 mins later I logged into Tracfone's web site again and saw that my phone required "updates." After following a long process to enter multiple number sequences into the manual code entry of my phone, it came to life! My number was transferred in a little under 2 hrs from the time I hit submit on the form.
Coming from an old phone like the Razr the LG800G has been amazing! Love the touch screen, the features, and ease of mobile web and messaging. I can easily connect it to my iMac via Bluetooth connection and drop ringtones, wallpapers, and apps onto it. Sure, it doesn't run iOS but that's why I keep an iPod Touch around for (costs a whole lot less, too!). Based on my limited testing, I'd say that Tracfone now has a handle on the texting issues as I've not had any problems with it yet. Sound quality is great, my signal is a lot better around town than I had with my old phone but I can't say if this is just new technology or the fact that I'm now on the AT&T network. I was able to load up the phone with 200 minutes using a 60 min card, the double minutes for life feature and a promo code. This put my cost at about 10 cents a minute if I don't count the out of pocket cost for the phone. If you're looking for a nice feature enhanced touch screen phone in the pre-paid wireless space, you could do a lot worse than this one. I'm completely impressed, so much that I wrote this review and I don't write very many.
Do not think the system will over write previous video. Fills the SD chip and quits. half a dozen calls to SWANN and they are clueless. The motion detection is a joke. Save your money and buy a real security camera system.
