Verizon isn't kidding around this fall, with four new fashionable phones, a couple of which might divert a few iPhone dollars from archrival AT&T. It's those exact four that Engadget Mobile
got the scoop on last weekend, the Juke, Pearl, Venus and Voyager. A few of the details have changed, but the basic gist is the same. The Samsung Juke is the first "flick" phone to hit the States, and arrives with 2GB of built-in storage, A2DP (which shows up in all these phones) and a VGA camera, and comes in blue, red or teal. Verizon's BlackBerry Pearl is the first Pearl to get EV-DO and a 3.5mm minijack, and also adds Verizon's VZ Navigator service, which is standard across these phones. The Venus slider sports an interesting dual screen setup, with the bottom providing contextual touch controls and the top one acting like all normal-like. Venus, with black or pink color options, is the real fashionphone of the group, and rocks a boring 2 megapixel sensor, but there's a microSD slot for up to 8GB of expansion. Finally, the Voyager (pictured) does it all, with a full screen touchscreen on the outside, and a second screen on the clamshell interior, facing a gargantuan QWERTY keyboard.
V CAST Mobile TV makes an appearance, as does a microSD slot and 2 megapixel camera. All of these phones are supposed to be out by Thanksgiving, but no word on price or exact dates -- though the Juke and Pearl are hitting first, to be followed by the Venus and then the Voyager.
posted October 3rd 2007 3:01AM
That is, when it works. i had the 680 and it was crap. vshit never worked on it.
All,
To call this phone a rip off, is to call every thing a rip off since the telegraph.
For this phone to have come out just a few weeks after the Iphone tells u everything. Phones like the Voyager and the Iphone take years to design, develop and test. Everybody knows that everything in this industry is moving to some kind of touchscreen. This is the ONLY way to get more display real estate on a phone with out making it larger. Having a keyboard, double as a numeric pad, double as an MP3 player, double as the display. Everything is going this way, just look around. We started with a cell phone that you carried a battery pack, then a brick, then flip, etc. As new technology becomes available, everybody starts to incorporate it.
I have not used the Voyager yet, but I did have the IPhone and Mr. Jobs left a lot of functionality out. He left out a real PDA, UMTS, AGPS, etc. He could have made coolest and most functional phone on the planet. Instead he made a neat phone, with lousy battery life and a great interface.
I do have to admit, I am looking forward to the Next Generation of BOTH of theses phones.
Matt,
I hate to break it to you but Apple first offered the iPhone to Verizon, who told Bill where he could stick his demands...
The reasons were simple:
Verizon handles defects in the store - Steve wanted every defect issue sent back to Apple so they can decide how to fix it. (anybody remember the iPod Battery problem..)
VCast is a direct conflict to iTunes
Verizon refused to force their customers to go home and hopefully get everything set up OK with iTunes instead of providing good customer service and having a fully functional phone before u leave the store.
Verizon like most of America realized Steve is a pompous, narcasitic, ego meniacal $%@&%^#
You would have to me a moron to not set up the iphone right!
Could it get any easier????
Click click Click... COMPLETE!!! AMAZING
Hey didn’t LG come out with the first complete advanced touch interface and the first completely touch screen mobile phone in the beginning of 2007. If im not mistaken the “iPhone” came out in june of 07…
Check the facts before you guys say anything…
http://www.lge.com/about/press_release/detail/PRO%7CNEWS%5EPRE%7CMENU_20328_PRE%7CMENU.jhtml
There's 0 doubt that this design is a deliberate knock off of the apple design. True icon based systems have been in place for ever. There is no argument there. BUt this particular icon system and layout looks like they took a screenshot from an iPhone and did a half hour of photoshop just to make it look slightly different. I hardly care that this is LG's whatever generation phone. What the iPhone had really improved on is UI. Something that all phone maker should take a good HARD look at. The iPhone doesn't have any truly brilliant or original features, but it does have hands down the most intuitive interface for getting to and using those features of any phone to date. It doesn't matter what a phone can do if it takes 30 "clicks" or button presses to get there, guess what? I'm not going to use it. This phone will not have the interface design and attention to interface detail that the iPhone has. It has more features, it's certainly under a better service provider, it even as a touch screen and a "real" qwerty keyboard, but I'm still going to the iPhone, because at the end of the day the iPhone design actually seems to take into account that a real person is going to have to use this thing at some point. It's not enough to cram features into a phone or any device, you have to make them easy and pleasurable to use.
i actually quite like the Voyagers UI. although standard verizon fare, it's way better than my razr 2 =[
and seriously guys, stop comparing everything to the iphone!
i love macs too and yeah the iphone is pretty cool. but a) i'm stuck on verizon and EVDO is way better than edge. and verizon gets two bars of evdo + 1x in my area, and i live in the boonies, AT&T just upgraded things in my area and i get full 3G in my house. INSIDE. it would be a slap in the face to get a phone that cool on a network that gets full 3G inside my house, a slap in the face. so i'll get the n95 when it comes out on AT&T because their razr 2 sucks.
hey! why you hating on tori.... i mean steve. haha.
no vzw prob. turned it down because they wanted the VZW UI and yeah i think that steve would have worked out the itunes v-cast prob. but vzw has an exclusive contract with m$ft for the DRM for their vcast stuff. verizon also likes limited bluetooth and no wifi. so i think you have it backwards. verizon wanted too much control (and prob. branding) and really idk why any company puts up with it.
Yeah for some challenges to the unholy Iphone!
Look, I've owned Apple Computers since the 80's. The current generation of MAC products has really allowed Apple to finally step out from the crowd and take its right place in the world of personal computing. Definitely more stable O/S and just all around workhorses.
However, just because LG steps up and offers us a similar platform - with a QWERTY keyboard - doesn't mean to Apple Geek boys need to get their panties in a wad. When companies can openly compete for the market, the consumer benefits in the long run. I can't wait for test drive this Voyager.
The problem with Apple fanatics is that they create this hermetically sealed kingdom for themselves where diversity represents a dagger to their hearts. They would impose Apple on us all, by the sword, and kill the ingenuity that allow Apple to rise up in the techno world.
I say hurrah!! Keep Apple on their heals occasionally and maybe they will continue to wow us with newer gadgets. So pipe down TMM and get over yourself. The LG Voyager is simply a work of art and you need to stop moaning like the Apple geek you are.
Although a bit more “kitchen sink” than the iPhone, I question whether the LG Venus and Voyager can gain the attention of consumers. The use of advancing optoelectronics including multiple, larger, higher resolution displays and better cameras (2 Mpixel), combined with new interface modes including touch and vibration feedback, at least make me want to go into the store and take a look. The Verizon web page on the new phones http://products.vzw.com/index.aspx?id=rlp&site=next is sure annoying. They are certainly not besting Apple on this front http://www.apple.com/iphone/ . http://wrtassoc.com have additional views on the enabling role played by optoelectronics in upcoming smart phones. We've got to come up with a better name for these things.
does it have visual voicemail like the iphone?
Ok!, All you haters out there if you think the Voyager is a rip off of the iPhone; your wrong. Verizon was going to be the carrier for that cheesey A$$ iPhone, but Verizon did not like (Apple's) terms and conditions... So (Apple) went to the lamest compain out there *ATT* .. So the Voyager is basically not a rip off.. There is more touch screens phones then the (iPhone) apple wasn't the first.. Anways (Iphone's) have problems with them.. So far me reading about this phone it is going to be WAY better the them the so called *EVERYTHING PHONE* (iPhone). Can't wait until this phone comes out.. Oh!, And one more thing I like my phone right now the (enV) good reliable phone..
This bickering is funny. There is one over-arching things that allows this phone to blow the iphone out of the water. Thats the full qwerty keyboard. The iPhone is on a POS network, with POS reception, and is a POS trend device. The iPhone is also rather ugly as well. Its simplistic design allows for no style. The iPhone is the uninspired product. Aslo, the Voyagers been in the labs long before Apple even started talking about the iPhone, plus the Prada has been out for a while now. Apple is the one ripping off LG here.
I knew that in order to hang on to their customers Verizon will come up with a similar product. Verizon network is far superior, so it did not make sense to me to switch to another provider just because of the iphone. So why not stay with the most reliable network and use the Lg Voyager with it, since verizon programing is far superior. I have the motorola razor2 v9m it is very stable and I can jump from one menu to another very quickly and no freeze ups, I tested sprint and AT&T version of the same phone, too sluggish, and too slow, even the internet access. So here is proof that it pays to wait for a similar product from Verizon
Seriously, if you want to go spend $600 because your so crazy about the iphone, then more power to you! Who cares if it's similar to the ipone!! For crying out loud, look how many shades and types of the pink, silver, and black razors there are!! most phone companies copy each other in some kinda way. GET OVER IT! Personally, I think both phones are great, and I can't wait for the voyager to come out.. hopefully it won't be as expensive though.
come on yall are you serious?! did you really think that no one would ever change their products to keep up withthe competition. im sure this one will be a lot cheaper than the i phone.neither of which has the storage capacity of my ipod. (which is why i bought it) i phone...pffff
I think you're all ignoring Verizon's big plus - Best Customer Service in the industry - Bar None!
You must work there or watch way too much TV
Not so---work for WeightWatchers.com customer service and have done business (bad!) with Sprint and AT&T.
In my not so humble opinion, Verizon by far outshines them all!!!
To discuss about the new voyager phone by LG, please visit
http://www.voyager-lg.com
Can't Wait 7 days left Great gift idea
Wow. Engadget has the largest collection of troll postings I've ever seen on any website, especially tech related. It's amusing to read the comments normally, but when it's this misinformed, it's infuriating, since I've been involved in the development of devices like the iPhone and simpler devices more like this.
First up, stop saying Apple copied the LG Prada - it was released before the iPhone, but after the iPhone was announced, and was likely a kneejerk reaction to the iPhone's announcement. I wouldn't be surprised if they took an existing project and grafted on a touch screen after the iPhone was announced. If you honestly think Apple copied them, please do everyone else a favor and don't that opinion or any of your other opinions, because someone might believe you, and then you'll be actively making the world a stupider place.
LG pumps out products that use existing technologies and are essentially commodities, so their development cycles are much shorter than that of something like Apple's iPhone, where a TON of work was put in to make the adaptive touch keyboard and other innovations work. From use, it's obvious that the iPhone has some sophisticated algorithms running on it, especially in the case of the keyboard. Laying down a standard touch screen interface and using mechanical buttons takes almost no work by comparison. Its OS is in a different league from something like this as well - it's graphical subsystem uses OpenGL for God's sake. It's like comparing a laptop to a calculator. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it is so much more sophisticated than a phone like this.
And you should have your head examined if you don't think that LG designers were looking at the iPhone when they made the Voyager interface. The iPhone is the phone to copy in the smartphone space. I'm not saying that Apple was the first to lay it out like that, I know palm was doing that basic interface long before the iPhone, but the visual style of the interface and the phone itself are too close to be a coincidence. You could call it an ugly twin.
And really, even if you don't like the iPhone, you should respect the amount of work that went into the iPhone over and above the amount that goes into something like this. I'm not an Apple fanboy, I actively use every OS on the market, but I am an engineer, and you have to respect a fine piece of engineering innovation over a commodity piece of electronics like the voyager.
And I don't know where all of these comments come from - a lot of people who diss the iPhone and complain about certain parts of it obviously haven't used it long enough - you probably have to give it a few days to a couple weeks before you're able to talk intelligently about it. Some of the problems people mention are real, I think a lot of them are just being repeated from troll postings they've read elsewhere.
So what if apple STEALS ideas!
They just make them perfect. Because anyone can come up with CRAP. You have to be a genius to make millions off the Crap!!
good lord people it's a phone, not a cure for cancer. I have one, it does the job, I like it and that is all that matters!
Also, the LG Prada came out before the iPhone. So to say, Apple copied LG's touch screen. LG Prada had been out before iPhone was announced.
Forgot to mention that the Voyager is a re-edition of the LG Prada, and it looks a bit like the enV.
Does it all matter though? It's all trend. Just like how styles from the 70's are coming back right now... There were flip phones era, there were the slide, now there's the touch...
Okay, enough. Both phones have their pros and cons and both use the most current technology (no matter where or who it comes from). There will always be people out there to like or dislike everything. Just remember, competition creates supply which ultimately lowers the cost to consumers. If you like Apple, buy the iPhone. If you like LG, buy the Voyager.