LG Vu officially available from AT&T

No surprises here -- particularly since LG's Vu has been on sale through a number of AT&T retail outlets since late last month (whoops!). Today, however, the carrier is officially listing LG's latest for sale, and the Mobile TV-supporting handset is going for a stiff $549.99 sans contract, or $299.99 after giving away your cellular soul for two years and waiting anxiously for a $100 mail-in rebate to arrive. Check out our hands-on gallery to see if you're really ready to make this kind of commitment.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Sachiejones @ May 5th 2008 9:44AM]

looks sleek enough

[Pochi @ May 5th 2008 10:01AM]

that's what she said

[VitalyTheUnknown @ May 5th 2008 10:54AM]

...and put it back into the shiny pink-colored box under her bed and never opened it again, she is dying 86 year old former porn star named foxy.

[Ace b @ May 5th 2008 12:46PM]

Price looks steep enough.

And I'll keep saying that until LG learns from their little pricing"mistake".

[Nick M. @ May 5th 2008 7:09PM]

its surprisingly light weight. The odd thing was that i was in the messaging or contacts section and trying to add info info a field and it didnt pop up with an onscreen QWERTY keyboard it was a keypad that

[Nick M. @ May 5th 2008 7:13PM]

made me press 1 three times to get the letter C. (forgot what that typing system is called). I call it crap.

Other than that it seemed like a nice phone. Of course the display model in the ATT store didn't have the TV streaming service setup on it. What's the point of it being the display model for possible customers to look at and navigate through when you don't have the major selling feature turned on.

[Adam @ May 5th 2008 10:16AM]

Seems kinda steep if the iPhone is going to be around that same price!

[Nick M. @ May 5th 2008 7:16PM]

But with this you get streaming TV. Perfect if you have been completely brainwashed and are now a TV zombie.

Now I can get bombarded with crappy reality TV shows and complain that theres nothing good on TV even when I'm walking down the street.

[helixtimestwo @ May 5th 2008 10:16AM]

Nice phone, but the price should be $100 less.

If the '3G iphone $199 w/2yr' rumor is true the vu is a poor buy.

[ProjectGSX @ May 5th 2008 10:21AM]

My wife bought one on Saturday. Its getting returned today. Very disappointing. Specifically the web browsing experience. Looks like we will wait for the new iPhone instead.

[fred @ May 5th 2008 10:37AM]

Bravo!

*Bought a phone without testing it in the store.
*Returned it in 2 days.
*Make pitch for iPhone.

That's pretty much how the script works. You've got the whole thing down like a master, even the part about how you got it for your girlfriend. Nice touch.

[Nick M. @ May 5th 2008 7:18PM]

I played with one at an ATT store this weekend.. and half of the features were disabled. WTF is up with that.

[Charles Han @ May 5th 2008 10:35AM]

yea the price is way too steep. It may have looks but no substance. there are couple things it lacks compared to other phones in that range: gps, more powerful cpu, more mem, and intuitive os. I think they would've been much better off somehow putting in android platform then their own software.

[solodragon @ May 5th 2008 10:50AM]

When are the other phone makers going to realize that the only way they are going to compete with the iPhone is on price!? If I'm going to pay the same amount for the same specs, I'm just going to buy the iPhone.

Now if there was a $200 MSRP difference (no rebate BS), I'd get the Vu, but since that is not the case, I'll be waiting for the 3G iPhone before I replace my Motorokr E6.

[Jamar @ May 5th 2008 11:07AM]

If you really want a decent TV phone it's not going to come from LG/Samsung/Nokia/the "biggies". Look across the Pacific- Sharp has AQUOS phones, SE has Bravia, Panasonic has Viera, so on and so forth. First off- A screen that size should have at least 854x480 or some other VGA+ resolution. That should be the norm above a 2.4-inch screen. Second- include a DVR function. Third- make sure the rest of the phone is intuitive. I'd say that SE did this right (not their Euro division- especially the Euro handset designers can go get themselves canned for all I care, their Japanese group is far better) with the SO905i and upcoming SO906i.

[Mobile Phone Diva @ May 7th 2008 12:06AM]

Actually the Nokia N96 is coming with a large screen and a TV tuner, but of course the US won't be able to use that functuon, as usual. I agree that the US has nothing on what they get in Asia and by the time we catch up, it'll be a decade from now!!

[MBS @ May 5th 2008 11:10AM]

I really want to like this phone. Unfortunately having an AT&T branded LG phone currently I will not be buying this phone. Especially not at this price. If it was $200 less I would be interested.
But a non-smartphone with LG firmware crippled by at&t and no real possibility of getting a hold of a generic unbranded, un-crippled firmware? I don't think so.
And what's with the Bluetooth 1.2 anyways. Hopefully the headset profile works unlike my current LG.

And no, I'm not getting the iphone instead.

[Jubei @ May 5th 2008 11:26AM]

It's not an iPhone. The asking price is much too high for a product that wants to be like an iPhone. Which of course it fails miserably.

[tnkgrl @ May 5th 2008 12:07PM]

Strange... Mine was $399 without renewing my contract. Maybe the salesperson screwed up!

Here's my unboxing: http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/unboxing-the-lg-cu920-vu/

[David W. @ May 5th 2008 1:56PM]

you have too many awesome phones... :(

care to share? lolol

great unboxing gallery

[DP @ May 5th 2008 12:58PM]

Wow, this thing is getting quite a bad wrap, and for good reason. You might as well just wait for the 3G iPhone.

[miko34 @ May 5th 2008 1:23PM]

Up to 3 hours of talk time, huh? Yeah... isn't that how the phone is supposed to be like after three years of recharging. Cell phones nowadays should have at least a 5 or 6 hour talk time standard. We as consumers shouldn't buy these (at least for GSM) phones that are below the 5 hour mark. Otherwise, these companies will still shovel them out (kinda like car companies won't make more hybrids until morons stop buying large SUVs). The LG phone looks nice and has great features, though... but I'm sure that those extra features on there would cut that talk time down to an hour or less. Unacceptable. How come Sony Ericsson can do longer talk times? Do they have some sort of secret wires in their phones? Or do they suffer from weaker signals? Anyway, I'll pass on this.

[tubadude012 @ May 5th 2008 1:58PM]

so this is definitely a loss for US customers and for LG. Instead of simply launching the Viewty (KU990, available in Europe) which has a 5-megapixel camera (beat Apple there) and has had 3G/GPRS since it's launch, LG decided to take one for the loss. well, at least anti-apple people will be happy :)

[Cash @ May 5th 2008 3:09PM]

The Vu was officially available yesterday, both online and at their retail stores. Where were you guys?

[fred @ May 5th 2008 4:33PM]

how much is the phone

[JRD15 @ May 5th 2008 6:40PM]

Englishman: Who?

Frenchman: Vu!