LG's Chocolate 3 doesn't melt during hands-on

Wait, Verizon actually decided it would be a good idea to make official a cellphone today? Oh yeah, that's right -- the Chocolate 3 was announced with a Sunday availability date today, but for those hoping to see the wrapper unfold a few days early, today's your lucky day. The cats over at Laptop were able to acquire the new flip and test it out ever-so-briefly, and while initial impressions seemed rather positive, we reckon it's the photos you're really after. Dig into the read link for the full gallery.

[bobby bobby @ Jul 11th 2008 7:06PM]

video review, looks kind of like a cool phone crossed with ripping off the iTunes logo

http://www.phonedog.com/cell-phone-videos/video-lg-chocolate-3-vzw-unboxing-and-hands-on.aspx

[Dave @ Jul 11th 2008 1:35PM]

God, why does Verizon have to kill all of their phones with their terrible UI.

[anders @ Jul 11th 2008 1:49PM]

Actually, this phone doesn't use Verizon's UI; it's a variation of LG's UI. It's really an improvement imho.

[Pete @ Jul 11th 2008 3:41PM]

I have had a couple of Verizon phones, and besides a different main menu layout, I am pretty sure that is just another Verizon UI. Do you have any other sources that discuss how it is an LG UI and not a VZW one?

[vought @ Jul 11th 2008 2:00PM]

Wow. Looks like they ripped off Mac OS X and the iPhone pixel for pixel with those icons. I guess there really is no shame, but it's a pity they didn't get the interface right. Pretty icons don't actually make the phone easy to use or useful...

[Quix @ Jul 11th 2008 2:13PM]

Prepare to be voted down by the anti-Apple brigade by pointing out a fact.

This board has been overrun by Apple-hating trolls. Or Redmond shills.

[cj @ Jul 11th 2008 2:23PM]

No it's not the anti-apple brigade that voted him down.
Just anti- ignorant dumbass 14 year old Apple fanboys brigade.

[Xtort @ Jul 11th 2008 2:24PM]

Pixel for pixel my butt. I put them side by side, besides the fact that they are both blue they are quite different.

[NHAnimator @ Jul 11th 2008 1:36PM]

If one of these things, just one, actually tasted like chocolate, we'd be talking sale.

In the meantime, I will continue to be banned from Verizon mall kiosks.

[Quix @ Jul 11th 2008 1:40PM]

Good grief LG, is it really that hard to design your own interface icons without lifting them directly from Apple? Seriously.

[anonymouspimp @ Jul 11th 2008 1:47PM]

please tell me you aren't suggesting that Apple was the first to use a music note icon to get to music (or a music folder)...

Apple zealots crack me up. The funniest part is how they don't even know how funny they are.

[Anton @ Jul 11th 2008 1:58PM]

Fail Fanboy, Fails.

[Zak @ Jul 11th 2008 1:59PM]

Anonymouspimp, you obviously don't get it. Nobody's saying Apple was the first one to use a music note. We're saying these icons are a DIRECT ripoff of Apple's icons. As in, pixel for pixel. Not that you would know what Apple's icons look like, right?

[natels @ Jul 11th 2008 2:09PM]

zak.. As an avid mac user.. Those icons are not PIXEL for PIXEL. Yes they are similar but nowhere near pixel4pixel. Don't exaggerate for the sake of less 'fanboy' wars.

[Quix @ Jul 11th 2008 2:17PM]

@ anonymouspimp:

Yeah, because the *only* way to visually represent music is with a glassy blue pair of eighth notes.

Anti-Apple zealots crack me up. The funniest part is how they don't even know how funny they are.

Keep voting me down, lamer trolls.

[Reader @ Jul 11th 2008 2:40PM]

Well seeing as Apple uses different colors of the eighth note for different versions, LG would be fucked with any color they went with. Also if you actually look at the icons from both this phone and OS X and compare them you can tell the only similarity they have is the general shape. The light source for LG's icon is from the top, while Apple's looks to be from the front or at an angle. The other icons you can't really complain about either: a camera for a camera, mail for mail, a picture for pictures (though it is a flower), a calendar for a calendar, etc. I'm not an LG fanboy or an Apple hater, I just happened to look up the screen shots because I was not sure who was correct (I don't use OS X or an iPhone). Calling the icons "pixel for pixel" is just straight up stupid.

[Zak @ Jul 11th 2008 4:11PM]

Yeah, since anonymouspimp clearly didn't understand what Quix was talking about, I had to make it more clear for him. And the thing is, those icons do look just like Apple's icons. You know, it is possible to design icons using a music note that doesn't looks just like Apple's icon. You can change the proportions, stylize it, make it a different color, make it look like it has a different texture... there are hundreds of ways to do it.

The fact that LG didn't do any of those things is the point. In fact they made an effort to create icons that intentionally look like Apple's icons, probably because they're not very creative over at LG.

[Arkenklo @ Jul 11th 2008 11:53PM]

Ugly!

[drjay868 @ Jul 11th 2008 2:25PM]

Just not a fan of either the Chocolate 2 or 3 (as far as looks. Have never used one so can't speak to its reliabilty -- tho my 1 is flawless)... still like my old school Chocolate 1 the best... if only it had larger buttons or I had smaller fingers...

[fem @ Jul 12th 2008 7:57AM]

I don't give a shit about the icons. The thing is just ugly. Ewwwww. There's no continuity. Bad, bad, bad, design. And seriously I am one of the biggest Apple-haters you can find but at least they know how to design phones you won't be embarassed to carry around.

[Prometheus25 @ Jul 11th 2008 1:43PM]

Hmm. These icons look strangely familiar...

[shayne @ Jul 11th 2008 1:45PM]

i think its a downgrade from the chocolate 2 for the fact that it now just seems like a standard flip phone with more features.

[natels @ Jul 11th 2008 1:55PM]

Well if it's a downgrade then LG has their work cut out for them. The phone's a pos imo.

[Dude @ Jul 11th 2008 1:58PM]

Nice to know somebody released a phone you can actually use today.

[sanderscm2 @ Jul 11th 2008 2:02PM]

It's not out til Sunday...so

[Tim @ Jul 11th 2008 2:03PM]

Touch-sensitive wheel? 320x240? Glossy finish??? Why, its a 5th gen ipod with a cheap case on it!

[(01) @ Jul 11th 2008 2:08PM]

scroll wheels are the new touch screens? Wait...

[TrueDis @ Jul 11th 2008 2:19PM]

This actually looks much more like a RAZR2 ripoff than an Apple ripoff...

[HeyItsAndrew @ Jul 11th 2008 2:36PM]

How can you call a phone chocolate when its no longer in a candy bar form?

[kastonie @ Jul 11th 2008 2:45PM]

dude you can totally buy a folded chocolate bar....apparently you have never shopped at the discount grocery store

[Crooked Style @ Jul 11th 2008 2:32PM]

At least it's got a front camera!!!

[zephxiii @ Jul 11th 2008 8:30PM]

Nice to see the GUI is not a verizon one, thank god. Now does the bluetooth do anything other than handsfree? Does it run java? or surf the web...

[Kaiser-Machead @ Jul 11th 2008 2:53PM]

If you were to take the camera icon and put it in front of the photo icon, the only thing that keeps it from looking like that for iPhoto would be that it's a picture of a daisy, not a palm tree in the sunset. The music note icon is a lot like iTunes, but without the CD, it's just a generic music note (though the color and texture is just about the same).

The entire interface I'm seeing here is just blatantly Front Row, unless someone can point out an interface that predates it with that same look.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jul 11th 2008 3:01PM]

I'm bloody mad as hell. After I stood on line 24 hours (most of it in the blazing sun-I got a nice tan, though) and I couldn't get a 16 GB iPhone activated today due to blasted Apple server shutdown, I'm going to run out and buy this LG Chocolate 3 instead...............NOT!!!.

Rather have my gonads pinched in a vise before I'd purchase this tasteless piece of ..... Chocolate.

Just like to mention that LG did steal that "blue note" from iTunes. These companies can't come up with anything original. Apple should have patented that note and have it removed from all sheet music.

[Wireless Buddy @ Jul 11th 2008 3:30PM]

This phone isn't mean to compete with the iPhone, you idiots. Not everyone should have an iPhone. I, for one, like phones that can have 3rd party apps that aren't raped by Apple. That's why I use Windows Mobile.

Also, there are only so many ways to make an icon of a music note.

It is you kind of people that gives us Mac users a bad name...

[idiot hater @ Aug 14th 2008 4:11PM]

WOW are you stupid or WHAT. Sheet music has been around a helluva lot longer than ANY phone.

Anyways. To everybody arguing about the icons. Shut the hell up, please and thank you.

[Wireless Buddy @ Jul 11th 2008 3:27PM]

The only icon that is similar to a Mac OS X icon/iPhone icon is the Calendar. Get a life.

[Bakari @ Jul 11th 2008 3:28PM]

You Apple fanboys are so ridiculous!

If it looks like an Apple product: "OMG!!! They're ripping off Apple, where's the innovation!?"

If it doesn't look like an Apple product: "OMG!!! It's so lame, why can't anyone make something look as good as OS-X!?"

Shut your faces, you can't have it both ways.

[Michael Chastain @ Jul 12th 2008 12:03AM]

Amen. Why are people so concerned if something looks like something else? The only thing I'm concerned about is how well the interface works, and to a lesser extent how attractive it is. Leave worrying about whether it's too close to another product to the copyright lawyers--that's what they get paid to do.

Similarity in interface is actually beneficial to the consumer IMO because it aids in comprehension. I've never driven a Ford and complained, "OMG, they totally stole the speedometer display from Chevy!'

Get over yourselves. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find something that used similar icons before Apple. Nobody cares.

[Jughead @ Jul 11th 2008 3:28PM]

The reviewer said MiniUSB but i'm pretty sure he means MicroUSB because that's what the EnV2, Decoy, Dare all use.

[Kaiser-Machead @ Jul 11th 2008 3:33PM]

Forget the icons (despite the camera+photo icon put together would be a spitting image of iPhoto's, save for the daisy picture). This looks just like the Front Row interface.

commenting system is goofy.

[Kaiser-Machead @ Jul 11th 2008 3:33PM]

oh wtf. I comment and the rest come back. Dangit. :(

[Tim @ Jul 11th 2008 4:09PM]

Familiarities aside, the point is that LG continues to soil the good name of chocolate. What's next? LG Caramel? LG Chewing Gum?!?!?

[Jubei @ Jul 11th 2008 4:19PM]

Not a single creative bone for this company. LG virtually copied the icons, front row design and all from Apple.

Of course some one will say, two pixels are not on the same area. There you go its original work from LG and they are not a "me too" company.

[fnc @ Jul 11th 2008 4:15PM]

I'm still using a Chocolate 1 I got after briefly looking over a friend's. Okay phone hobbled by some really weird design decisions. The biggest bit of fail was the proprietary jack, through which headphones (2.5mm through a special connector, bad!) and charging had to take place. The jack's design was spectacularly crappy, and they were wise to drop it. The other biggest bit of fail was the 50 song limit on playlist size. That was a stupid idea in a phone that could hold up to 2gb of songs. This numero three sounds like they fixed most of the things I was disappionted with (USB charging ftw) but I'm probably waiting to see what Android brings to the table before getting another phone.

[Jon Graft @ Jul 12th 2008 1:13AM]

Is it just me, or is the Chocolate getting uglier and uglier with every new version they come out with. O_o

[bluestriker @ Jul 12th 2008 2:50AM]

As an owner of the 1st & 2nd gen Chocolates, I am very disappointed in LG for making the Chocolate a flip phone instead of a slider. It's one of Verizon's only sliders, and it has become sort of a trademark for both LG and Verizon. Now it's just another phone...

[bwobo @ Jul 12th 2008 2:29PM]

Yeah it surprised me they went with flip. I thought the whole idea behind the Chocolate was to be a media slide phone...

[siostra-rana @ Jul 14th 2008 1:29PM]

The reason why I bought an LG Chocolate in the first place was because it was a slider and not yet another pansy flip phone.

[Jay @ Jul 13th 2008 4:41AM]

WOW GUYS! Remember Prada phone? which was announced more than a year before iphone and got an design award the same year it came out? Apple ripped off that design to make iphone which even experts admit that they did. Apple sucks. I like this phone btw