LG 5350

I have been a Sprint PCS customer sine 1999. In that time, I have used a lot of Sprint PCS phones. However, I was never more excited to get a phone than when Sprint launched their new line of PCS Vision enabled phones. While I have heard a lot of bad things about the LG line of phones, I was intrigued by the LG 5350. Unfortunately, it has been a disappointment.

Being a fan of flip phones, I was drawn to the look of the LG 5350. The Blue and Silver are presented in a very stylish way. Also, since the phone is light and small, it is very easy to carry it around with you in a pocket.

This is the first colored-screen cell phone I have ever used. For the most part, this technology is very good. The screen features a 120×133-pixel, STN color screen. At this size, you can view nine lines of text and 65,000 colors on the display. Unfortunately, the STN technology is not nearly as good as what is being used on the high-end Samsung or Sanyo phones. But since the LG is over 2 times cheaper than these phones, it is worth having a slightly inferior color screen. The biggest problem I have seen with the STN screens is that once you are in the sunlight, it is nearly impossible to see. Also, battery life has been a big issue with this phone. You may find it in your best interest to purchase an additional battery from a local Sprint store, radio shack, or even ebay.

While the battery life and the screen have been a little bit of a problem, my biggest complaints come from the number of bugs I have experienced. Several times a week, when I am browsing the web or sending a shortmail (text messaging for Sprint PCS), the phone will lock up. The only way to fix this is to pull the battery off and power it up again. While this may seem like a minor annoyance, when writing a long shortmail and then your phone locks up on you, it is a pain in the butt to re-create that message.

However, this is not the only bug I have encountered. When adding names to my address book, along with a picture and custom ring tone, the phone will modify the pictures and ring tones I have already set for other users! The only way to fix this is to manually go back and change all of the people in your address book that appear before the new one you added. Also, I have found that every now and then a user I have added into my address book will change the phone number for another person in the address book! If I try to change the other number to what it should be, it changes it for both contacts!

While Sprint may be able to address these issues with software updates in the future, I haven’t been able to get them resolved yet…

The biggest problem I have with the LG 5350 is the lack of a speaker phone. When is someone going to add this function to a flip phone? It just seems like this is a feature that should be included on all phones. Despite the lack of a speaker phone, I have found that the internal speaker on the LG 5350 is very soft. So soft that it is almost impossible to hear what someone is saying while driving or in a crowded room or store. Researching this on the net, it appears that many LG 5350 users have this same complaint.

Overall, if you are looking for a cheap, entry-level Sprint PCS Vision phone, the LG 5350 may be worth looking into. However, before purchasing, be aware of the complaints I have outlined in this review. If you can live with them, then the LG 5350 is a great value. For everyone else, it may be worth spending a little bit more money on a different flip phone.