LG Dare Cell Phone Review - Messaging

No email client is a bummer, but at least creating a new SMS is speedy.

Supported Email Services (0.0)
Unlike the Samsung Instinct or the iPhone the LG Dare does not come with a full email client. Instead you are stuck with web based email like most regular cell phones. This is unfortunate as we're sure that Verizon intends the Dare to compete directly with these two devices. We don't award points for phones that used web based email as this precludes you from doing things like saving copies on your device so you can view them when you don't have a connection to the network. This is an important feature for anyone who needs serious email on their mobile phone. As such the LG Dare will receive zeros in many of the sections below.

Push Email (0.0)
No email client.

Multiple Email Accounts (0.0)
No email client.

HTML and Attachements (0.0)
No email client.

Email Customizations (0.0)
No email client.

Time to a New Email Message (0.0)
No email client.

Email Usability (0.0)
No email client.

Instant Messaging (0.0)
As is standard on Verizon phones the LG Dare supports AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo messaging services. As we see with most carrier branded instant messaging services any instant messages sent or received by the Dare will cost you a text message. This can quickly get expensive and is particularly unfair to anyone who is already paying for an unlimited data package as IM does not use up much data at all. As such we don't award points for instant messaging services that use a text message gateway like the Dare does. If you do want to use the IM service on the Dare we recommend you look into an unlimited text messaging package.

MMS Support (6.0)
The LG Dare does a good job integrating MMS messages into the album software and camera, there's a big send button in both that will allow you to send a photo or video via multimedia message. Our only annoyance is that Verizon still has separate interfaces for MMS and SMS messages, we much prefer phones like the Palm Centro that use a single unified interface.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
Smiley faces are a wonder that will put a smile on anyone's face. Unfortunately you won't be smiling with the LG Dare as it does not turn smileys into graphical equivalents. It also doesn't offer a handy menu to insert smiley faces. Oh well, who likes smiling anyways?

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (6.0)
The messaging interface is pretty straightforward. When you enter the messaging interface you get a simple list of mailboxes along with a few links to other messaging related items like voicemail and instant messaging. The inbox, sent and drafts inboxes are shared between MMS and SMS messages, which we like. Unfortunately the interface for creating messages is not unified, in fact  you have four different options when you hit the new message button, TXT, Picture, Video and Voice message types. This is confusing and unecessary, phones like the Palm Centro have it right in that they provide a single interface to create messages with the ability to add any type of media to any message. Apart from this annoyance, however, the LG Dare's SMS/MMS interface is fairly simple to use.

Time to a New SMS Message (7.14)
It took only 1.4 seconds to create a new text message on the LG Dare. This score is significantly faster than average, and only a couple of our comparison phones beat it out. The fastest way to create a new text message on the Dare is to launch the favorites menu on the home screen and choose the TXT Msg button at the upper right, which takes you directly to a new test message interface. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to New SMS (sec)

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