LG enV2 Cell Phone Review - Organizer
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Alfredo Padilla Published on May 09, 2008 Comment on this |
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We liked that the LG enV2's organizer features were quickly accessible, even though they were generally buried in the menu system. They are not very fully featured, however, this phone won't replace a PDA or smart phone. |
The LG enV2 does not come with any software or a data cable that would allow you to synchronize contacts and other information with your computer.
Alerts (3.0)
Alerts on the LG enV2 can only be set for calendar appointments. Alerts can be set for one of several preset times before the appointment ranging from on time to two days before hand. By default it's set for fifteen minutes before. We wish that you had more control over the exact time, but the list of presets should suffice for most. We do like that you can set the specific tone for each alert and choose whether to enable vibrate alert as well. Recurrence is a little limited, however, with the only choices being daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. We would have liked to see the options for weekdays and weekends as well.
When an alert sounds it shows up on the exterior display with the option to view it later or open the phone for more options. When you open the phone it gives you the option to view the alert later, which means it will sound again in five minutes, or view the appointment. If you miss the alert it will sound again in five minutes. Overall the alert system is fairly solid for a regular cell phone, it's not as flexible as some smart phones like the SMT5800.
Over the Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The enV2 does not support synchronizatin of PIM information over the air as you can on some smart phones like the SMT5800.
Adding Contacts (8.21)
Adding a new contact to the LG enV2 took only 12.18 seconds in our test. This is very speedy, you can see below that it's faster than the average phone and amongst our comparison phones only the LG Voyager performed better in this test. Like so many things on the LG enV2 you can add a contact either via the external keypad and interface or by opening the phone up.
new contact interface (interior display)
We found the fastest approach was a hybrid, we used the external controls to get to a new contact interface and then opened the phone up so we could use the QWERTY keyboard to enter the name and phone number. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Looking/Sorting/Search (4.5)
Contacts on the LG enV2 are sorted alphabetically by name. You can search for a contact by typing the name, however you can't search for text within a name, instead you have to search for the name starting with the first letter of the first name. For example when searching for Joe Bob it won't work if you search for Bob, instead you'll have to search for Joe. Alternatively you can view your contacts by group as well. You can view your contacts on the exterior or interior display, with the same searching options, but you can't view them by group on the external display. We didn't find the sorting and search options on the enV2 to be very powerful. In particular we didn't like that there was no way to search for part of an individual's name.
contact interface
Fields (2.2)
When you create a new contact in the LG enV2 you have a choice of eleven fields including: name, two mobile numbers, home number, work number, two email addresses, group, picture, ring tone and fax. This isn't a particularly impressive set of fields for a phone, even a non-smartphone like the enV2. We would have liked to see a few additional fields like notes or birthday.
Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (5.0)
The LG enV2 supports speed dial and speaker independant voice command, it does not support voice tags that you program the phone to recognize. To launch voice command you hit the CLR key from the home screen when the phone is closed or hit the space key from the home screen when the phone is opened. The voice command system did pretty well, recognizing four of our five test contact names.
voice command software
Adding Calendar Items (9.36)
Adding a calendar item to the LG enV2 was very quick at an average of 10.68 seconds. You can see below that this is significantly faster than average and amongst our comparison phones only a couple edged it out for fastest time. This is despite the fact that we had to open the enV2 up and the calendar is kind of buried in the menu system.
We found that we were helped out by the QWERTY keyboard in typing the title and changing the time for our appointment and the fact that the calendar automatically added a fifteen minute reminder also helps out. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
new calendar appointment
Calendar Views (3.33)
The calendar on the LG enV2 provides you with three different views. By default the calendar opens in the monthly view, which shows six weeks at a time. Weekends are highlighted in blue with the current day in red and the currently selected day with a red background. On the right side of the interior screen you see the number of events on a given day. Frankly we think this is a bit wasteful, we think it would have been much more useful to get an actual list of the upcoming appointments for the selected day there instead.
monthly calendar view
The weekly view is similarly limited. It shows a grid with days along the top and hours on the left. Appointments are blocked out during the time they are scheduled, but there's no way to get details about the events from this view, so it's really only useful as a free/busy indicator. The daily view is the one that provides the most information. This is a simple list of all the events on that day with start time, title and indicators for things like an alert or recurrence.
weekly calendar view
We don't feel the LG enV2's calendar views will be useful to those who need a powerful calendar tool. In addition to the limitations of the monthly and weekly view we mentioned above the calendar also doesn't support categories or filtered views. If all you want is a place to jot down a few appointments it'll be fine, but anything more and we recommend you look into a smart phone instead.
daily calendar view
Fields (5.0)
When you create a new appointment on the LG enV2 you don't have a lot of options to choose from. In addition to title and start/end time you can also set recurrence, limited to a few presets, and an alarm. You can also set the ring tone for each appointment individually. There's no support for location, categories or notes. As we mentioned above this does not make it a good tool for those who need powerful calendaring tools.
Adding ToDo/Task (0.0)
The LG enV2 does not support to-do lists, as such it will receive a zero in these sections.
ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (0.0)
No tasks.
Adding Notes (4.63)
Adding a test note to the LG enV2 took an average of 10.8 seconds in our test. This is fairly speedy, you can see from the chart below that it's faster than the average phone and amongst our comparison phones only the Sidekick LX performed better. This despite the fact that notes are buried in the menu system and we had to open the phone up to access it.
We were helped out by using the number keys as shortcuts to launch menu items and typing on the QWERTY was pretty fast. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
creating new note
Note Interface (4.0)
The note interface on the LG enV2 is very simple. When you launch the application you get a simple list of notes with the time it was last edited and the first line of the note as a title. The left soft key lets you create a new note while the right soft key is used to access erase functions. There is search functionality, a nice feature that we don't often see, which let's you search the titles of notes by simply typing out what you're looking for with the list of notes being filtered automatically as you type. We like the simple interface as it made the application very easy to use and the search functionality is a nice bonus.
note interface
Note Formatting (0.0)
The LG enV2 does not offer any formatting options for notes. There's no way to change the font type or size and you can't make things bold, italics or underlined. You also can't add photos or other multimedia options, the notes are pretty bare bones.
Voice Memo (6.0)
You can record voice memos on the LG enV2 in one of three ways. With the phone closed press and hold the CLR button and you will be prompted to begin recording. With the phone open pressing and holding the space key will do the same. Alternatively you can navigate to the My Sounds section of the Music & Tones menu to see a list of all your existing voice memos as well as the option to record a new one.
recording a voice note
From here you can send, rename, move or erase voice notes. We like the support for shortcuts to quickly record a note, although it would have been nice to have the list of voice memos differentiated a little from other sounds on your device. As it is all sounds are sorted into the one My Sounds folder.
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