LG enV2 Cell Phone Review - Software
|
Alfredo Padilla Published on May 09, 2008 Comment on this |
|
|
|
|
The LG enV2's software interface will be faimilar to anyone who uses Verizon phones. The BREW interface does a reasonable, if unspectacular, job of providing a usable cell phone interface. We wish we could say the same for the browser, unfortunately it's one of the worst we've ever seen on a mobile device. |
The LG enV2 runs Verizon's BREW interface over LG's proprietary operating system. This means that anyone who is familiar with Verizon phones will feel at home with the enV2 as the interface is very similar to other handsets from the carrier. We're not big fans of this sort of standardization of interfaces by carriers as we feel it stifles innovation in the marketplace, but we do have to admit that Verizon customers who don't care about innovation are probably appreciative of the consistency.
In quality the BREW interface is not great, but it's not terrible eithers. We don't like that they try to shoehorn everything into just a few super menus, for example why would we go into the settings to get to our calendar? Most things are fairly intuitive, however, and it makes good use of the soft keys. It's certainly no worse than most other proprietary operating systems we've seen on other devices. Our score for proprietary cell phone operating systems is capped at five points. We reserve higher scores for more advanced smart phone operating systems like Windows Mobile and Palm OS.
Home Screen Score (5.5)
Due to its dual screen construction the LG enV2 can be thought of to have two home screens, one external and one internal. Of course the external display is tiny, it's no bigger than the small external displays you find on many flip phones, but despite it's small size it provides more functionality than most external displays.
exterior home screen
The home screen on the external display is dominated by the clock, which takes up the center of the screen. above it are indicators for things like signal strength, battery life and internet connectivity. Below it is a small bar where you see information about alerts like missed calls or calendar alarms. There are no soft key labels or any other interaction aside from the fact that pressing OK will bring up a short menu of options, up will bring up your contacts list and down will bring up your messaging interface. You can change the background picture in the display settings.
interior home screen
When the enV2 is opened up you get a much more traditional home screen. The top of the screen once again shows information about signal strength, battery life, etc. The bottom of the screen has the alerts bar and below it are the labels for the two soft keys with the label for the center select button of the D-Pad in between. The left soft key is assigned to messaging while the right soft key is assigned to contacts. The four directions of the D-Pad are also assigned to shortcuts, by default these are down for Calendar, up for Web Browser, right for the My Shortcuts menu and left for My Account. You can customize the items in the My Shortcuts menu and the functions assigned to the four directions of the D-Pad and you can change the background in the display settings.
As we feel that most users will be using both home screen interfaces about equally we've decided to score both of the home screens and take the average for our final score. The external display received a score of 4.0 beause of its small size and limited functionality. The internal dispaly received a score of 7.0 as it's well laid out with a lot of customization options.
Extensibility (1.0)
The LG enV2 is not a very extensible device. Basically it can only run BREW applications, which are approved by Verizon. This means your universe of additional apps is very small and generally will cost you monthly charges, like their email application. Unlike most phones the enV2 won't run Java applications and there are no native applications available.
Customizability (4.0)
As we mentioned in the home screen score the LG enV2 allows you to change the background picture of your home screen and the shortcuts that are available in the interior display. You can also change the style of the menu from a grid to a list, but you can't reorganize the menu. You have a choice of four built-in themes for the device and you can download more from Verizon, for a price of course. We were pleased to see that font settings are a little more extensive that on most phones. They are divided into three areas, one for Dial Digits, one for Menu & Lists and another for Message. For each of these you can set the font size to Small or Large. There are no optons to change the font type. Overall the customization options are a little better than the average phone, but still not as good as an advanced smart phone offers.
OS Responsivness (7.0)
We found the LG enV2's operating system to be remarkably responsive. There were a few exceptions, for example the music software took a while to load as does the browser, but for the most part the phone responds almost instantaneously to your commands. We were pleased that the enV2 was more responsive than the LG Voyager or the SMT5800.
Browser Features (5.0)
The browser on the LG enV2 is not very advanced. It is capable of displaying both mobile WAP pages and standard HTML pages. It also supports images, cookies and encryption. It does not support many web technologies, however, including javascript, java, flash, frames and saving items from a web page like an image. More advanced features like RSS feeds, password management and filling fields are also not supported. Frankly this is one of the least capable we browsers we've seen on a modern cell phone. We much preferred the browser found on the LG Voyager, which supports far more web standards.
wirelessinfo.com on the enV2's browser
Browsing Interface (3.0)
The browsing interface on the LG enV2 is not particularly impressive. All pages are immediately reformatted to fit on a single page width, there's no option to view the page as it would appear on your desktop. Entering URL's and managing bookmarks is done via a web page rather than being built into the browser software, this means you have to wait for the pages to load before you can do anything, an annoyance. History is a simple list of sites visited.
browser menu
The controls aren't laid out particularly well either. You move from link to link on a web page, which means link heavy pages take a long time to get around. There's also duplication of function as the left soft key is assigned to activate the currently selected link, which is the same thing the center button on the D-Pad does. The back function, meanwhile, is assigned to the CLR key, which isn't immediately apparent. The right soft key opens a menu with additional functions. Overall we have to say that our impressions of the browser are rather poor. We feel for anyone who wants to do serious web browsing on the enV2.
address entry window
Browser Access (6.67)
Luanching the web browser and then browsing to our site takes six steps on the LG enV2. This is a little better than average, as you can see below, and amongst our comparison phones only the Sidekick LX performed better in this test. We use steps instead of a timed test here because we don't want network issues to get in the way of the test. In terms of real time, however, we'll note that the web browser was one of the slowest programs on the enV2 to launch and once it had launched we had to wait for the page to enter an address to load as well, which we didn't particularly like.
Gaming (2.33)
The LG enV2 does not ship with a single game. This is very poor, we expect every phone to ship with at least one reasonably diversionary game. There aren't even any demonstration games on the LG enV2, although we don't think much of them either. The internal D-Pad on the enV2 would do a reasonable job as a game controller, but if the game required you to use soft keys as well their placement far away from the D-Pad will make playing that game awkward. The selection of games for the enV2 is limited to those you can buy from Verizon, which provides a reasonable selection.
no games on the LG enV2
Calculator (3.0)
The calculator on the LG enV2 is pretty simple. You use the D-Pad to access arithmetic functions like add, subtract, multiply and divide. The number keys above the QWERTY are used to enter numbers. Our biggest annoyance is that # and * are used to access the +/- and decimal point respectively. The annoying part is that these are secondary functions of the 3 and 8 buttons on the QWERTY, which means you'll have to use the Symbol button to access them. The location of the number keys relative to the D-Pad also isn't very convenient. It looks like they just took the standard calculator for the BREW interface and threw it in there without regard to usability. Of course, it is just a calculator.
calculator
Alarm (7.0)
The LG enV2 allows you to set up to three different alarms. Each can have its own recurrence pattern, you can choose from daily, weekdays and weekend, and its own ring tone. We like the flexibility offered, even some advanced devices limit you to a single alarm with no recurrence options, so the enV2 does pretty reasonably here.
alarm editing interface
Document Software (0.0)
The LG enV2 does not have any software that allows you to view or edit office documents like Word and Excel files.
Other Software (0.0)
There is no additional software on the enV2 that we felt was deserving of additional points.
| Previous Next | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
