| Review of the LG 8100 |
 |
The LG 8100 is multi-media phone that supports a 1.3 megapixel camera, an
MP3 player, streaming audio and video, and it has a price tag to match.
However, as you'll read in this review, it fails in far too many core
aspects to worth what they're charging for it. Last Updated: 06-Sep-2006 |
Before reading this review, please read
Some Thoughts on Phone Reviewing.
RF Performance
RF Sensitivity: For some strange reason the LG 8100
seemed to perform differently under different conditions. Over at Rockwood Mall,
where Telus PCS signals are generally rather weak, the LG 8100 was easily
out-performed by the Nokia 6265i. It barely
performed better than my old Startac.
However, down at Ikea on The Queensway (where none of the providers worked well)
the LG 8100 could hold its own against the Nokia 6265i, and could sometimes hang
onto a call where the Nokia could not.
I don’t know quite what to make of that, but it’s possible that under certain
conditions the phone suffers from a type of interference that the Nokia is
immune to. That being the case, I have to rate the LG 8100 has having slightly
inferior RF performance to other Telus PCS phones (such as the Nokia 6265i).
Nonetheless, the phone does perform very well in certain circumstances, so it
isn’t as bad as some CDMA phones I’ve tested over the last year or two.
Over-the-road Performance: When on the move the
8100 seems to produce a lot more audio disturbances than I’ve come accustomed to
hearing on a phone with a Qualcomm chipset, and much more than on a typical
Nokia phone. The disturbances can vary from mildly annoying to very weird.
Click on this link for a full description of
RF Performance, and how to interpret it.
Audio Performance
Tonal Balance: The incoming audio is a bit peaky
for my liking. This means that different parts of speech sound unnaturally
louder than others, producing a piercing effect that makes you want to yank the
phone away from your ear at times. The sound is anything but smooth and while
you won’t have a hard time understanding your callers, you may find yourself
wishing you weren’t talking to them.
Sound Reproduction: This aspect of the phone also
sub-par. Some voices sound okay under some circumstances, but most of the time
the nuances of speech (and various other sundry sounds like beeps you hear
before leaving a voicemail recording) sound oddly unnatural. Certainly the phone
isn’t quite as bad as some of the horrific CDMA models I’ve tested in the past,
but given the overall quality of the vast majority of current CDMA models, this
one just doesn’t cut it.
The worst aspect of the sound is that it seems to go up and down in volume
(quite noticeably) for no particular reason. I thought the phone I’d tested was
a lemon, but I checked around on the Internet and I found message after message
from people complaining of exactly the same thing. Typically the volume can drop
so low that you’ll barely be able to heard your caller. It might spring back to
normal on its own, but you typically have to end the call and start another one.
On the other hand, outgoing sound quality is actually quite good. In fact, this
is one of the better CDMA phones for outgoing audio. It copes exceptionally well
with loud background noises, such as an opened window while driving down the
highway. Oddly it seems that each time I find a CDMA phone on which the outgoing
audio is great, the incoming is horrible. I guess the LG 8100 didn’t want to
buck the trend.
Speakerphone: The speakers on the LG 8100 are quite
good. They’re mounted at either end of the hinge and they produce relatively
good reasonably good sound reproduction. Unfortunately they aren’t very loud in
speakerphone mode, and so the feature is really only useable in a very quiet
environment.
A weird aspect of the speakerphone feature is that in order to switch between
normal mode and speakerphone mode you must press AND HOLD the speaker button for
about a second. This is annoying and not very intuitive. Another weird thing is
that the phone doesn’t switch back to normal mode after a call, and so if you
were using speakerphone on your last call, you’ll be using on your next call,
whether you expect it or not. This is also annoying.
Voice Recorder: This is perhaps the worst voice
recorder I’ve tried on a phone in the last year or two. The sound quality isn’t
that great and you can only record the incoming side of a conversation. You do
not get the option of playing back voice notes through the standard earpiece,
meaning that you must listen through the speakers. If you have a Bluetooth
headset attached, the voice recordings are NOT sent to it, but rather they go
through the speakers. If you have the phone set to vibrate only, the phone won’t
even let you play a voice note (it just warns you that you are in vibrate mode).
Once again, this is annoying.
Click on this link for a full description of
Audio Performance, and how to interpret it.
Support Features
Ringer Volume: Ringtones are delivered through the
excellent speakers and so they can be quite loud if you pick the right ones.
Keypad Design: The keys were easily accessible,
they all pushed with a nice amount of tactile feel, and they did what they were
supposed to do. I found the location of many of the keys, especially the BACK
key, a little off-putting, but I’m sure you’d get used to the layout after using
the phone for a while.
Display: The display was also quite nice, providing
excellent images at 176 x 220 pixels. The outside display is also color,
providing 128 x 128 pixels. The outside display can even show you what your
camera is looking at, making it pretty easy to take self-portrait shots of
oneself.
Icing on the Cake
Camera: The quality of this 1.3 megapixel camera is
definitely sub-par. Shots are generally dark and there is a lot of noise in
those dark areas (even in well-lit shots). Attempting to correct the darkness of
a shot using software such as Photoshop simply brings up the noise and the
pictures look awful. Compared to the Nokia E50 and
Motorola i580 that I had along with me for
comparison, the pictures from the LG 8100 were rather disappointing.
MP3 Player and Streaming Music: Luckily I got to
try out an LG 8100 that was hooked up with a Spark plan that included the XM
satellite radio feature. It works exceptionally well on the 8100 and the audio
quality is at least as good as you get from a dedicated XM receiver. The MP3
player software was fine, though certainly not among the best out there, and
well behind a typical iPod.
Conclusions
What can I say? I really don’t like this phone. It has poor incoming sound
quality, poor over-the-road performance, annoyances galore, a lack-luster
camera, and a terrible voice recorder. Yes it does some things well, such as
excellent outgoing sound quality, a nice screen, and great multimedia features
like streaming audio and streaming video. However, the things it doesn’t do well
are core functions that a phone should do well first and foremost.
I must therefore recommend that, unless you are a card-carrying masochist, you
avoid the LG 8100 like the plague. It’s rare that I come down so hard on a
phone, and I don’t take this lightly. The 8100 is just a bad piece of
engineering, and given the price, there are plenty of other FAR BETTER
choices for your money at Telus PCS.
