LG Phones – The Beautiful Letdown

I have been a faithful LG user for 7 years.

LG TM-520

In high school, I bought the LG TM520 and it was great.  It was hardy, the external display was always on, so I could check the time while I was on the phone, it was cute (considering it was 2002), it had a loud piercing ring, it had dynamic search (searches your phone book as you start typing the number), it was everything a high school kid could ask for in a cell phone.

Alas, I have a fickle heart, and I got tired of this great phone.  I was careless with it and dropped it all the time, only to wonder “why won’t it break?”

LG VX-4600

So I got the LG VX4600 because of its flashing lights.  It was cuter, and it did everything that TM520 did, except for the dynamic search, and the external display turned itself off during phone calls.  Those were things I could live with, though I still do miss that dynamic search.  Then, I started a downward spiral of crappier phones…or perhaps LG started making crappier phones.

I heard about this hot new phone that was coming out in 2006, the LG Chocolate.  It was the first slide phone that I had seen, and I loved the heat-sensitive keys.  I waited for months for it to come out, and when it finally did, I purchased it on the day that it came out.

LG VX-8500

I loved it!  I loved the high-resolution screen, the camera that was crappy, but the first I had had.  I loved the speakers that pierced its ring through a shopping mall, and the customizable ring tones that a girl just couldn’t do without.  I started hearing bad rumors about it, about how many people who had the phone had run into problems with it.  I hadn’t experienced the problems myself, so I thought maybe I got a good batch, and shrugged off the things I heard.

Then about 2 months after my 1-year warranty had passed, my phone started to act up.  I would open the phone, and it would start acting like I was scrolling through the menu.  It would start making phone calls to people in my phone book when I just wanted to look at their information.  I knew that my phone had started having the problems everyone else was having.  I checked out the web.  There were scores of people demonstrating the same problems as myself.

LG VX-8550

So last year, I bought another LG phone.  The LG VX8550, the Chocolate Spin.  The salesperson told me that it was the LG Chocolate, with all of the problems corrected.  It featured haptic feedback and redesigned ’send’ and ‘end’ buttons, so I was satisfied and I bought it.  It wasn’t that I was tired of the Chocolate.  I was happy with it, so it made sense to buy the new and improved version of it.

I’ve seen new and exciting phones being developed in the one year and 3 months that I’ve had my Chocolate Spin.  It hasn’t been easy holding myself back from being an idiot and buying a new phone, but sensibility has prevailed.

Since last week, I’ve found my phone turned off when I go to use it.  How odd.  It has been randomly shutting down without my noticing it.  Sometimes, I use it, put it down, and two minutes later, I pick it up to use it again, and it has turned itself off.  The battery is never low, so I have no idea what’s going on.  The only thing that strikes me is that it has been 3 months after my warranty ended.  Somehow, LG has mastered the art of making cell phones that last approximately one year.

With LG, I’ve definitely had a series of attractive phones.  Yet somehow, all my loyalty has been for naught.  I guess they just don’t make them the way they used to.  I see that most cell phones without plans cost around $300.  I just can’t believe that the device costs $300, and they last a year.  Worst investment EVER.