LG Venus Review - Design & Features

Venus looks like the hi-tech luxury item it is.  Slightly wider and larger than today’s average slider phone, Venus has an eye-catching chrome rim around its display and a grippy faux-leather backside that feels nice in the hand.  My review sample was finished in classic black, and a pink version is also now available through Verizon.  The back panel houses handset’s 2MP camera lens, and also snaps off to reveal the battery slot.  Slide the display panel up and Venus reveals its 12-button dialing keypad, with soft-touch plastic keys that are easy to use.  Side panel controls include a rocker switch for volume, voice recorder key and headset/charger jack on the left, and dedicated music and camera keys along with a microSD card slot on the right. 

Venus’ big draw, of course, is that two-headed display.  The main screen is a 2” QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) affair capable of rendering 262,000 colors.  Beneath that is a smaller touch display that measures about 1.5” across.  Both displays are beautiful to look at and VZW and LG did a great job designing Venus’ menus to go beyond the standard Verizon look.  I had some qualms with the decision to relegate the touch-sensitive functionality to only one area of the display, however, which I’ll delve into in the Usability section of the review.

Venus offers a full array of functionality, including Web browsing, mobile Email and IM access, a media player with microSD memory card slot and 2.5mm stereo headphone jack, access to Verizon’s VCAST Music and Videos services, and the carrier’s VZ Navigator GPS navigation services.  The integrated 2MP camera is actually a little better than the average cameraphone shooter, and can be used to capture short video clips as well as stills.  You’ll also find the requisite personal information management apps and decent gaming support (check out my demo of Guitar Hero Mobile III in Unlocked Episode #2).  The one problem with gaming on Venus is that the touch-sensitive area isn’t as responsive a controller as hardware buttons are - configuring games to use the keypad, where possible, helped.

Venus is an EV-DO device and so takes advantage of Verizon’s 3G network for fast data speeds.  Web browsing on the handset was only a so-so experience, though, as the browser is capable of rendering HTML Websites but usually does so in a less than pleasing single-column way.  A full touchscreen would have made navigating Web sites a lot easier, as well.

A welcome surprise, however, was VZW’s choice to leave Venus’ Bluetooth capabilities wide-open, something the carrier isn’t known for doing.  Not only do you get stereo Bluetooth support on this handset, but you also get file and object transfer support - something almost unheard of for a VZW-branded non-smartphone.

Next: Usability & Performance »