Nearly two years ago I switched from being a long time Movistar/Open Mobile customer to a Centennial Wireless one because they were giving away the Blackberry Pearl. When my Blackberry Pearl, the first phone I was ever truly happy with, died, I had to get a replacement for it so that I could continue my social life as well as business related things. Since Centennial has terrible prices for new phones and give little incentive for you to stay by not helping you at all to get a new phone. This, of course, is the biggest downside to being in a provider that uses CDMA technology instead of GSM. Anyway, the only phone in my price range that sort of looked ok was the LG Rumor 2. So coming from a phone that met all my needs for on the go communication, how would LG Rumor 2 stand up to the Blackberry Pearl, or other phones? Let’s find out.
First we should start by finding out what made the Blackberry Pearl so great for me. Despite having inferior hardware to other Blackberries currently available, it did have the functionality I wanted to have with my other phones. The main one was the more comfortable Suretype keyboard, and the ability to send and receive email. I also had a ton of applications that were worthwhile, such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, jIRC, Opera Mini, and a good media player. The Camera was very nice and took great night shots, and the screen was huge. The Calendar, being synched with Google calendar, made my being organized an easy task. Ringtones were also extremely easy to download straight from the phone and applications were now made easier to get via the Blackberry App World. All in all I had a great experience with this phone, but the inferior hardware got to me.
The LG Rumor 2 right off the bat looks cool. I has a full QWERTY keyboard and a regular multitap keyboard so that dialing is easier and I don’t have to slide open the phone. When it comes to functions, the phone does what every other regular phone does: it sends and receives SMS, MMS, has clear call quality, and, thankfully, can store multiple numbers and emails per contacts(something that seems to me like a no brainer). The problem is that I lost a valuable function: the emails. With the full QWERTY keyboard it would’ve been amazing, but alas there’s not email support. Applications can’t be installed, and at least with Centennial there’s no support for BREW applications in the foreseeable future. This means no social networking applications, no better browser, no Google Calendar Synch. While we’re on the subject, the WAP browser is very bad and at least with Centennial it hardly works. The BB had no problems with the connection and it was always fast but I can’t even seem to connect to the internet half the time. Anyway, the calendar is a lot less useless than my old Kyocera’s calendar, but at least it’s good to use for reminders. The applications(or tools) it does bring are useful at least. MP3 Ringtones are easy to set up, but you need to download them on the PC first or have someone MMS it to you because the WAP browser says that .mp3 is an invalid file type. The hardware and software can’t multitask which makes texting, browsing, or doing anything on the phone while listening to music impossible. The media player has a long way to go too. It’s ok, but it’s nothing marvelous. There’s no video play back which is extremely disappointing too. The camera is ok, but still behind the current trends of cell phones. If I’m not mistaken it’s even VGA, no Megapixels.
All in all, what makes this phone good? The full QWERTY keyboard and sliding action makes texting fun. Does it make it a good phone? Well, while texting is fun it doesn’t make up for the lack of functions and the functions it does have be lacking. Is it worth it? Well if you don’t need or particularly care for the stuff I mentioned in the second paragraph and like texting then this phone is for you. If not, save money and get a good smartphone. So in conclusion, I leave you with two cute asian girls that have the phone. Enjoy!
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