LG CU500 (AT&T)

Owning a Cingular store I get to play with all the new gadgets that come out. The LG CU500 has got to be one of the best phones out there. First of all It looks really nice. It has a pretty thin profile, excellent keypad, extra large screen, and a swivel camera. But this phone is not all looks. It is jam packed with tons of great features.

The 1.3MP swivel camera takes excellent pictures. The high quality screen displays the pictures even brighter and more clear than most phones.

It has a built in MP3 player and what I like most about the phone is the external MP3 control buttons. You dont even have to open your phone to play music.

This phone is UMTS and GSM. UMTS is a new technology that is much much faster than GSM. This allows for streaming video and extra fast internet browsing. UMTS is a little bit faster than 3G. It is like saying 3.5G which is very fast for a phone.

Overall it is a great phone and feels very good in your hands. For its price it is an excellent phone.

Working for Cingulars Business Care, I get a chance to play with all the phones. We finally got an LG CU500 in, and I love it!

First of all, its a completely multimedia phone! If you dont like a fully-featured phone, then stay away from this one!! With a 1.3MP swivel camera/camcorder, bluetooth, and new use of Cingulars 3G (UMTS) Network, you can stream TV and Video Clips with no lag or skipping!

Battery life was optimal considering its got so many features that can drain it. And reception seemed great, even when inside buildings or even in elevators!

Overall, this phone is a big step into the new world of 3G Phones, and is an AWESOME Multimedia Phone. I recommend it for anyone who likes to who the newest and nicest phones out there.

PRO's
-better signal than with my other phone (House is a black hole for that)
-pictures are wonderful quality
-LOVE the swivel camera. very useful
-nice and thin, not bulky and bulgy like old cell phone
-both inner and outer displays are both large and bright and excellent quality
-i really like how the things are organized
-haven't listened to music (YET) but i like the fact that the buttons for that are also on the outside of the phone.
-i like that when you send a text, it will be sending it while you can still multitask on your phone, and then when it's sent, it will tell you. no more sitting there with the phone open wasting precious time waiting for your message to send.
-i like the fact that you can assign buttons right off the beginning under options.

CONs
-the whole, transferring stuff to my computer is a little sketchy, but i think i've got that figured out
-protective flap over port to charge and such seems a bit flimsy. why have it there? but it makes it look nicer i suppose
-the ringers are a little.... yuck, but you can record voice and noises and set that as your ringtone. and if you dont like the ringtones the phone has, then download some

I wanted a simple to use phone that had good reception. My daughter had a LG CU500 for two years, trouble free. She liked the phone and suggested I would too. I like the ease of use and the battery lasts a long time. I also like the many options you can choose on various funtions. For me, large print is a big plus. I need a large font.

I could not tell you anything about the music or internet features, I don't care to use them. It has a good speaker phone.

I bought the phone used on ebay for about $60. It seems to be in perfect shape and all I had to do was insert my Simm card and go. After a couple of weeks, I have no complaints. Glad I bought it.

I have used this phone and it is a great phone. It is easy to use. The camera being able to "spin around" is pretty nice and neat trick. Good battery life. Bluetooth is excellent. I like this phone.

I read many reviews on the phone before I decided to purchase it. I had a Samsung SYNC and the front screen on it broke within 2 wks of buying it and it starting having a mind of its own like sending people the same text messages repeatedly. I looked at pdas and the razr among many others. The razr seemed to break fairly easily so I passed. Pda's I was worried about the size of them and am a very fast texter so I didn't know if I would like the QWERTY keyboards.
I would highly recommend this phone.
PROS
~ very sturdy
~ loud speaker (listen to music on the phone and its as loud as if i were to listen to it on my computer)
~ software enables me to cut my own ringtones (saves money for those of us that like to change our ringtones often)
~ Strong Signal
~ Excellent Voice Quality (my mother used to complain that she couldn't hear me on my SYNC, i had the LG sitting next to me on speakerphone and she could hear me just fine)
~ Multi Tasking ability

Cons
~noises when you send text messages can be annoying, I haven't figured out if you can turn them off yet
~ text alerts cannot be changed to one beep or a ringtone
~ Shortcuts already set

Overall I absolutly LOVE this phone!

I bought this phone as a backup for my blackberry pearl 8100, which is fragile and has had some breakage issues in the past. The LG CU500 is a very good phone with several useful features, and I've experienced no problems with thus far.

The keys are comfortably spread out, making texting much better than many phones I've used in the past, including a Samsung M500 and, even more significantly, a Razr (which sucks for texting). The texting has nothing on the blackberry, though, which has a half qwerty keyboard that is great...much better for texting than any phone with a normal keypad. Call quality is average, not as good as the blackberry, but the phone is also a quarter of the price, and it doesn't hinder performance enough to really complain. Texting and talking are my two biggest concerns with a phone, and in that respect, the blackberry pearl wins, and is still my primary phone. It also has email integration which just can't be found in older phones, like the CU500.

There are a few other factors I can compare in which the LG soundly stomps the BB, the most significant being media. While the Pearl has a newer, better display, its speaker is not that great, and the LG can blast music really clearly. It also has a cool musicID feature, which I think might charge per song, but if you let the phone "listen" to whatever's playing on the radio, it will identify the song and artist (i tested it with my computer, worked great). I'm not sure about video playback but I don't really care, because watching a video on a phone is going to suck regardless, though I do know that the CU500 can stream video over the fast data network, I just haven't tried it. This does bring me to my next point, however...

The primary reason I bought this phone, to use as a backup, was because it runs on AT&T's 3.5G HSDPA network (Blackberry can only run Edge) and has bluetooth capabilities. I've paired my blackberry to my laptop with bluetooth and the phone nearly killed itself, it won't sync with the desktop manager, can't be used as a modem, etc. etc. The LG seamlessly paired with my computer (running XP pro), and I had the high-speed dial-up connection running without any trouble at all through the standard XP bluetooth modem (just put in the right initialization commands, username, and password, which can be found online). Tried normal web browsing with Firefox and the speed is unbelievable...it's like using broadband over a 54 Mbps wireless router...not as fast as a normal cable modem, but pretty close. I used an internet speed test and got about 550 kbs download speeds and 300 kbs upload speeds, though I can't attest to how accurate those tests were. Regardless, I was very happy with the computer pairing, and I'm waiting to get in a USB cable to see if it's faster than the bluetooth modem connection. The downside is that the browser on the CU500 completely blows, the blackberry's is much better (and this particular blackberry has the worst browser in the whole BB family), therefore, if you want fast data browsing and don't have a laptop nearby, you're kind of hosed. Still, the 3.5G network is sick, and everything I've tried to do with the CU500 has worked.

It has normal phone texting and a crappy browser, those are my biggest complaints. If it had a blackberry keyboard (a blackberry flip phone would be the best phone I can imagine), the LG CU500 would be my main phone without a doubt, it is definitely the best non-smart phone I've ever used.

Had phone for near month now and its great. Phone has excellent battery if you cycle it at beginning like I did. Charge full drain full and charge full and your set. Usually allows lithium cells to charge correctly. Alot of people complain about battery I talk alot sometimes over 5 hours a day and I get bout 5 hours talk time and it has stood by for over 2 days when not talking much. Great phone, battery works fine, Camera is great, has mini SD slot, 3G is wonderful, Bluetooth is great and speakers are awesome. I recommend to anyone go pick yours up today!

my husband was very happy to get this phone and he is very pleased with the product. he was in great need of a good phone for work and that was easy to work with and this phone was perfect

Great quality, seller is fast about shipping and so far really satisfied with my purchase. I would definitely buy from this seller he is trustworthy and the fast shipping is no joke this guy is really fast no 2 or 3 business days like others this guy's fast or beyond fast I must say.

This is a great phone, excellent sound crystal clear, I liked it so much I bought another for my wife and she loves it to. I really was interested in a good sounding phone. And so far every one that I have talked to said I really sound good, I have owned about 12 phones and this one for the price is the best for me.

I purchased this phone for the features. I wanted a phone tht had bluetoothe capabilities, text messaging, streaming tv and camera. It does everything I need it to do. I previously had a palm treo 600. I enjoyed it but it didn't have all I wanted. There is nothing I dislike about this phone. The LG CU 500 is a great phone and I love it. I highly recommend it.
frances6436

I've owned my cu500v for about a month now. Its a great phone. Its a little bit bigger then my old razr v3. Both screens are very bright and clear. The main selling feature for me was mp3 playback. It plays mp3's off either internal memory or a micro sd card. The placement of the card is kind of a pain, having to remove the battery to access it. Though with a data tranfer cable it acts as an external memory drive. LG uses a small, wide interface at the bottom of the phone. A usb adapter would have been a better choice here as Motorola and a few others are using now. The built in camera takes great pics and with a expansion card you can take a ton.

Everything about this phone is great, I just have a few complaints though. The camera swives to do self pictures, but you have to choose to flip image. Should do that on its own. You can't change the button configuration on the 4 way like you can on the Razr. Battery can be a little flaky. It has gone from having 4 bars of battery to dead while sitting on my desk at work(this is where having a usb adapter for power and download would of been helpfull). The battery lasts longer if blue tooth isnt turned on though.

Other then that so far its a great phone, and a good upgrade from a Razr v3.

I have had the sliver, sony w300i, samsung 807, samsung 707 sync, and the rasr with i-tunes. This LG CU500 is the best of them all. It has a real mp3 player and it will play just about everthing you throw at it (unlike the i-tunes phones that will only play itune compatable songs). And you dont have to convert the songs at all. The best thing about this phone is the speakers. Best on the market. They are so loud and sound like a stereo with the equilzer feature enabled. The camera is great with the swivel 1.3 mega pixel lens and operates in 3G if you surf the internet. Just go to your Cingular store and mess with one, but I've been looking for the perfect phone for over a month and I finally found it. Price not bad either ($100.00 w/upgrade--cheaper if your a new Cingular customer).

I Love this phone it has lots of great features. The sound is great takes good pictures.
Both sreens have good resulution.
There is one thing that disappoints me about this phone it does not have voice dialing other then that it is a great phone!!!

The reception is good to excellent in this phone. It takes good quality pictures. The mp3 player sounds descent for a phone. The volume is more than adequate on the earpiece and ringtones. Probably the worst quality with this phone is the battery life.

Item LG CU500 was as described (USED- LG CU500 phone with battery). Had wear, lite scratches on front surface and deep scrathes on back surface. BUT THE PHONE OPERATES EXCELLENT AND INSIDE SURFACE WAS WELL TOOKEN CARE OF NOT AM SCRATCH OR WEAR. OVERALL THE PHONE IS FANTASTIC!!!! I deciede to buy this phone because i have went through to one someone broke and other was recently stolden. It is a old model, but is made very well to out last it's manufactory warranty. PHONE and battery is resistant to lite water damage. So i needed a replacement phone. The dislikes were the communication will seller reguarding shipping information? WAS never sent a tracking # or reciept of shipping information,and when emailed seller for information. NO RESPONSE!??!??? SO Shipping TIME WAS LATER THAN EXPECTED, ALSO ITEM (LG CU500 PHONE WAS PACKAGED POORLY!!! VERY DISAPPOINTED, WHEN I RECIEVED ITEM IT LITERALLY WAS THE SHIPPING ENEVELOPE AND PHONE. THERE WAS NO PROTECTIVE COVERING TO BRASE PHONE FROM SLIDEING IN ENVELOPE AND RECEVIEING COSMETIC DAMAGE OR INSIDE DAMAGE TO PREVENT AND PROTECT PHONE FROM THE ABILTY TO WORK! I WAS VERY DISAPPOINTED IN THE CONSIDERATION OF PACKAGE WITH CARE, AND COMMUNICATION. I KNOW TO WRITE IN NEXT TIME IF I PURCHASE AGAIN FROM SELLER. BUT SATISFIYED WITH USED LG CU 500.

Well I need a phone and I've had my eye on this particular one since it came out a few years ago. So I took the opprotunity and bought it. Its great I love it!

Well, this is my first phone and truely i loved it at first. It has a great mp3 player. awesome. :) Reception with the phone is okay, it works good in some low spots where a normal phone would not get service. I like outdoor pictures with this camera phone. The camera is awesome!! Memory card is hard to get in and out. But the internet and downloads are fast and easy. I get email on it too!!! I like that

Somethings i disliked were that the battery sucks. I text message a lot, i don't talk on the phone much, but when i do it is for a short time. I have to charge it every night, and sometimes when I charge it, it goes dead early in the night. So thats never fun. Sometimes it turns itself off when it's not even dead or close to it.

Even though there are things i dont like, it's a good everyday phone.

The phone is good the problem that i had was there was a check list on this item sent in the box that showed it was all checked and works when i received the phone it would not take a charge or turn on. instead of sending it back and pay for shipping and time spent the battery wont take a charge so i bought a new one and it works good, the thing i was disappointed in was there was a check list it was all checked over and worked good and in fact did not

They thought they wanted a "Chocolate" but we checked this one out and they like it better. I got one for each of them and they love the phones. They are away at college and are Sophmores so that goves you an idea of the target market. I researched this phone and the reviews were outstanding.

I really like this phone. I wanted something that wasn't too small or too big. I love the swivel camera. I can turn it around and take a picture of me and my children without guessing if we are in frame.

Great phone for great money!!!

The features are great.

Be cautious on which battery you buy. Most non LG batteries only provide less than a hour of non-standby usage.