Product Description
The LG 840G for Tracfone is a full touchscreen phone with Triple Minutes for Life. This phone is for use with Tracfone service only and offers you great features including: an MP3 Player, Mobile Web, 2MP Camera with Video, Hands-Free Speaker, 3G and Wifi connectivity, Bluetooth, Voice and Sound Recorder, SMS and MMS Picture Messaging and much more! Each phone comes with a rechargeable battery, wall charger, 2GB MicroSD card and services guide. Be sure to check coverage in your area prior to purchase. This LG 840G can only be used with Tracfone service.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #370 in Cell Phone Accessories
- Brand: LG
- Dimensions: .50 pounds
- Tracfone Service
- Triple Minutes for Life
- 3.2" Touchscreen
- 3G/WiFi Connectivity
- Bluetooth Wireless Technology
I have had several LG Tracfones in the past and they were always quality products. The LG840g is no exception. I got mine to replace a LG500g that I had for over a year. After one week, here are my impressions.
The phone itself is about the size of an Ipod Touch, and similar in shape and appearance. It looks expensive. The "wake" button is recessed which makes it difficult to hit accidentally, and the volume buttons are on the side where they would be on an Ipod. The buttons on the front are capacitive touch, like the screen.
It is not a smart phone and runs a java based proprietary operating system which allows the installation of .jar apps.
Battery life depends on how you use it. I left the WiFi running and the battery drained to one bar in 24 hours. It didn't shut down, but it was definitely low. Only using the WiFi occasionally, the battery is still on full bars after 3 days. I haven't run the phone all the way down yet, but the advertised standby is over 10 days.
The interface is easy to use, and the touch-screen is capacitive, which makes it easy to use. It feels a lot like an Ipod/Iphone. I don't like the pale blue backgrounds for the menus, but there's no way I know of to change it.
It wouldn't connect to my home WiFi, a Belkin router, unless I set a static IP address. If you're having problems connecting, choose "Edit Network" and under IP/DNS Setting, choose "Static". You will then have to configure the settings specific to your router using your keen sense of Google Fu.
One problem is the keyboard. You only get a QWERTY in certain situations, such as entering web addresses, texting, etc. If you go to a website that has input text boxes, such as webmail, you'll be sorely disappointed. One solutiom is to download the free Opera browser that comes with its own keyboard, which always lets you enter text with QWERTY. It's a little sluggish, but usable. It beats the default browser by far.
When you do download apps for this, you'll notice that third party apps will display a navigation keyboard at the bottom. If you use a JAD file to install, open it in Notepad and insert the following at the end:
- Navi-Key-Hidden: true
- Nokia-MIDlet-On-Screen-Keypad: no
- MIDlet-ScreenMode: ROTATE
- MIDlet-Landscape-Support: true
- LGE-MIDlet-Width: 240
- LGE-MIDlet-Height: 400
- LGE-MIDlet-On-Screen-Keypad: no
- LGE-MIDlet-Display-Mode: both
This will kill the navigation keyboard, which is unnecessary with a touch screen and just takes extra space anyway.
Doing this, I was able to run Opera Mini, Google Maps, UC Browser, and eBuddy in full screen mode. Also, with this phone being similar to the LG T375 Cookie Smart, some apps made for it will run on the LG 840G. Again, using your Google Fu will help you find apps. Download them to the SD card in your phone, find them in the menus and tap on them to run.
Video conversion is easy with Mobile Media Converter, a free video converter from Miksoft that runs on Mac, Linux, or Windows.
Install it and drag and drop your video(s) into the window. From the "Conversion To:" menu, choose "Iphone/Ipod with Subs" and hit the button marked "Advanced" .
The "More Configuration" menu will come up. On both "Audio Bitrate" and "Video Bitrate", the lower the number, the less quality, but smaller the file. Higher numbers will be better quality but take up more space. Video FPS (frames per second) should be set to your preferred quality...a smaller number is more "jittery" but a smaller file, and a larger number is smoother but takes more space. If you're encoding a 4:3 (square) video, make sure "Video Size" is checked and enter "320:240" in the space beside it. If you're encoding a 16:9 (rectangular) video, make sure "Video Size" is checked and enter "320:200" in the space beside it. Audio Frequency: higher is better quality and larger file, lower is lesser quality and smaller file. If you're not using headphones, you can also choose to only have one mono channel instead of a stereo channel, which will also save space.
This phone charges differently for data than other TracFones I've had previously. The old ones used to charge for time, regardless of data transfer. Meaning, 1 minute of web brwosing was .5 units. This made it dangerous to leave the browser on for long periods of time! Then new one seems to charge for transfer, but I can't figure out the ratio exactly. Regardless, I can load a page and actually have time to READ it. The pages I visit are mostly text, so this works out better for me. There are differing theories on what the actual cost per KB are, and TracFone's website is no help. You'll have to blow a few minutes and do experimentation to figure out what your frequently visited sites cost to browse.
The email program is simple, but works slickly enough with Gmail. I haven't tried it with another provider.
YouTube works only in the default browser, and even then, it is scaled down to a size not much bigger than a postage stamp. This wouldn't be so bad if they allowed you to scale the video up to a reasonable size, but they do not, so you're forced t watch a 1.5"x1" video in the middle of a much larger black screen.
All in all, the LG840G is a nice, solid phone, and leaps and bounds better than TracFones of the past. I will be updating this review later, but as for now, I can recommend the LG840g, especially if you handy and don't mind tinkering a little to get added functionality.
I added some pictures of what this phone can do. Note that some of the features, like Opera and Google Maps, must be downloaded and installed by the user, and may require the modification to run in full screen as shown in the pictures.
As far as day-to-day usage goes, there are quirks, but it is still pretty darn good.
Sometimes, when using Opera, the connection to the browser drops, even while the phone itself is still connected to the internet. The solution is to stop the browser and re-start it, something of a hassle. On occasion, the phone itself crashes and restarts, but this is rare - once every couple of months or so.
Even so, Opera is worth the trouble of installation. With Opera Turbo running, it compresses data and makes it possible to browse occasionally without burning through too many minutes. I can usually browse a few sites and kill 5 minutes here and there for 2-3 units. It also can tell you how much data transfer (and therefore, money) it is saving you. It also speeds thing up significantly.
Call quality is good, but reception is not what it was on my LG 500G. I can't talk in some places that I used to be able to, like when camping. For around town, though, reception is adequate. And, in those places, I can get 3G, which makes surfing much more enjoyable. /br>
Wifi kills the battery pretty quickly, like 24 hours or so. It is easy to forget and leave it on, which could drain your battery in an emergency situation. With the wifi off, the phone will go for days at a time between charges.
After living with it for five months, I can recommend this phone to those looking for a good deal on a prepaid phone, but want something that doesn't look like your grandparents would use it, or something from 2003. It is great for talk, text, and occasional web browsing, especially with the Opera upgrade. If you have any other Tracfone and upgrade to the 840G, you won't be disappointed.
