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LG enV Touch is basically an improved successor of the Voyager phone which received editor’s award when it was first launched around two years back. LG enV Touch does get a fair amount of upgrades like a 3.2 megapixel, 3 inch internal display, a full HTML browser, EV-DO, and more. The enV Touch will supposedly sell for $219.99 with a two-year contract and a $70 rebate.

Design:
Measuring 4.52 inches long by 2.16 inches wide by 0.66 inch thick, the enV Touch is slimmer than the Voyager, though at 4.92 ounces, it’s a bit heavier. The Clear key doubles as the voice command key (with a short press) and the voice recorder key (with a long press). The touch screen is really stunning, measuring 3 inches diagonally, which is a hair larger than the 2.81-inch display on the Voyager. The display supports a whopping 1.6 million colors and is bright, sharp, and vibrant. There’s a touch calibration wizard that you can go through to help with your precision and sensitivity, and the haptic feedback makes the phone vibrate whenever your touch registers. You can even adjust the length and intensity of the vibration. Also helpful is a sound effect whenever your touch registers on the screen. Aside from just tapping, you can also scroll through menus and long Web pages by dragging your finger across the screen.

Features:
The enV Touch holds a generous 1,500-entry phonebook, with room in each entry for five numbers, two e-mail addresses, and a street address. You can then organize the contacts into caller groups, pair them with a photo for caller ID, or any of 26 polyphonic ring tones. Supported Bluetooth profiles include hands-free, dial-up networking, A2DP or stereo, phonebook access, basic printing, basic imaging, object push for vCard and vCalendar, and file transfer. You can also use the enV Touch as a wireless modem for your laptop or computer, but you’ll have to get the Mobile Broadband Connect plan for $60 a month for a 5GB data cap. The enV Touch also comes with a document viewer, which will let you read Microsoft Office documents from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, plus Adobe Acrobat .pdf files. To read them, you need to load them onto a microSD card in the “my_document” folder. Other advanced features include mobile instant messenger, GPS with VZ Navigator support, e-mail, and visual voice mail. Do note that the Verizon visual voice mail service will cost you $3 a month.

Browsing:
The enV Touch has a full HTML Web browser like its predecessor did, and, unfortunately, it seems to have the same clunky issues with the touch screen. Don’t get us wrong; we love that you can surf and browse full Web pages. We also like that you can zoom in and out of pages, view a page in full-screen mode, add bookmarks, and search through a page. The enV Touch also features tabbed browsing (with up to three tabs, or pages, open), which we liked.

But using the Web browser via the touch-screen interface is an exercise in frustration. As we said earlier, it can take several taps in order for a link to register, especially on a crowded page. Also, whenever we bring up the browser navigation array, they only appear for a second before disappearing again. There doesn’t seem to be a way to adjust this in the settings. Also, using the toggle to view full screen pages can be tedious, and is nowhere as smooth as the multitouch pinch-to-zoom interface on the iPhone.

Multimedia:
As for the music player itself, the interface is pretty simple, with the album art displayed next to the artist and album name along with the track title. You can mute the player, create and edit playlists, set the songs on repeat or shuffle, or add one of six preset equalizer settings. There’s also a Music Only mode that shuts off the phone’s cellular signal so you can keep listening to tunes when you’re on an airplane. Other than downloading a song from V Cast Music, you can also sync up songs from your PC with a USB cable using the V Cast Music with Rhapsody software. If you have a Rhapsody subscription, you can also sync up your subscribed tracks. Supported music files include MP3, WMA, unprotected AAC and AAC+ formats. The enV Touch supports up to 16GB of removable memory via a microSD card in case you want additional storage.

Features Missing:
The enV Touch doesn’t have V Cast Mobile TV like the Voyager did and the other feature missing is Wi-Fi.

Tags: 3 megapixel, browser, env touch, html, lg, microSD, mp3, review, voyager, wifi, wma