The keyboard has stiff keys, so if you do a LOT of texting, I think you might find it uncomfortable because the keys take a lot of pressure to press down. That’s good in one respect, as it’s hard to incorrectly press a key, but for heavy texting, your thumbs are likely to get tired. I really like that the design of the keyboard makes it easy to use the top, numeric row of keys — on other phones with slide-out keyboards, I find that my thumbnail interferes with trying to tap the top row of keys.

UPSIDE FEATURES: The phone takes really good pictures! I’m very pleased with how it performs, although trying to take a picture of yourself isn’t easy to do, as you have to change a camera setting so it will use the external display so you can see yourself while snapping the photo. The photo button itself is a little small and is not real easy to depress. The display is colorful and bright, the sound is good when using it just as a phone (not as a speakerphone, however, which has weak audio output making it hard to use inside a car driving on the road). Using Bluetooth to print photos was surprisingly easy to do, so now it’s a snap to snap a photo and then print it using a Bluetooth-enabled printer. The web browser is full HTML, so I can now use websites that I couldn’t with my older phones.

DOWNSIDE FEATURES: I have had a few instances where my voice echoes, and I *never* had that problem with the Samsung phones I’ve owned earlier. Once, the phone powered-off by itself, much like others have reported. I already mentioned the speakerphone not producing a lot of sound, and you can’t enable the speakerphone without opening up the clamshell design — not convenient when trying to answer the phone on the road. The web browser is a full, HTML browser, but the font size is INCREDIBLY small, and you can’t change to a larger font size! That’s the dumbest feature of this phone, so I only use the Internet for something urgent, not for casual browsing. (You can use the phone’s “Zoom” feature to increase the font size, but the page isn’t resized so you then have to scroll left-and-right, and the Zoom works only for the page you’re on). I contacted Verizon Support about the too-small font size, and they confirmed that you can’t change the font size on the browser. Surely, new releases of either this phone model or the web browser it uses will fix this stupid design

SUMMARY: This isn’t a perfect phone, but it’s a good phone choice for Verizon customers. Until Verizon’s Droid phone makes its appearance, I’ll be quite satisfied to use this LG Env3. Recommended!

**** NOVEMBER 28, 2009 UPDATE

After living with this phone for about two months now, I can say I really do like it, overall. Like other LG Env3 owners, my phone inexplicably shut-off — but just once so far. The echoing occurred when I first got the phone, but hasn’t happened since.

I’ve learned that the position of the camera lens is not so good, especially for right-handed people. It’s so easy to accidentally cover-up the lens with your finger. Also, it’s not easy to take self-portraits by using a hardware switch — you have to choose Options to enable the external display to be used for self-portraits. The camera button does not have a nice feel to it. On the upside, the photos it takes, especially in bright, outdoor light, are very good. When I photoed my daughter trotting on a horse in bright sunshine, the photos did not blur. The flash setting works sporadically — it always fires, but the shutter may or may not be synchronized to benefit from the flash. When it works, it works better than any other LED flash on a camera phone I’ve had. When it doesn’t work, though, you have to re-take the picture again.

I still like this phone, but now that Verizon’s Droid is out, I’m curious to know what owning the Droid would be like….
Rating: 4 / 5

The good:

The keyboard is very convenient.

The phone itself has a very cool look to it.

The camera is better than any I’ve had before in a phone.

The bad:

It pocket dials CONSTANTLY. The OK button right in the middle is the unlock key, so once that is pushed while in my pocket, the phone will dial any combination of random numbers.

A lot of the functionality of the phone can only be accessed when the phone is open. Meaning that if you only can use one hand, you may have a hard time getting the phone to do what you want if it’s anything other than actually making a call.

Overall I don’t know that I could recommend it for a guy who carries his phone in his pocket, but I’ve spoken to girls who have it and it doesn’t dial from their pocketbook/handbag, so it may be better suited for women.
Rating: 3 / 5

Apparent Quirks (if there are workarounds, please Comment):

Speakerphone:

(a) Phone must be opened to use the speakerphone? Sometimes, if I *voice* dial with it closed, the voice seems louder than if I speed- or finger-dialed.

(b) No volume control (other than on/off)?

Calendar:

(a) Again, phone must be opened to use it.

(b) When phone is closed, the calendar alert flashes on the external screen but only tells you to open the phone for details. Very annoying!

(c) I entered 3 events for October (all starting with “Gig”). When I search for “Gig” they display in the following order: 10/10, 10/31, 10/16 (yes, the years are all 2009). This is not a deal breaker, but very peculiar.

So those are some things I think should be different. I use a phone primarily for talking, calendar management, and checking e-mail. You could probably do better than this phone for those purposes. Might be fine for heavy texters and others who wouldn’t mind having the phone open most of the time. YMMV.
Rating: 3 / 5