LG Tritan

Introduction

The LG Tritan came on to the market in 2009. It is provided through Alltel and US Cellular. When purchasing a two-year contract through US Cellular the phone runs $180. After sending in the mail-in rebate purchasers can get an additional $50 off, dropping the phone to $130. Currently Alltel is running an online special and after the additional mail-in rebate brings the phone down to $80. For more information on phone pricing and plans visit www.alltel.com or www.uscc.com.

Design

The Tritan is a touch screen phone that also has a full keyboard. It has a 3- inch touch screen, which is quite large in comparison to other touch screen phones. The option for a full keyboard or a touch screen makes the Tritan more versatile and easier to use. The screen can show up to 262,000 colors (Lee). Another plus, the Tritan has four home screens. The phone weighs over 5 ounces and that can be a disadvantage to some because it will weigh your pocket down. The phone measures almost four and a half inches long by almost two and a quarter inches wide. While the Tritan can be blocky the curved edges allow the phone to be more comfortable in people’s hands.

The touch screen can take some time getting used to. The major issue is getting use to tapping flat keys. The interface has been difficult for some to get used to. “It doesn’t always scroll when I try to scroll,” said phone owner Diane Beck. Another worry for the user could be if the screen gets cracked how “usable” is the phone still. “I actually wanted to return my phone because I was worried that I would crack the screen and wouldn’t be able to use it anymore,” said Beck. “Then I realized that the same thing is possible with all phones.” LG has overcome the potential interface difficulty with their physical keys on their full QWERTY board.

Features

LG’s Tritan can hold up to potentially 5,000 phone numbers. It can hold up to 1,000 entries with up to 5 numbers for each entry. Each entry can also have an email, and a url. The phone also comes with 26 ringtones and eight message alerts. It also includes a vibrate mode, speakerphone, text messaging as well as multimedia messaging, voice command, alarm clock, calendar, world clock, calculator (including a tip calculator), a unit converter, a stopwatch, and a notepad. Advanced features include a drawing panel, GPS navigation, a navigation joystick, voice recorder, USB mass storage mode, Bluetooth and a document viewer. The document viewer allows users to view Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF documents. If a user chooses to access the EasyEdge service it also becomes possible to activate mobile email as well as turn-by-turn navigation and the application store.

A full HTML browser is available on the Tritan. Multiple windows can be viewed and are shown as tabs. It also supports Flash Lite, which is the program that allows users to view YouTube videos (Lee).

There is also a music player. The Tritan will divide the tracks into several different categories based on albums, artists, and genres. The sound quality is above average for what can be expected from a cell phone.

The 3-megapixel camera can take pictures at five different resolutions, three quality settings, five white balance presets, and seven color effects. Other features include a self-timer, might mode, macro focus mode, auto focus mode, brightness, multishot mode and nine frames. There is decent color and sharpness to the pictures even though they have a slight pink discoloration. Video recording is also and option. Length of videos depends on if the user wants them to be saved or not. For a full list of features refer to the LG website, www.lg.com.

Call Quality

The call quality is extremely good. It has a nice clear sound with minimal static until the caller enters an area with less than two bars of service. The quality of receiving calls is outstanding. It again has a nice clear sound with no break ups. Speakerphone on the other hand can sound muffled and quiet at times. That can be expected considering the usual distance away from the speaker a person is standing.

According to CNet.com the Tritan has a battery life of 5 hours and 18 minutes of talking time. That is significantly better than the rated life of 3.5 hours talking time. CNet.com also states that the phone gives off .9 watts of electricity per kilogram (Lee).

Rating

When it comes down to it, the LG Tritan is quite a remarkable phone. In fact it is much more than a phone. With the available application store it has the potentially to be virtually anything. It gives the Apple iphone a run for its money in this reviewer’s eyes. It runs similar programs as the iphone and just like the iphone has an application store the LG Tritan has one as well. The phone has also received better ratings than similar phones the Samsung Highlight and Delve. It received the same rating as the iphone. This reviewer gives the phone a 4.5/5.

Bibliography

Lee, Nicole. "LG Tritan (U.S. Cellular)." 25 September 2009. CNet Reviews. 1 October 2009 .