[LG Revolution] itsluy:
still trying to decide

I've had the Revo for about a week now and have been testing it quite a bit. I'm still trying to weigh out the pro's and cons, here's what I've got so far:

Cons:

** Binged - though you can unbing it fairly easily even without root by installing google search, google voice search, an alternate browser, and changing a few settings

** FFC - Currently a con since there's no way to use it other than to take pictures of yourself. No apps seem to support it yet but they will eventually.

** Auto-brightness - it's basically F&*%D. It constantly goes up and down on brightness even if I'm holding the phone stead right next to a lamp. I disabled the setting until LG/VZW send an update if ever.

** Removed functionality - What happened to the power control widget? Tried Extended Controls app but 90% of the settings don't work on this phone. If you know of a power control widget that works on the Revo without root please let me know.

** LG home - you end up running a ton of preloaded apps even if you use a different launcher/home replacement app - you're forced to waste battery / resources unless you root which I haven't yet.

** False advertising - Verizon documentation shows the phone as having 768MB of ram however only 368.25 are addressable by the booted OS. This means either

A) the phone allocates a full 400MB of ram to the system (doubtful)

B) the phone actually only has 512MB of ram and 143.75 allocated to the system (likely)

** Battery/Charging:

A) USB Cover - there's a cover over the charging port which is a bit annoying since you're constantly charging the phone. I'm considering yanking it out.

B) Charge time - takes FOREVER to charge - coming from the D1 (which has rapid charge) I'm just baffled by the inefficiency of the charging mechanism on the Revo. One example: I drove for 30 miles using Pandora + Navigation (pandora screen locked) and even though the phone was plugged in the entire drive I went from 50% battery to 30%. Basically it means that the phone will discharge faster than it charges depending on what the phone is doing.

C) battery life - not the greatest but I can't truly compare since I've never used the other two phones. There are tricks to extending battery life which I'm still exploring.

Pros

** Benchmarks - This phone SMOKES the Charge and Thunderbolt using quadrant. I just ran some tests today at VZW and while the Thunderbolt and Charge were both around 1000 (9xx and 12xx) - the LG results were almost 2000 (19xx). I didn't write down the exact results but the differences were significant

** Style - IMO the phone is the best looking one out of the 3. Someone asked me if it was an iphone yesterday. The battery cover design is very well done - it doesn't feel like the cover will accidentally come off sometimes like the one on my D1.

** Camera - although has less megapixels than the other two the quality of the pictures is what matters, the built in photo editor has a ton of options and the entire camera operation feels snappier than other phones I've tried.

** DLNA - I'm streaming to-and-from devices on my home network instantly. I think this is a huge plus since I've got DLNA on my WHS box, my PS3 etc etc.

** Netflix - I don't really care that much but it's a feature I do like having. Being able to HMDI out makes this the perfect gadget to bring on a trip

** VoLTE - the only phone to currently support Voice over LTE means this is the phone to buy if you plan on keeping it for a while. Guess who was all over the news a few months ago? engadget.com/2011/02/09/verizon-successfully-completes-first-volte-call-in-the-world-pl/

Other thoughts:

I'm not sure I could ever go back to 3G after using 4G. It's the same feeling I got when I switched to an SSD drive on my PC. Night and day.

The phone comes with an unlocked bootloader and since it supports VoLTE I imagine any devs serious about the future of Android will want to get their hands on this phone.

The LG desk dock is well worth the $50 - comes with an extra battery and a spare charging port so you can charge the phone and an extra battery. The battery charging port charges much faster than charging via the phone.

The extended battery seems like a good idea for someone like myself. It's on my shopping list I just need to decide whether I want to keep the phone.