And we finish out the week with a shot of LG, a simple-looking flip phone that won’t bring a whole lot of features with it, but will put those features together in a fairly simple to use package that handles nicely. Today we’re talking about the LG AX310.

The LG AX310 is, as I said, a flip style phone that offers speakerphone, voice commands that don’t need the speaker, Bluetooth connectivity, a 1.3 megapixel camera with a 10x zoom and a panoply of options in and of itself, an external smaller screen that displays date, time, battery life and reception, a variety of downloadable ringtones and games via Alltel Shop, text messaging, picture messaging, a phone book with sufficient space for a thousand entries, GPS, USB port, calendar, alarm clock, calculator, hearing aid compatibility, and a battery capable of yielding five hours of talk time on a single charge.

The good news is that this phone has a really smooth navigation system. It’s a pretty basic icon-based navigation system that’ll move along with the keypad. Nothing here you likely haven’t already seen or dealt with several times before.

The bad news is that the phone is so profoundly basic that it’s not providing anything of much use. A minimal camera, a web experience largely limited to downloads…it’s so basic that there’s next to no reason to even recommend it. Sure, what’s here is very well put together, but there’s so much that isn’t here you can find significantly better phones in literally any of a hundred other directions.

If you’re needing simple, the LG AX310 is, however, the direction you’ll want to go in. That’s no problem at all. But if you need a phone to deliver some utility, you’ll want to look just about anywhere else.

The Good

Simple interface

Decent battery life

The Bad

Minimal features available

Score 4 / 10

A recent addition to the LG mobile phone lineup, the LG GS170, gave me more than a few troubles recently when I went to have a look at it. It did offer some welcome features, and some worthwhile facets to its operation, but it’s also got a lot of problems to it–a LOT of them.

The LG GS170 is a flip phone that offers Bluetooth connectivity, speakerphone, three different kinds of messaging capability (text, picture and instant), a phone book with sufficient capacity for a thousand entries, alarm clock, notepad, calculator, voice recorder, a VGA camera (shoots in your choice of 640

LG phones don’t usually give a lot of trouble (I really don’t remember a troublesome experience with an LG, at least not offhand), so I was looking for a fairly standard yet not too distinguished performance from the LG Incite, today’s review target.  What I found was a bit of a pleasant surprise–there was quite a bit under the hood here, but there were also some troubles here to mar the experience a bit.

The LG Incite is a candy bar style smartphone that runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and offers touchscreen controls, Wi-fi b/g and Bluetooth connectivity, alarm clock, Microsoft ActiveSync, Office Mobile, calendar, organizer, the three major instant messenger suites (Yahoo IM, AOL IM and MSN / Windows Live Messenger), support for microSD and microSDHC memory cards, an FM receiver, a three megapixel camera, MP3 player, USB port, several games, a mobile version of People magazine, and a battery that yields six hours and forty minutes of talk time on a single charge.

The great part about the LG Incite is the wide variety of options here–you’ll have plenty of opportunity to do just about anything here, whether your smartphone use be more geared to business or to leisure. But there’s a bit of a downside here, in that the controls aren’t exactly very accommodating. Screen glare here is something of an issue, strangely enough (I don’t remember seeing a touch screen reflect that much light), and considering how many smartphones I’ve seen that include on-board berths for styluses, why there isn’t one here is utterly beyond me.

But aside from some minor design issues, you should have a pretty good experience with the LG Incite. Take a look at this one if you’re looking for a good versatile phone and you don’t mind a little finagling with the controls to get where you want to go.

The Good

Loads of options

Nice camera

Great battery life

The Bad

Glare issues

Design problems

Score 7 / 10

This week we start off with the LG Versa cell phone, a fair little smartphone that can still hold its own against several of its more powerful and more modern cousins.

The LG Versa is a candy bar style cell phone that offers voice dialing, conference call capability, speakerphone, Bluetooth connectivity, mobile web, mobile email, several Verizon specific functions like VCAST for music and VZ Navigator, text messaging, Internet messaging, a variety of downloadable content items like games and ring tones, a two megapixel camera with self-timer delay, alarm clock, calendar, reminder, calculator, stopwatch, an MP3 player (not surprising given the VCAST capability), a 2.5 mm headset jack, and a battery capable of yielding just short of five hours of talk time on a single charge.  Interestingly, you’ll also get a detachable QWERTY keyboard, so if you do a lot of texting you’ll find the LG Versa a welcome friend.

The LG Versa will offer a lot of options, no mistake.  There’s a lot of value here, though it won’t be all sunshine and roses. The controls are pretty smooth, the camera a little (just a little, mind you) on the low end of the scale, the battery offering a fair charge, but a noticeable lack of Wi-Fi sours things a bit.

However, there is certainly plenty to like about the LG Versa, and if you’re not too interested in web browsing with it, then you should do fairly well here.

The Good

Plenty of features

Decent controls

Moderate battery life

The Bad

No Wi-Fi

Lower end camera

Score 7 / 10

I like simple phones. So help me, I do–there’s something about a phone that focuses on making and receiving calls, with a few extra options thrown in, that has a back-to-basics sort of appeal to it. And the LG Shine II is going to be a great example of that kind of appeal.

The LG Shine II offers a phone book with room for a thousand entries, Bluetooth connectivity, voice recorder, GPS, access to AT&T Navigator, mobile web, mobile email, alarm clock, a microSD card slot, a calendar, notepad, calendar, speakerphone, a world clock, access to the major instant messaging suites (AOL IM, Windows Live / MSN and Yahoo IM), a two megapixel camera with 2x zoom, self timer and low light shooting, a battery that provides three hours and twenty minutes of talk time on a single charge and a variety of apps and games with more available for download, though many of them require subscriptions.

There’s a lot that I’m less than happy with–the low battery life, the apps that require subscription to use, not to mention that you have to take the cover off to get to the MicroSD card slot. But still, there is quite a bit here for people who don’t need their phones to do a whole lot.  They didn’t cheap out overmuch on the camera, and even the video playback on this thing isn’t terrible.

In fact, “isn’t terrible” is a great way to describe the entirety of the LG Shine II. While there are some things wrong with it, it doesn’t necessarily preclude you from an enjoyable and fully realized cell phone experience.  You should get along well here, if you don’t go in expecting a lot.

The Good

Several good features

Decent camera

The Bad

Difficult to reach MicroSD card slot

Low battery life

Subscription apps by the load

Score 5 / 10