The LG Rumor is a candy-bar phone designed for text and e-mail fanatics. At first glance, it looks like a standard mobile phone, but sliding the face to the left reveals a full QWERTY keyboard. The keys are very well spaced, making messaging friends with your thumbs an extremely pleasurable experience.

With its wide profile and weighing a hefty 4.13 ounces, the phone is rather bulky. But this is the price one pays for exceptional ergonomics. Typing with the spacious keyboard is a breeze. The buttons are nicely shaped and, once you've mastered the keyboard's layout, the keys offer more than enough texture to message without looking. The weight of the phone actually enhances the experience, as its solid feel improves the speed in which you can tap out your messages. The only flaw in the keyboard's design is the lack of dedicated buttons for periods and commas. Otherwise, a dedicated button for the camera is found on the left side of the phone along with the volume rocker. On the opposite side of the device are the headphones jack and the microSD card slot, which supports cards up to 4GB in size.

Meanwhile, the numeric pad is also carefully laid out, with distinct buttons that are very easy to dial by feel. Above the numbers are buttons for talk and end, as well as a dedicated speakerphone key, a back key, and two soft keys. To navigate menus, you use the central multidirectional toggle that has an OK button in its center. All of these functions are intuitive and easily operated, and the toggle can be programmed to provide direct access to your most-used features.

Opening the face happens with relative ease, and the sliding mechanism is smooth yet solid. Once you have access to the keyboard, the external LCD is automatically switched to landscape mode, and it is here that a few problems present themselves. Opening the keyboard disables the keyguard automatically, so that it is very easy for accidental phone calls to be made. Additionally, the screen is unexceptional. Though it supports up to 262K colors, it is only 2 inches diagonally--a fine size for a phone, but less ideal when you're composing a lot of e-mails. Additionally, the vividness of the pictures and colors has something to be desired, and because you cannot change the contrast, there were also problems when viewing the screen outdoors.

The sub-par quality of the LCD is also more apparent when using the Navigator service. This feature (available through a subscription) gives you maps and turn-by-turn directions by accessing the GPS locator built into the phone. Unfortunately, reading the maps is difficult if you're in direct sunlight and because the resolution of the LCD is questionable, it's especially difficult to see things with a quick glance.

Otherwise, the music player is pretty good and allows you to shuffle songs and, more important, create your own playlists. But it is when using the music player that you notice another of the Rumor's flaws--namely, it does not offer 3G network access to Sprint's music store. So in order to build a library of music, you need to download songs onto your computer and then transfer them to your phone with the MicroSD card. Sound quality for the music player is decent, but when playing tunes over the speakerphone, there wasn't a lot of richness and harder rock songs sounded thin. Fortunately, the Rumor offers stereo Bluetooth, so you can plug in your own headset and get performance that is much better.

Color definition for the photos is not good at all, with outlines seeming washed out and an overall blurriness to everything within the frame. There are, however, three choices of resolutions and three choices for quality, which determine file size. You can adjust the white balance, brightness, and the sound that is generated when the shutter snaps. A flash is not included, but there is a self-timer. Meanwhile, the video recorder gives you two options for resolution, but the quality of either is lackluster.

The telephone book holds up to 500 contacts, each of which can hold five phone numbers, three email addresses, and a picture ID. These contacts can be assigned distinctive ringers, photo IDs, or you can even record your own voice memo to be used as a ringer. Additionally, regularly texted contacts can be given unique text tones. You can also program up to 99 speed dial locations, and if you're someone who loses phones often, you can have your contact list backed up wirelessly.

A feature that will be popular with teens is that you have one-button access to Facebook. But, as previously stated, the Rumor does not have high-speed network access, so browsing the web and accessing e-mails can be quite sluggish. You can, however, text message photos that you've taken with the camera, and you can also text landline phones and your words will be automatically converted to a voice message.

The phone comes in a choice of three colors: white (which has a silver keyboard) and black (which has a blue keyboard). Other features include: vibrating ringer, calculator, alarm clock, currency converter, notepad, voice recorder, scheduler, stopwatch, and tip calulator. Call quality for the Rumor was good, with few breakups to report and no lost calls. The microphone performed quite well in windy and noisy environments. Meanwhile, the battery offered fairly standard performance with a little under 4 hours of talk time and about 6 days of standby. Overall, the LG Rumor is best suited for people who love to e-mail and message but aren't terribly concerned with other high-end multimedia features.

Pros: Full QWERTY keyboard, great design
Cons: Disappointing camera, lackluster LCD, no 3G network, accidental phone calls

Warranty
1 year