Review of the LG TG800F

The LG TG800F is the GSM version of the Chocolate. While Fido doesn’t seem to use the name Chocolate on their web page, the box and user guide for the phone do refer to it as such. The big selling point of the chocolate line is its use of touch-sensitive keys for many of the buttons on the phone (though the numeric keypad is still a standard mechanical type). Earpiece Volume: On this score the phone does very well, with my only complaint being that there are too few volume gradients. One setting may be a bit too loud, while the next lowest may be not loud enough. Aside from that however, the native earpiece can generate clean sound at volumes most phones only dream of. It therefore works very well in loud environments, except that the sound gets harsher as the volume increases.



Outgoing Audio: Sadly, this is one aspect of the audio that’s noticeably sub-par. My own recordings to voicemail, as well as comments from various people I spoke to using the phone, demonstrated that the TG800F has rather fuzzy-sounding audio quality that’s also a little faint. One caller described it as sounding like I wasn’t talking directly into the microphone. Everyone agreed it wasn’t loud enough.
Keypad Design: Technically there two different keypads on this phone and each warrants its own critique. The number keys are standard mechanical types that are exposed when the phone is slid open. They are well-spaced, but for the most part they are flush and it is difficult to discern one from the other strictly by feel. All of these keys pressed well and did their jobs in an accurate fashion, but they are a little mushy and are a bit short on solid tactile feel.



One of my biggest complaints about the numeric keypad had nothing to do with its physical construction, but rather the phone’s slow response to them during a call. When you must type digits during a call (such as those times when you have to key-in information) the lag time between pressing a key and hearing the touchtone is longer than on any phone I’ve ever tested. I could find no way to turn off the tones (even if you turn off key sounds completely), and so there is no way to bypass this issue.



The second keypad is really the selling point of the Chocolate line. On the face of the phone, immediately below the screen, are a series of touch-sensitive keys that really have no physical existence except for light-up symbols. Whenever the keys are active, the lights behind them are on. If the lights are off, there are effectively no keys there. They aren’t really touch-sensitive, in that they don’t use pressure to actuate. They appear to be proximity sensors, and because of that they do not work if you are wearing even thin driving gloves.
If everything about the TG800F was merely average, I’d still recommend it, but it fails so uttering when it comes to outgoing audio that I have trouble endorsing this model. You’ll constantly punish your callers with mediocre sound quality at the best of times, and horrible problems when background noise is present.



Most of the desirability of this phone is derived from the touch-sensitive keypad, but if you are the type that reads my review of phones to find out how well they work as phones, then you won’t be likely to choose a glitzy feature over mediocre performance.