LG Cosmos Touch Review

The original LG Cosmos (Free, 3 stars) has been a regular recommendation of ours. It's a solidly built texting cell phone  with long battery life, which also doesn't require one of Verizon's data plans in order to use it. LG has now improved its classic model with the Cosmos Touch ($79.99-209.99). The new model keeps the original's diminutive size, but adds a much larger, touch-enabled screen. It's still no powerhouse, but it will make a good choice for an affordable texting phone once the price comes down a bit.

Design and Call Quality


The Cosmos Touch measures 4.1 by 2.1 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.4 ounces. Unlike the hard plastic of the original model, the new one features a soft touch matte coating that's more comfortable to hold for long periods. The 2.8-inch touch screen isn't as large as what you'd find on a keyboardless phone, but given the tiny sliding QWERTY design, it's certainly impressive. The panel sports a slightly higher 240-by-400-pixel resolution, and looks suitably bright and sharp. The four-row keyboard features slightly raised membrane keys that are silent and comfortable to type on. This is obviously a small phone, but LG has done well to ensure the screen and keyboard don't feel too cramped.

The Cosmos Touch is a dual-band 1xRTT (850/1900 MHz) device with no 3G or Wi-Fi capability. It's a mediocre voice phone overall. On my end, callers sounded a little tinny and bright in the earpiece, although there was sufficient gain. On the other side, callers complained of an echo around my voice, no matter how quietly I spoke (to make sure the room had nothing to do with it). The echo disappeared in back-to-back comparisons with another Verizon phone, so it was clearly coming from the Cosmos Touch.

That said, calls sounded crisp and clear through an Aliph Jawbone Icon ($99, 4 stars) Bluetooth headset. Voice dialing worked inconsistently over Bluetooth; sometimes I needed to trigger it manually from the front panel, but it did work OK in the end. The speakerphone sounded muffled and distorted but had plenty of gain. Battery life was solid at 6 hours and 33 minutes of talk time.

User Interface, Apps, and Messaging


The home screen features four shortcut icons along the bottom. Two additional panels are dedicated to Facebook, Twitter, and other messaging (on the left), and a customizable favorites panel (on the right). You can swipe between them relatively easily using the plastic resistive touch screen. The main menu sports 12 colorful icons and was easy to get around.

As a proper Verizon phone, you'll find shortcuts to Bing Search, a dedicated media center area, and VZ Navigator, which offers voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions for $10 per month extra. The Myriad Web browser and 1xRTT radio were just as sluggish as on the original Cosmos, but the extra screen size and resolution at least made reading WAP pages more bearable.

The social networking panel was a disappointment. The various icons are really just shortcuts to simple text-based messaging interfaces for updating your status or posting to a wall. Instead, head to Social Beat, a BREW app that aggregates Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace updates. Verizon also preloads its usual, clunky mobile e-mail and IM clients, which offer access to most major accounts aside from Google Talk. The IM client requires a data plan, and mobile e-mail requires an additional $5 per month; skip it, as there are much better phones for this purpose if you're going to jack up your monthly plan cost.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions


This is no longer just a voice and messaging phone, as LG has added some serious music capabilities. There's now a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack that accepts all manner of third-party stereo earbuds. There's 66MB of available internal memory. The side-mounted microSD card slot accepts 16GB cards; my 32GB SanDisk card didn't work, but my 16GB card worked fine. Music tracks sounded clear and punchy over Motorola S9-HD ($129, 3.5 stars) Bluetooth headphones, but the music player chopped the first second off every track when I was using the wireless headphones, so I'd recommending sticking with a wired set. The music player app required too many extra key presses, but at least the app displayed album art and otherwise indexed my tracks quickly. Despite those two minor issues, the Cosmos Touch is a fine music player.

The basic 1.3-megapixel camera is unchanged from before, and still lacks an LED flash or auto-focus system. Test photos were mostly poor, with a mottled, sickly appearance to shots even outdoors in bright sunlight. Indoor shots were usable in that there wasn't excessive noise, and brightness levels were still OK, but the same mottled effect remained. There's no standalone video recording or playback.

In an age where everyone seems to be moving to smartphones, the Cosmos Touch proves that you can still get a decent, well-designed feature phone on Verizon. I'd wait for the price to fall below its current $79.99 with contract, though, as you can get some equally-as-good phones for less. The Samsung Intensity II (Free, 3 stars) is a bit larger and roomier than the Cosmos and a better voice phone as well. The rebranded Microsoft Kin ONEm and Kin TWOm are also now good texting choices with their reduced prices and lower monthly fees. Once the price has dipped a bit—and that will come, I'm sure—the LG Cosmos Touch will be another solid choice for folks trying to keep their monthly rates down.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 6 hours 33 minutes