LG Venus VX8800

LG Venus VX8800 - I'm Your Venus, I'm Your Ire

Hey there's something you don't see on a cell phone every day: a split screen. Well sort of. Technically, LG's Venus handset has two screens: a 2-inch, 320 x 240-pixel LCD on the top half and a 1.5-inch, 176 x 240-pixel touchscreen anchoring the bottom half. The touchscreen contains almost all of the phone's navigational controls and shortcuts to several applications. When you press a virtual key, you get a mild vibration feedback indicating your selection went through. Touch-sensitive controls are generally a nice idea, but they aren't always responsive on the Venus. On multiple occasions, a key press didn't register immediately. If it didn't respond after a few tries, we resorted to pressing the end key on started all over again. Although the touch mechanism has greatly improved over previous generations of LG phones, this is the same issue we've had with the older models (hello LG Chocolate). It's a minor quirk that's forgivable - unlike the handset's call quality - which is punctuated by a constant din of static.

But as a music phone, the Venus is kinda awesome. The audio player can be activated with one click. (Two clicks if the screen is locked.) Sound quality is loud and consistently crisp. And unlike the Chocolate, you can use stereo Bluetooth headphones to rock out to your tunes. Plus, LG throws in a USB cable so you can sync music from your PC to the phone with ease. If it weren't for the borderline horrid call quality, the Venus might have been music to our ears.

WIRED Voice-prompted driving directions from Verizon's VZ Navigator are actually helpful; we didn't get lost once. 2-megapixel camera yields surprisingly detailed images plus decent video capture. MicroSD slot located supports memory cards up to 8GB in capacity. Access to AOL, Windows Live, and Yahoo Web mail and instant messaging.

TIRED Call quality is sub par: our review model yielded a hiss in the background at the high volume levels. Phone's plastic housing feels as cheap as it looks.

• Style: Touchscreen
• Service Provider: Verizon Wireless
• Camera Resolution: 1 to 3 megapixels
• Manufacturer: LG
• Price: With a two year contract