{"id":11778,"date":"2012-06-20T08:01:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T13:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=11778"},"modified":"2012-06-20T10:08:46","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T15:08:46","slug":"techcitement-reviews-lg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/column\/review-column\/techcitement-reviews-lg\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: LG Viper LTE Lacks A Bit Of Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"

This has been an impressive year for smartphones. Indeed, with units like the RAZR MAXX,\u00a0 Galaxy Nexus<\/a>, and HTC’s One<\/a> line, I think we’re seeing a real transition to superphones. Then there’s the LG Viper, a far more mild-mannered option.<\/p>\n

Despite being the first LTE phone released on Sprint (by a whole day), the Viper has gotten little to no fanfare. There may be a reason for that: where some manufacturers are putting their energy in high-end materials and svelteness, the Viper feels like a throwback to 2011. At 5 ounces, it only weighs a little more than an iPhone 4S (4.9 oz) and a little less than a Galaxy Nexus (5.13).\u00a0 The Viper feels fine in the hand, albeit a tad cheap thanks to the plastic body. However, said body is well-built, with little creaking or give. As for looks, it’s a basic 4″ screen slab. Nothing at all to write home about.<\/p>\n

Sprint and LG have chosen to load the Viper with Android version 3.3.7, a.k.a. Gingerbread. Normally, I would ding a phone for having what is now an outdated OS. However, it’s also “vanilla” Android — there is no skin whatsoever on the device. The Viper is bundled with Sprint’s SprintID solution and some other built-in apps, but that (and a curious custom camera app) are as much tinkering as is done here. LG has said Android 4.0 is coming at some point. Without a skin to adjust for, that should be sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

I mentioned the tweaked camera app. I’m baffled as to why LG did this, as I honestly could barely tell. The actual camera itself is nothing amazing — 5 MP rear and a VGA front camera — and doesn’t seem to get anything out of the software change. This phone is fine for casual snapshots and every day pictures. it’s a bit slow to focus though, so don’t be surprised if action shots have blur.<\/p>\n

Phonecalls are nice and clear, although I did have a bit of a problem with the proximity sensor. Normally, a phone blanking the screen when it’s up on my face is a good thing. Except with the Viper, it sometimes takes a bit for the screen to come back. Not awesome when using a phone tree. As for music, I strongly suggest headphones. The speaker on the phone was muffled and unclear.<\/p>\n

What wasn’t unclear was the screen. I’ve seen some people deriding the Viper for having a NOVA screen instead of AMOLED. Honestly though, the screen was just fine for day-to-day use. Indeed, I found it usable in direct sunlight.<\/p>\n

What of data connectivity? As Sprint’s LTE network has yet to go live, I honestly can’t tell you. As an everyday 3G phone, the Viper did work fine though. Interestingly, my phone can to get emails while on a call, which is something that CDMA phones aren’t supposed to be able to do. I’m puzzled as to how that happened, but I’m not complaining.<\/p>\n

With what I will kindly call plain looks, basic features, and a feature-set that’s not even fully rolled out, would I suggest the Viper at all? Oddly, yes. Superphones are great and all, but there needs to be a phone for the budget user. The phones shouldn’t be frozen out of high-speed networks. It took a while for Sprint and Samsung to release a budget-minded<\/a> handset with their last attempt at 4G. Having one out of the gate is a huge win. Indeed, third party vendors like Wirefly and Amazon are already offering the barely two month old Viper for free.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you want the latest and greatest, then you do not want this phone. However, if you want to save a little green while waiting to jump on the LTE bandwagon, then this phone is not a terrible idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This has been an impressive year for smartphones. Indeed, with units like the RAZR MAXX,\u00a0 Galaxy Nexus, and HTC’s One line, I think we’re seeing a real transition to superphones. Then there’s the LG Viper, a far more mild-mannered option. Despite being the first LTE phone released on Sprint (by a whole day), the Viper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1085,1917],"tags":[133,34,107,74,2895,2894,132,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11778"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11780,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778\/revisions\/11780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}