Phone Review

What's hot: Great keyboard and good looks.

What's not: No EVDO, poor battery life.

The original LG Rumor, released in late October 2007 by Sprint, sold well. It was an affordable texting phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, good looks and a sturdy build. 1.5 years later, Sprint and LG Rumor have released the Rumor 2. The new model largely keeps the same form factor and key features such as built-in GPS, 1.3 megapixel camera and microSD expansion slot. So what are the differences between the LG Rumor and the LG Rumor 2? Aside from the shinier casing, the LG Rumor 2 adds a fourth row of keys dedicated to numbers, increased the screen resolution to QVGA and put in A2DP wireless stereo Bluetooth. Also cosmetically the LG Rumor 2 now has a removable back plate and the phone’s package includes a designer plate in addition to a plain one. What’s still missing on the Rumor 2 compared to the Samsung Rant is Sprint EV-DO 3G and services that utilize the fast data network such as Sprint TV and the Sprint Music store.

The introductory price remains at $49.99 after a mail-in rebate with a 2-year contract. The LG Rumor 2 is available in two colors: Black Titanium and Vibrant Blue, and it’s exclusively offered by Sprint.

Aesthetically speaking, the LG Rumor 2 looks like a shiner version of the original Rumor and is just slightly longer and wider than the Rumor. It certainly looks more attractive in the new casing and the back plate is now interchangeable with designer plates. Thankfully the back plate doesn’t have a shiny surface so it’s not slippery. When the slider is closed, the LG Rumor 2 looks like a candy bar phone and feels comfy in hand. The front numbers are large and easy to use, but the 4-way directional ring is slippery and narrow. Slide open the phone to reveal the QWERTY keyboard which is one of the best keyboards we’ve used on a phone. The added row of number keys is very handy when dialing, texting and navigating menus. This is definitely a big improvement over the original Rumor which often required too many clicks to perform functions. The QWERTY keyboard has a normal layout and offers a dedicated “smiley face” key.

Like the original Rumor, the LG Rumor 2 is a digital dual band CDMA phone and has only 1xRTT for data and no EV-DO support. The phone gets great reception but the voice quality can’t compete with the original Rumor. Incoming voice sounds muffled and outgoing voice sounds digitized. We tested the phone with Bluetooth headsets which didn’t help the voice quality much either. Through the Plantronics Voyager 835, incoming voice was better than the phone’s own earpiece, but outgoing voice was very garbled. When working with the Cobra CBTH2 Bluetooth headset, the Rumor had decent outgoing voice but incoming voice was not clear and had low volume.

The LG Rumor 2 has support for most calling management services including caller ID, Call forwarding, call waiting and three-way calling. The Rumor 2’s contacts database can store up to 600 contacts and 7 numbers for each contact entry. You can assign 98 speed dialing numbers as well as special ringers and picture ID. The Rumor 2 has a great voice command application that does an excellent job at not only voice dialing but also searching for names, numbers and web site bookmarks. The voice controls worked well over Bluetooth headsets in our tests. Other applications and tools include Calendar, World Clock, Calculator, Voice Memo, Notepad, D-day counter and Unit converter.

As a messaging-centric phone, the LG Rumor 2 has all the bells and whistles including one of the best QWERTY keyboards and a full set of messaging services. The Rumor 2 supports SMS, Picture messaging and voice SMS messaging, as well as web-based email and chat. The web-based email launches fast once you’ve set it up, and offers popular services including AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail and more. The chat portal offers 24/7 chatting and flirting services.