The design seen on the LG Chocolate Touch is nothing we haven’t seen before however that isn’t an entirely bad thing as it still looks pretty good and has a few unique features that make it quirky enough to stand out. Measuring 4.3 inches long by 2.2 inches wide by 0.47 inch thick and weighing 4.23 ounces is right around the industry standard for touch phones for most part, except how slim it is. It’s 3-inch display featuring 240 x 400 pixel resolution and 262, 144 color display isn’t exactly revolutionary, and actually sub-par to be honest, but it manages to still look great and utilizes rich and vibrant colors on-screen while managing to not drain the battery nearly as much as one would expect. Two back plates come with the phone, one with purple shapes and one with black shapes so you can interchange them as you please, though i’m not entirely sure why the backplate has geometric shapes on it in the first place. The reflective shell is so shiny you can use it as a mirror should you need one. The buttons below the display are certainly uniquely shaped, there seems to be quite a few weird little quirks offered on the Chocolate touch. The buttons serve as the Send, Clear, end End/Power buttons with the clear button doubling as the voice record with an extended touch and their design seems to be following suit with the shapes on the back of the phone, which still baffle me as to what any of them have to do with the LG Chocolate Touch. The left spine contains the speakerphone key, volume rocker, and charging jack, while the right spine houses the camera, music player, and lock keys. The 3.5mm headset jack is located on the top of the phone, the camera on the back, and the microSD slot underneath the battery cover. The UI is rather simplistic, but easy to use and learn, yet still looks clean and offers superb functionality.

The LG Chocolate touch has jumped on board with the utilization of an accelerometer which makes the entire experience with it much more entertaining and user-friendly. When texting if held vertically the screen will display the standard 9 key alphanumeric keypad and when rotated horizontally it turns into a full QWERTY keyboard that is actually a pleasure to use and very responsive which is saying a lot from me as I typically am not fond of devices without a physical keyboard. Not every application uses the accelerometer, but those that stand to gain do, such as the web browser. Even more pleasing is the fact that the LG Chocolate Touch offers threaded text messaging (Displaying texts from both users on the left and right side of the screen in chronological order) and multimedia messaging which aren’t new technologies, but they aren’t yet the industry standard so i’m glad they were implemented. For those of you addicted to social networking sites, the Chocolate Touch offers a new “Social networking key” that once configured will give you a shortcut to all of your favorite sites for easy updating via SMS or MMS. The device also supports GPS Navigation via the VZ Navigator, multiple email options (mobile email, corporate email, and calendar syncing), and thanks to EV-DO Rev. 0’s speed is compatible with V-Cast video streaming. Back to the star of the show though, the music player. What’s great is there was a lot of work customizing it and it doesn’t simply use the basic V-cast interface. You can create and edit your own playlists, sort it by genre, artists, artists, and can toggle between linear play, repeat, and shuffle. Who needs an iPod when mobile devices double as quality MP3 players. While it may not be a necessary feature, simply for entertainment it offers a “Join the Band” function that turns your phone into a full drum kit or displays a scrolling 88 key keyboard that allows you to play along with the music (harder than you’d think!). The 3.2 megapixel camera takes relatively good quality photos and video, but does not offer a flash function so you need proper lighting to attain desired results.

While the LG Chocolate Touch may not appeal to the masses due to its quirky design and niche’ music capabilities, it certainly performs it’s desired functions incredibly well due to going above and beyond i.e. implementing the Dolby Mobile Equalizer. It was simply a pleasure to use and while it may not feature a rich interface or functionality that many of the smartphones on the market today offer, as an affordable alternative touch phone it is superb. The music player is great, camera and video quality is passable, and the EV-DO network is more than fast enough for everyone besides frantic stockbrokers needing rapid updates or HD video addicts. Call clarity was fantastic, and much to our surprise the speakerphone function actually outperformed what we had expected. Users on the other end reported being able to hear us with enough clarity to continue the conversation unobstructed which is impressive considering the LG Chocolate Touch does not offer a noise canceling feature. The feature rich phone and beautiful displays (despite only being 3 inches which is disappointing) on top of the incredibly responsive touch screen make the superb battery life on the Chocolate Touch more extraordinary. I highly recommend this phone for anyone looking for a touch-music phone that doesn’t quite need everything the high-end smartphones offer, but wants more than a basic phone or basic messaging device.