TracFone LG 840g Review
A photo taken with the LG 840g's 2MP Camera
The LG 840 is TracFone's second touch screen device. It is a feature phone with plenty of useful features. It has a 2MP Camera, a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen, and WiFi Capability. But can it even compare with TracFone's smart phones? And can it compare with its main competitor, the LG 800g? Let's see in MobileTechnology Reviews full written review of the TracFone LG 840g!
Hardware:
The LG 840g is average in thickness, measuring in at about 11mm. It is also fairly light, weighing 3.5 oz. Its atheistic design is stunning. The LG 840g is probably the best looking device I have ever laid my eyes on. Period. It looks very understated, with the typical LG squared off design. It is constructed almost entirely out of plastic, but nevertheless it still feels quite good in the hand. The LG 840g comes in two colors; white and black. Moving away from design, let's take a look around the device. On the left side there is a two piece volume rocker. The right side of the device is home to absolutely nothing. The top has a 3.5mm headset jack and the small power button. The bottom houses the micro-usb charging port and a microphone pinhole. There is a 2MP Camera lens on the rear of the device. All of the physical buttons have a decent tactile response and are adequately sized. Now let's talk about the screen. It is a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 240x320 (125 ppi). The screen feels amazing, but doesn't look amazing. The screen is constructed out of glass and doesn't feel the slightest bit plasticy. That's the good thing about the screen. The bad thing is the resolution. Its 125 ppi is way too low relative to it's size. Text and images look grainy and you can easily distinguish individual pixels. I really wish they would have gone with a higher resolution on this display. There are three capacitive buttons beneath the screen; one for menu, one for back, and one for home. They work well (most of the time) and have a fairly bright back-light. The device's battery is a Lithium-Ion 1000mah rated at 4 hours of talk time and 13 days of standby. Call quality on the LG 840g was excellent, callers sounding crisp on both ends of the call. The earpiece produced some nice tones and we didn't experience any dropped calls in our time with the 840g. The earpiece doubles as the phone's speaker and is fairly loud and crisp when playing music.
What's in the box:
- LG 840g
- Wall Charger
- 1000mah Battery
- Back cover
- Services Guide
- Activation Card
- SIM Card
Software:
The LG 840g runs a proprietary Java-based operating system. When you start the device up, the first screen you see is the lock screen. It consists of a large time and date display. Below the time and date is a big arrow that, if you slide it up, unlocks the device. Once the device is unlocked, you are brought to one of three home screens; the widget screen. This screen is composed of multiple widgets that you can add. If you swipe to the left, you are greeted with the shortcut home screen, where you can add up to nine application shortcuts. If you swipe again, you get to the contacts home screen. You can add your favorite contacts to this screen, making it easy to text and call your favorite people. There are 4 icons below all three of the home screens; dialer, contacts, massaging, and a dice icon that brings you to the main menu. These icons cannot be changed. Selecting the dice icon opens up the main menu, which is similar to the app drawer on Android due to the fact that it lists all of the applications on the device. There are a total of 30 applications that take up 3 pages. It has your usual suite of tools, such as calculator and unit converter. It also has all of the stuff that you would see on every other phone; dialer, messaging, contacts, calendar, etc. But there are a few apps on the 840g that you don't usually see on TracFone devices. The file manager, email client, social networking app, and video player are among these. They make the LG 840g seem more like a smart phone, even though it isn't. The file manager is similar to the My Stuff app on the LG 800g. It lets you view everything on the phone's internal and external memories. The built-in email client supports most popular services, such as Gmail and works well. The social networking application, or SNS, allows easy access to Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Another unusual TracFone application is Games & Apps, which is where all of, you guessed it, the games and apps are stored. The LG 840g supports Java applications, almost all of which play very well on the phone. The device includes two games, Uno and Asphalt 4, which also play nicely. After I purchased the device, I attempted to install some of my own Java applications. Let's just say it didn't go very well. By default, the LG 840g puts a virtual keypad on every app/game. There is no easy way to turn this keypad off. After a while of experimenting, I finally figured out a way to remove the virtual keypad, which makes the applications actually playable. The LG 840g includes an excellent built-in HTML browser. It loads most pages effortlessly and has an easy to use interface. It has most of your common features, such as tabbed browsing and bookmarks. Since the LG 840g has WiFi Capability, you can browse using your wireless internet. You can also use TracFone's 3G network, but it does use a large number of your minutes.
Camera:
The LG 840g features a 2MP fixed-focus camera with no flash. It takes decent photographs, but images are fairly grainy and lack detail due to the camera's low megapixel count. Low-light photos are terrible and you must have the proper amount of light to get nice shots out of the camera. Colors are very accurate, which is an improvement over the LG 800g's 2MP camera, which takes shots that have a cold tone to them. The LG 840g's camera has all of the expected features, such as the ability to adjust the white balance, brightness, resolution, and image quality (Super fine, fine, and normal). It also has a night mode, continuous shot mode, and self-timer. The camera is able to shoot video at the resolution of 320x240 (QVGA). Videos look awful and have very low amounts of detail. Overall, the LG 840g's camera is suitable for most people's basic photography needs, but if you are a serious photographer, I would suggest a nicer camera.
Conclusion:
The LG 840g is a decent touch screen offering from TracFone. It does everything that most people need it to do. It's not a smart phone, but it has a majority of the features that today's modern smart phones have. I really like the LG 840g and would recommend it to anyone who needs a device that's similar to a smart phone, but without the smart phone price.
*It is always possible that some specifications or facts may be incorrect. We try our best at MobileTechnology Reviews to provide accurate information, but we occasionally make mistakes. If you notice that something is wrong or incorrect, shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll fix it!
Hardware:
The LG 840g is average in thickness, measuring in at about 11mm. It is also fairly light, weighing 3.5 oz. Its atheistic design is stunning. The LG 840g is probably the best looking device I have ever laid my eyes on. Period. It looks very understated, with the typical LG squared off design. It is constructed almost entirely out of plastic, but nevertheless it still feels quite good in the hand. The LG 840g comes in two colors; white and black. Moving away from design, let's take a look around the device. On the left side there is a two piece volume rocker. The right side of the device is home to absolutely nothing. The top has a 3.5mm headset jack and the small power button. The bottom houses the micro-usb charging port and a microphone pinhole. There is a 2MP Camera lens on the rear of the device. All of the physical buttons have a decent tactile response and are adequately sized. Now let's talk about the screen. It is a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 240x320 (125 ppi). The screen feels amazing, but doesn't look amazing. The screen is constructed out of glass and doesn't feel the slightest bit plasticy. That's the good thing about the screen. The bad thing is the resolution. Its 125 ppi is way too low relative to it's size. Text and images look grainy and you can easily distinguish individual pixels. I really wish they would have gone with a higher resolution on this display. There are three capacitive buttons beneath the screen; one for menu, one for back, and one for home. They work well (most of the time) and have a fairly bright back-light. The device's battery is a Lithium-Ion 1000mah rated at 4 hours of talk time and 13 days of standby. Call quality on the LG 840g was excellent, callers sounding crisp on both ends of the call. The earpiece produced some nice tones and we didn't experience any dropped calls in our time with the 840g. The earpiece doubles as the phone's speaker and is fairly loud and crisp when playing music.
What's in the box:
- LG 840g
- Wall Charger
- 1000mah Battery
- Back cover
- Services Guide
- Activation Card
- SIM Card
Software:
The LG 840g runs a proprietary Java-based operating system. When you start the device up, the first screen you see is the lock screen. It consists of a large time and date display. Below the time and date is a big arrow that, if you slide it up, unlocks the device. Once the device is unlocked, you are brought to one of three home screens; the widget screen. This screen is composed of multiple widgets that you can add. If you swipe to the left, you are greeted with the shortcut home screen, where you can add up to nine application shortcuts. If you swipe again, you get to the contacts home screen. You can add your favorite contacts to this screen, making it easy to text and call your favorite people. There are 4 icons below all three of the home screens; dialer, contacts, massaging, and a dice icon that brings you to the main menu. These icons cannot be changed. Selecting the dice icon opens up the main menu, which is similar to the app drawer on Android due to the fact that it lists all of the applications on the device. There are a total of 30 applications that take up 3 pages. It has your usual suite of tools, such as calculator and unit converter. It also has all of the stuff that you would see on every other phone; dialer, messaging, contacts, calendar, etc. But there are a few apps on the 840g that you don't usually see on TracFone devices. The file manager, email client, social networking app, and video player are among these. They make the LG 840g seem more like a smart phone, even though it isn't. The file manager is similar to the My Stuff app on the LG 800g. It lets you view everything on the phone's internal and external memories. The built-in email client supports most popular services, such as Gmail and works well. The social networking application, or SNS, allows easy access to Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Another unusual TracFone application is Games & Apps, which is where all of, you guessed it, the games and apps are stored. The LG 840g supports Java applications, almost all of which play very well on the phone. The device includes two games, Uno and Asphalt 4, which also play nicely. After I purchased the device, I attempted to install some of my own Java applications. Let's just say it didn't go very well. By default, the LG 840g puts a virtual keypad on every app/game. There is no easy way to turn this keypad off. After a while of experimenting, I finally figured out a way to remove the virtual keypad, which makes the applications actually playable. The LG 840g includes an excellent built-in HTML browser. It loads most pages effortlessly and has an easy to use interface. It has most of your common features, such as tabbed browsing and bookmarks. Since the LG 840g has WiFi Capability, you can browse using your wireless internet. You can also use TracFone's 3G network, but it does use a large number of your minutes.
Camera:
The LG 840g features a 2MP fixed-focus camera with no flash. It takes decent photographs, but images are fairly grainy and lack detail due to the camera's low megapixel count. Low-light photos are terrible and you must have the proper amount of light to get nice shots out of the camera. Colors are very accurate, which is an improvement over the LG 800g's 2MP camera, which takes shots that have a cold tone to them. The LG 840g's camera has all of the expected features, such as the ability to adjust the white balance, brightness, resolution, and image quality (Super fine, fine, and normal). It also has a night mode, continuous shot mode, and self-timer. The camera is able to shoot video at the resolution of 320x240 (QVGA). Videos look awful and have very low amounts of detail. Overall, the LG 840g's camera is suitable for most people's basic photography needs, but if you are a serious photographer, I would suggest a nicer camera.
Conclusion:
The LG 840g is a decent touch screen offering from TracFone. It does everything that most people need it to do. It's not a smart phone, but it has a majority of the features that today's modern smart phones have. I really like the LG 840g and would recommend it to anyone who needs a device that's similar to a smart phone, but without the smart phone price.
*It is always possible that some specifications or facts may be incorrect. We try our best at MobileTechnology Reviews to provide accurate information, but we occasionally make mistakes. If you notice that something is wrong or incorrect, shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll fix it!
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