Tracfone LG 420g Review

Part 2 - Mobile Web and More

Here are some more features of the LG 420g from mobile web to mundane stuff like the tools and utilities.

Mobile Web

The phone has mobile web access and also a dedicated web browser button. Stuff you can access via mobile web includes news, sports, and weather information. You can access the mobile versions of Google, Yahoo, and MSN plus Moviefone, Superpages, Wikipedia and Answers.com.

Download Tracfone Games, Ringtones and Graphics

Ringtones

The phone comes with 64 “polyphonic” ringtones. You can download extra ringtones and graphics in exchange for airtime. You can also download and use MP3 ringtones.

Games

The phone comes with the old reliable Sudoku, and something called “Mini Game Planet”. The latter appears to be a single game, but it is actually ten games-in-one. There are different characters in each game, and you get access to them as you complete each task. As you accumulate "stars", you are able to unlock the next game.

You start out with 1500 stars. You need 500 stars to unlock a game. The first games my children decided to try out were Tarzan Swings and UnderSea Tagging. In the first game, Tarzan actually appears to be a monkey that swings along trying to catch stars.

If you get tired of these games, you can download many more from Tracfone again at the cost of airtime.

Graphics

The LG 420g comes with just the default wallpaper image. You can change that in several ways. You can take a photo and use it as your background or wallpaper. Someone can send an image to your phone either via picture message or Bluetooth. You have to make sure the image is also a VGA resolution image. You can view megapixel images on the phone, but you can't set them as your wallpaper.

Finally, you can download graphics from Tracfone and pay with your airtime minutes.

Miscellaneous

Your Phonebook Contacts

Transfer via Bluetooth

If you have a currently have a Bluetooth phone that allows you to transfer your contacts, then you can immediately transfer them to your LG 420g. I tested this by transferring contacts from a Net10 Samsung T401g to this LG Tracfone.

Amongst the GSM Bluetooth Tracfones. You can transfer your contacts from an LG 600g. However, you cannot do so from a Samsung T301g (I know) or a Motorola W376g (I think).

Phonebook

The phone book itself can have up to 1000 entries, which should be more than enough for most people. The phonebook comes with these convenient categories: Colleagues, Family, Friends, School, and VIP. There’s also an entry for Customer Care, though you should usually try to pick a landline to call Tracfone customer support as it can take awhile.

Voice Recorder

You can make voice recordings of up to 2:58 in length (the LG 410g allows only 30 second long recordings) for sending as multimedia messages. So you can use this to store fairly long memos to yourself or even to send to others.

You can change the quality from Superfine to Normal to increase the length of recordings to over an hour - long enough for recording meetings.

User Interface

The user interface is a little more flashy than before and makes some cute little blip sounds which you can customize if you don’t like them.

Physical Features

Screen Size

The screen is a little bigger than the one on the LG 410g. It is not as big as the one on the Samsung T301g slider phone, but it does appear to be a little brighter with sharper colors.

Thinner and Lighter

I have to mention that this phone feels significantly thinner than the LG 410g. Part of this is psychological. The all-black look makes it look thinner. Also, it really is a little thinner. The official weight is 2.87 ounces.

Groovy Keypad

The keypad is not made up of physically separate buttons. Unlike what happen with other cheesy keyboards, the problem of finding which button to press is solved by wavy indentations on the keypad that let your finger feel which button they’re on. Groovy!

Good Battery Life

The phone is rated at 7 hours talk time and 23 (!) days standby time. Compare this to the 4 hour talk time and 7 days standby time for the LG 410g. I haven’t taken the time to test this, but I did notice that when I first got the 420g, it took a while longer to charge the battery, perhaps indicating a higher capacity. (Note: the battery charger for the LG 420g uses a different connector than for the LG410g.)

LG 420g Manual

You can check out the Tracfone LG 420g manual here.

Get One?

Overall, this was the best GSM Tracfone until the LG 840g, 800g, 500g, Motorola EX124g and Samsung T404g became available. It is still comparable to the current flip phones available.

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