LG Craze mobile phone

Name: LG Craze mobile phone
Item: LG Craze mobile phone
Rating: 2.50
Author: Ross Catanzariti

LG Craze review: The LG Craze possesses a good physical keyboard and a sturdy design

Ross Catanzariti

PC World

28/02/11

Expert Rating

2.50 / 5

Pros

Reasonably well constructed, good keyboard, navigational joystick

Cons

Very limited touchscreen, poor display, mediocre Web browsing experience

Bottom Line

The LG Craze has a good keyboard and a sturdy design, but its limited touchscreen, poor display and mediocre Web browsing experience are sour points.

Would you buy this?

Yes 25
No 6

Price
$ 129.00 (AUD)

The LG Craze is a cheap prepaid mobile phone sold exclusively through Telstra. It targets a similar market to the Telstra Glide — teenagers who text excessively — but possesses a much better keyboard layout and a sturdier design.

Read our reviews of top Telstra Next G mobiles on prepaid.

Like the Telstra Glide, the LG Craze mobile phone will not win any design awards. It's a compact slider handset that easily fits into your hand, though it is quite thick. Unlike the Glide, the LG Craze is reasonably well constructed. The spring-operated slider feels sturdy and clicks reassuringly into place, while the answer, end call, back and keypad buttons are slightly raised and easy to press.

The LG Craze mobile phone has a 2.4in resistive touchscreen that suffers from poor viewing angles and is hard to see in direct sunlight. Use of the touchscreen is limited to dialling phone numbers and touch-sensitive menu keys. All other interaction is achieved via the slide out-QWERTY keyboard and a clickable joystick. The keyboard is well designed; its keys are well spaced, and provide good tactility, while the joystick has a grippy surface and is easy to control.

The LG Craze mobile phone naturally comes with links to a wide range of Telstra apps and services, most of which you'll never use. There are no social networking applications present, aside from Telstra's Tribe service, which is accessed through the browser. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube can also be accessed through the browser, which benefits from Telstra's excellent Next G network but is a little sluggish when loading pages. The small screen also makes for a rather cramped experience. The fact you can't use to touchscreen to interact with the Web is disappointing.

Other features of the LG Craze include a basic 3-megapixel camera, an MP3 player, and a microSD card slot for extra storage. The Craze has a regular 3.5mm headphone jack, and uses a standard microUSB port for charging and synchronising.

The LG Craze mobile phone is available in Australia through Telstra prepaid for $129.

Become a fan of PC World Australia on Facebook

Follow PC World Australia on Twitter: @PCWorldAu

Stay up to date with the latest news, reviews and features. Sign up to PC World’s newsletters