Verizon’s New Voyager Looks Like the iPhone, But Software Is Inferior
January 10, 2008
by Walter S. Mossberg
I’ve been testing a black-and-silver cellphone featuring a large touch screen populated with an array of colorful icons against a black background. Tapping the icons launches functions like a music player, Web browser and text-messaging program.
That may sound like Apple’s heavily publicized iPhone, which runs on the AT&T wireless network, but it’s not. This phone is called the Voyager, and it’s made by LG and runs on the rival Verizon Wireless network.
Despite their superficial similarities, the two devices are very, very different. In fact, Verizon’s public-relations people are at pains to say the Voyager isn’t intended as an “iPhone killer” or even a “smart phone.”
Still, the Voyager is worth a close look, if only because it is one of the first competitors that attempts to mimic Apple’s touch interface, and many of its functions overlap the iPhone’s.
The Voyager beats the iPhone in certain respects. Unlike Apple’s product, it runs on a fast, 3G data network. And my experience has been that Verizon’s network has better coverage than AT&T’s in many cities, especially on the East Coast. It also costs less: $299, after a rebate, with a two-year service contract, compared with $399 for the iPhone.
In addition, the Voyager has GPS and thus provides real-time navigation, a capability the iPhone currently lacks. And the Voyager can even receive live TV programs for an extra monthly fee of $15, though it gets only eight channels and its TV function works only in certain cities.
A big advantage of the Voyager for some people is that it has a physical keyboard for typing in addition to the kind of virtual onscreen keys that are the iPhone’s only method for entering text. This keyboard is revealed by opening the phone, which then resembles a little laptop with a display that’s separate from the outside touch screen. I found that typing worked pretty well. For folks who insist on a physical keyboard, this is a big deal.
Finally, LG has enhanced the Voyager’s touch screen with feedback: When you tap an icon or scroll through a list, you get a light physical sensation.
But the Voyager is bulkier than the sleek iPhone — about 50% thicker and 40% larger overall — even though it’s a tad lighter. And it lacks the iPhone’s ability to use Wi-Fi hot spots and home networks, which are often faster than Verizon’s 3G network. It also has only about half the battery life; a smaller, lower-resolution screen, and just a fraction of the Apple’s internal memory. (Unlike the iPhone, the Voyager lets you add memory cards, but it doesn’t come with any.)
Most importantly, the Voyager suffers badly in the area where Apple’s phone shines: software. Whether Verizon considers it a direct iPhone competitor or not, the LG product tries to do many of the same things, and it generally falls short.
This is the true challenge that the iPhone poses to established phone makers like LG. Apple has managed to build into its phone a real PC-grade operating system with a breakthrough user interface and elegant programs, something that has eluded the major cellphone makers.
As with so many of the new feature-packed mobile phones, the Voyager’s user interface is clumsy and confusing, requiring too many steps to perform simple tasks. And its applications, such as the photo organizer, music player, Web browser and email program, are primitive compared with the iPhone’s.
In fact, the Voyager, bafflingly, has several different user interfaces — two on the outer touch screen and an entirely different one on the inner screen above the keyboard that doesn’t work by touch at all. Some functions work only with the inner screen.
Scrolling through lists with the Voyager’s touch screen is a halting, frustrating process compared with the smooth, slick scrolling on the iPhone. Its touch functions are old style and basic compared with the new “multitouch” approach that Apple built into the iPhone. Unlike the iPhone, the Voyager doesn’t allow you to “flick” through photos or other screens, or to use two fingers to enlarge or shrink photos or Web pages. It also doesn’t automatically change photos or Web pages from portrait to landscape view by just turning the phone.
In addition, while the Voyager’s Web browser can show real Web-page layouts, I found it to be far inferior to the iPhone’s browser, which shows entire pages and then zooms in on the parts you want to read with a couple of finger taps.
Apparently because the Voyager isn’t considered a business tool or smart phone, its email function isn’t included on any of the main menus or even located under the envelope icon labeled “messaging.” To find it, you have to wade through multiple menus with unhelpful names like “Tools on the Go.”
Even doing something as simple as entering flight mode — which turns off a phone’s internal radios for use on a plane and takes two steps on the iPhone — requires five steps on the Voyager.
Verizon is promising to improve the Voyager, but right now it’s a classic example of how the leading cellphone makers are going to have to step up their games, especially in software, to match Apple’s upstart device.
- Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.
Comments
I’ve had a Voyager for a week or so, and my favorite feature is the FedEx return label that came in the box, for all the reasons Walt cited. The iPhone, though, is hopelessly crippled by the lack of a keyboard and the slow network, and the pain of these shortcomings endures after the “Wow!” has worn off. So, yes, the cellphone makers are going to have to step up their games, but Apple also has some stepping up to do. For me, for now, the answer is an iPod Touch plus a hotspot @ home Blackberry Curve, a two-handed solution that offers the best of both worlds.
Posted by Charlie Brenner at January 9th, 2008 at 8:47 pmThe problem with Verizon (beside ridiculous pricing of plans) is that they are like the other carriers (other than AT&T which was smart to partner with Apple). They think that making a buzzword-compliant phone makes it an iPhone killer.
But as Steve Jobs points out, design isn’t just the veneer, or how the thing looks. It’s how it works. Maybe, in a few years, that simple fact might finally occur to them. (Wired’s new story on the development of the iPhone is the best piece done on that subject yet.)
Posted by Eric Welch at January 10th, 2008 at 8:21 am“Wired’s new story on the development of the iPhone is the best piece done on that subject yet.”
I totally agree. The author managed to capture the essence of what everyone already knows in a very articulate story, that being, that Apple just GETS IT. I was a CIS major, tech geek, and PC/Windows person for 15+ years, but switched to the Mac last summer. I’m never going back. I have an iPod, wireless network, and take classes at the Apple store. The iPhone is not far behind. And Apple TV if they make some great updates.
Great job Wired and great job Apple.
Posted by Jim Hopkinson at January 10th, 2008 at 9:01 amSince Walt acknowledges that Verizon Wireless, a cellular provider with a knack for disabling bluetooth profiles and email clients, is not claiming Voyager is like an iPhone, why dwell on it? HTC’s Touch, running on Sprint’s EVDO data network, offers a superior alternative to the iPhone. The Touch’s features, in fact, match many of my ideal Android phone specs, summarized in MarketingBeyond, my blog. It’s clear that the glitz of the iPhone, crippled by slow EDGE data use on AT&T, batteries that users must return for replacement and other deficiencies, has blinded iPhone users. When Apple releases the 3G version of the iPhone worldwide this year, new purchasers will be dismayed how fast the battery drains, unless Apple re-engineers the iPhone’s components, including a more powerful battery. Existing iPhone owners will feel cheated about web crawling on EDGE, while Apple competes with other carriers and mobile manufacturers such as HTC, Nokia and Motorola. I’m a Mac user but Apple’s first mobile device only presented an example of future mobile devices.
Posted by Brian Prows at January 10th, 2008 at 11:00 amAs Einstein taught us, everything is relative.
Does the Voyager match up to the iPhone? Hell, no.
Do I want a phone that is the same as the iPhone? If I did, I would have bought an iPhone. I have a V (LG VX9800) and I like its design and the presence of a real keyboard (one that doesn’t require three hands plus one additional appendage to hold down the modifier keys for entering numbers). I *hate* its lousy WAP browser and small screen. I like its battery life and don’t care that much about its music and camera features, they suffice.
Does the Voyager surpass by lightyears the previous incarnation of LG’s clamshell keyboard phone, the V and the en-V? Hell, yes. The Voyager is a quantum leap up from the V or en-V, yet still supplies the same real keyboard and everything else the V/en-V had.
Do I want a Voyager? Even more now that I’ve read Walt’s review. All the things he complained about are just fine with me. I am taking a step up (a few steps, actually) in going for the Voyager. I would get a real browser with a larger viewport that would let me do not only email but also actual web browsing.
Are the camera and music capabilities as good as the iPhone? Nope. Can I use advanced finger gestures like pinching and scraping and curly-Q spirals for advanced scrolling and zooming? Nope. Do I care? Perhaps I should. Perhaps I shouldn’t allow myself to live without the bestest most advanced gadgets in the world.
On the other hand, jumping from the V to the Voyager will get me the very things I think my old phone is lacking. Not much more than that, but so what? I will be a happier phone owner with the Voyager. As far as I can tell, I will be much happier with the Voyager than with the iPhone.
For now…
Posted by Rich Rosen at January 10th, 2008 at 12:37 pmFirst, I find it disingenuous for Verizon to state that the Voyager is not a competitor to the iPhone as they clearly attempt to infer that it provides the superior ‘touch’ experience in their TV advertising. Second, I find the WiFi/Edge flexibility preferable to a 3G-only device. Granted, I’ll be first in line for a WiFi/3 or 4G iPhone. Third, this is one iPhone user who does not now, nor is unlikely to, feel cheated by my purchase of the iPhone. It is by far the best technology product I have purchased, well, since the very first Macintosh.
Posted by Clement Galluccio at January 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pmAs for the comment above that the iPhone is ‘crippled’ because of no keyboard and ’slow network’, I’m not sure we are talking about the same device.
Posted by Mark Fearing at January 15th, 2008 at 8:03 pmI was at a coffee shop today, a restaurant and a grocery store, and I had wifi connectivity that would beat 3G. In the car, stopped for a short while, I sent an email using EDGE. Not super fast, but it worked fine.
As for the keyboard, I am amazed it works so well. I was thinking it would be a big drawback, but it is not. Typed at least two dozen emails today and a SMS session. And as Walt points out the elements all work together, and the user experience is so much better, easier, more useful, even more ‘ fun’. Cell companies need to take interface design seriously instead of just buying bits and pieces from the different manufactures to make Frankenstein products.
-M
http://cartoonshmartoon.blogspot.com/