My Impressions - Lucid

[ddtan]

I've had a few days to play with my new Lucid and here's what I think. My point of reference was my last and first smart phone, a HTC Droid Incredible that I had for 2 years. My phone usage is quite modest, I mainly make phone call, text, email and do some brief browsing. My phone takes the place of a PDA for storing calender, contacts, and some other data. I have just a couple of games, like angry birds and sudoku. I don't watch movies, or listen to music, or play action games. What I value in a phone is pocketable size, reasonable price, voice quality and battery life.
So, for the Lucid first of all the battery life is not great. On my other Droid, I was able to go up to 3 days on a charge by turning off the 3G and WiFi in between use. I haven't figured out how to turn off 3/4G on this phone. So with typical setting up of the new phone, I was down to 25% after about 10 hours. I can confirm however that it does recharge up very quickly. Other people would not dream of turning off the 4G, so, maybe you are used to charging your phone every day. As it is a 2 year newer phone the browsing speed is noticeably faster, and I'm liking this. I also think it boots up faster. The screen resolution is better than my HTC. And the size is not much bigger than my old phone. In fact, I am still able to use my old belt clip holder with this one, a bonus.
I'm still getting used to LG's user interface which is different from HTC Sense, but in general I am able to accomplish most of what I was doing on the HTC. The HTC did have a wider selection of widgets which was useful. But I am liking the direct dial buttons for frequently called numbers. I like the selection of sounds on the LG better. I think that the screen is a little less sensitive, but this may not be noticed by all. I do like the way multi touch works on this phone better than the HTC. There is less automatic resizing and proportioning of the field of view. It simply enlarges the view when you spread your fingers apart, more like the Apple system.
One thing that is missing from the Lucid that I miss is the indicator light that notifies you when charging is completed, or when you have a notification, when the phone is asleep. The HTC had a little blinking green light for a notification.
As far as I can tell, its signal reception is at least as good as the Incredible. I don't think that it is worse.
My reason for choosing the Lucid was its price and size. And I've discovered that voice quality is way better. I have my Incredible up on eBay right now, and hope to completely cover the price of this new phone. Over all I am happy with this phone.

 

[quannumkid]

Thanks for your first impressions. I'm also an original Droid Incredible user looking to upgrade. I believe the screens have the same pixel resolutions, but the screen on the Lucid looks vastly superior than it really is. Kudos to LG for that.

As far as battery life, I think it's been an issue for all 4G phones. Right now I'm debating between the Lucid, Spectrum and Rezound, all of which I've read plenty of battery life complaints for. I think what the Lucid has going for it is a smaller screen with a battery similar in capacity to the other two.

I have to imagine there's some sort of widget to turn off the 3G/4G connections as there would be for WiFi. Also, if/when the phone is rooted there may be some tweaks to improve battery life there as well.

 

[Hercules]

I also just came from an Incredible to the Lucid. Ddtan, you can turn of 4G by swiping down the notifications and hitting the data button. You may have to add the button. If you swipe to the right on the quick settings (Wifi, GPS, Brightness) you will see the options to edit the buttons. You can add data here. I toggle 4G off at work since I get all my emails on my desktop anyways. Yesterday when I went to bed after about 15 hours I still had roughy 50% battery life left.

I have also noticed that my battery holds a charge better after owning the phone roughly a week. I think those first couple cycles help condition the battery. Now I know lithium batteries don't need to be conditioned but it works for me.

 

[ddtan]

Hercules, thanks, I would never have found that by myself, that's great. I also think that the same advice for topping off the battery for the DInc applies to the Lucid as well. That is, charging until it says fully charged, the powering off and plugging in again to let it charge for an additional 10 minutes, until phone says that it fully charged again.

 

[blumeany]

Another Incredible user here. Ordered the phone, but it's on backorder through Amazon. Thanks for the review! I think I'll end up continuing to use JuiceDefender on this phone, which basically kills your data/wifi when you aren't really using it. On the average day though, I have my phone plugged in most of the day -whether I'm at work or at home. The battery life complaints didn't really scare me off from the phone because I think every phone short of the Droid MAXX's gets those kinds of complaints.

It's funny that all of us are considering or have moved over from the Incredible. I always thought of the incredible as a great deal and it was one of the Android handsets that flew under the radar for the most part. Great specs, worked well (apart from my phone having a habitual reboot issue with high data usage - my wife has the same phone and doesn't experience that). There *was* a great dev community for Incredible though that I will miss. I'm not sure that a 'mid range' phone like the Lucid will have such a following. I'm hoping they come out with an ICS upgrade sooner rather than later.

 

[akita]

Bluemeany,
I saw what you wrote in the other thread about the Amazon pricing. I figured I'd reply/ask you here. I was going to order the phone from Amazon and had it in the cart but it prompts you to select a plan(regular and data), all in which are not the ones that I have currently. In the faq it seemed to imply that you would have to update your plan(which I didn't want as I have the grandfathered unlimited data plan). I just didn't want to run the risk of there being changes to my account so I opted to go instore. If you or anybody else has bought a phone from amazonwireless, can you verify if your plan gets changed or is it a seemless transaction?

My impressions of the phone: Seems to be a solid phone. The wife is in love with it and has been playing the hell out of the games. The speaker does seem a tad bit tinny but nothing that one can't handle. Internet is fast and interface is pretty easy to use. At times this phone is a better phone than my Droid X. Im going to need to tell my wife to let the phone drain down on its own so I cant comment entirely on battery life(but we have chargers in every room and car). I think for a budget 4g phone this is a pretty good phone. Time will tell how durable/reliable it is but so far so good. I go the silicone slipcase from Verizon(got an accessories discount on it) and ordered the Skinomi screen protector from Amazon(should be here tomorrow).

Also, mentioned in the other thread, the Rezound that I played with in store last week still did not work(internet) when I tried it out again Monday. That's kind of stupid for them to leave that phone out there like that.

 

[ddtan]

Battery life much better with data off. Seems that Bluetooth is quite a drain also. I tried to get the Amazon deal, but the site wouldn't link to Verizon to verify my account, so it was the $49 for my upgrade from Verizon. However, my incredible is now up to $100 on eBay, woohoo!

 

[blumeany]

Well, as I understood it, the data plan remains the same. When it gave me the option to pick a data plan, I had the option 'keep existing data plan'. And that's what I did. So, hopefully I won't have any rude surprises.

 

[t35rk]

Thanks for this review. I just ordered mine for .01 on Amazon and am too coming from a loved Dinc1.

I was waiting for the Dinc3 but ran away after seeing the leaked pics and the qHD screen. LG has proven with the Lucid and Spectrum that you can have a thinner device with a Qualcomm chip set. I don't know what HTC's problem is with fat, heavy devices. The battery on the Lucid is larger than the Rezound's, yet in a slim package. Go figure...

Anyway the size of the Lucid is what I have been waiting for. The screen is nice and should be very good in sunlight. The camera is merely adequate, as the Dinc1 can produce more beautiful pics imo, but oh well. I won't miss the track pad a bit. Without it you gain screen real estate on a similarly sized phone and you don't loose functionality. The Lucid has a setting that let's you tap the side of the device to move the cursor in text fields. That's a win.

The device may never get root or ICS (it's LG we're talking about here), but I don't care. The Lucid is a sensible choice without the data drops of the Nexus or Motos.

 

[akita]

Well, as I understood it, the data plan remains the same. When it gave me the option to pick a data plan, I had the option 'keep existing data plan'. And that's what I did. So, hopefully I won't have any rude surprises.

Looks like this applies when you select the option for family account..However, if you have just an individual account you don't have the option to keep existing plan. Oh well, let us know how your order goes once it gets in stock.

 

[blumeany]

Looks like this applies when you select the option for family account..However, if you have just an individual account you don't have the option to keep existing plan. Oh well, let us know how your order goes once it gets in stock.

Just got my shipping notification today, no tracking info yet though, so I'm guessing I won't get it until Monday. Still shows backordered on Amazon though.

 

[Dubbin1]

The wife and I went into a Verizon store and talked to one of the employees about the Lucid today. When I asked him about the battery life and signal strength he said it is HORRIBLE (he owns one). They also had no answer on how to turn on just 3g and said it looks like it can't be done. Signal bars compared to other phones wasn't impressive. We walked away with a Rezound.

On a side note, the first store we went to the guy tried telling us that 1x is 3g... His manager came over and proceeded to tell us that 4g uses less battery than 3g because it penetrates buildings better so there is no need to turn it off. What a moron... When I tried to educate him about how these things worked he just wanted to argue, we turned around and walked out.

 

[t35rk]

The wife and I went into a Verizon store and talked to one of the employees about the Lucid today. When I asked him about the battery life and signal strength he said it is HORRIBLE (he owns one). They also had no answer on how to turn on just 3g and said it looks like it can't be done. Signal bars compared to other phones wasn't impressive. We walked away with a Rezound.

You're concerned about battery life and decided to go with the device with the larger and HD screen, that packs a smaller battery? In fact, Verizon rates the Lucid to have 18% greater talk time. You should always take what a SALES rep tells you with a grain of salt. My Lucid will arrive in a week. So I'll see for myself about battery life, but I expect it to outlast the HTC.

Both devices have Qualcomm radios. I could be wrong, but they should have similar reception.

 

[blumeany]

I wouldn't trust store salesmen as far as I could throw them. Most will just spew whatever they've been trained to spew. You may, on occasion, find someone who actually keeps up with technology and knows what they are talking about, but that's the exception. Sort of the same as finding someone qualified at Best Buy.

I think the best way to find info on a phone is to check out forums like these or go to the actual support forums for your cell phone provider or the phone manufacturer. There you'll see if there are any trends in terms of performance/issues/etc. Reading reviews and watching videos are nice, but those are easily manipulated or just short-term reviews that don't really put the device to the test.

 

[MoogDiesel]

Ty for the reviews. I joined these forums just because of these posts and the ninja "ROOTED" posted for this device. I had a GNexus and I a small guy and my hands are tiny (like the BK commercials) *not that tiny*. 4" is a perfect size as even the Thunderbolt I had when it launched was just a tad too big. I'm waiting for the official rooting process to post and then heading into to Best Buy to snag me one up. Thank you all and thank you dev community!!

 

[blumeany]

Just got mine yesterday. VERY nice phone, especially for .01 Obviously, I haven't had enough time to really put it through the paces, but so far I am impressed. I came from and Incredible and to me, this is a very nice upgrade.

I'd say the only thing holding this phone back is the software. Don't like the bloatware and the whole Apps interface is really lacking. I wish they would have allowed you to just make the apps drawer normal, as opposed to the phone trying to organize the apps on its own.

Speed is great, am getting ~12-15mb at work and ~7-9mb at home. (Faster than my home internet). Only nag I don't like is that with certain apps the phone automatically looks to connect to wireless and prompts me every time about it. Since my 4g service is fast than my home internet (and I'm paying for unlimited), I'd rather just use the 4G most of the time.

When this guy gets rooted, it's going to be awesome. Is it the best phone out there? No, but it's a worthy (and FREE) upgrade for anyone who doesn't feel like spending $200 to be relevant for a few months until the next best thing comes along.

 

[Deanie]

I'm looking at the Lucid for my daughter, contingent upon her final report card, so I'm looking for user insight.

But the reason I'm posting...

I wouldn't trust store salesmen as far as I could throw them. Most will just spew whatever they've been trained to spew.

I had an OG Droid that I rooted and now have the Bionic, so I know a few things about these phones. The Verizon phone support rep once argued with me that CDMA was 4G because it was digital. So, she advised me that to fix my phone's problem switching back to 4G from 3G, I could just put the phone in CDMA mode. We kept arguing, and she finally said, "well you can believe what you want."

 

[photochick09]

im having some issues with the toggling back and forth with the 4g to 3g. i too went form the incredible(2) to the lucid. i just got it today due to my incredible's charging port breaking, but so far i love it.