The bad: The LG Viper can only run on Sprint's 3 g network for now, and users can't update to ice cream sandwich yet. Is subpar as well audio quality.
The bottom line: Although many of its features still won't be available by the time it hits stores, the LG Viper is a reliable, environmentally conscious device with an excellent camera.Back at CES in January, Sprint announced its first two 4 g LTE smartphones, the LG Viper and the Samsung Galaxy nexus. Both will be out April 22, but for this review we're going to focus on the Viper. Touted as an eco-friendly midrange device, it is certified platinum by Underwriters Laboratories for fulfilling the highest level of environmental and sustainability requirements. In addition, the company says it avoided using many common but environmentally sensitive materials including brominated flame retardants, polyvinyl chloride and nickel in manufacturing this phone.
But being green isn't the Viper's only attraction. It's also equipped with on NFC chip and Google Wallet, so you can purchase items wirelessly, transmit data, and share tags with other NFC-enabled devices.
As mentioned, the handset is available, aptly enough, on earth day, April of 22nd it'll set you back an affordable $99.99 after you send in a $50 mail-in-rebate and sign a two-year contract.
Editors' note: When this piece what originally published it which incorrectly reported that Google Wallet was not activated for users. In actuality, it what not activated only in our early demo device.
Design
The LG Viper measures 4.59 inches tall, 2.44 inches wide, and 0.46 inch thick. Weighing in at a hefty 5 ounces, the device felt heavy in my hands. Although it's not very thin, it's slim enough to slide into a jeans back pocket or toss into a bag.
It has a 4-inch WVGA touch screen, which can display 16.7 million colors and has a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. The display also has appear extra vivid 700 nits of brightness, so colors, images, and video. HQ YouTube videos were rich, and games like Temple run were vibrant.
The screen what is so responsive, making swiping through pages, pinch zooming and text messaging a breeze. Above the screen in the right-hand corner is a VGA front-facing camera for vanity shots and video chatting. Below are the four standard navigational keys that light up during use: home, menu, back, and search.
On the left side of the phone, there is a volume rocker with a micro-USB port below it up top are a sleep/power button and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.
While the handset's casing is made out of 50 percent recycled plastics, it certainly doesn't feel cheap. The Viper has a sturdy feel with tapered edges, and its plastic backing looks much more luxurious, resembling steel or metal. The rear-facing camera sits at the top center of the back, next to the LED flash. Below, there is a thin slit for the output speaker. Using a small indent at the bottom of the device, you can remove the back casing and gain access to the 1, 700mAh battery and the 4 GB microSD slot, which can be expanded up to 32 GB.
Although made out of plastic, the backing has a neat, sleek metallic finish to it.
Features
Despite its 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, the LG Viper wasn't as swift and snappy as expected. There would be a slight but noticeable lay while I transitioned through apps, clicked back home and autorotated. When multiple apps were opened, it took a couple of extra milliseconds to execute its task.
The device runs on Android 2.3 gingerbread and is expected to be upgradable to ice cream sandwich later on. It's a bit disappointing that this gingerbread is out of the box while the Galaxy nexus is ICS. But it contains all the Google goodies you've come to expect: Google Books, Gmail, plus, search, latitude, maps with navigation, Messenger, shopper, music, talk, YouTube, and the play store.
The phone that is equipped with an NFC chip inside for wireless communication with other NFC-enabled devices, and Google Wallet, so you can purchase items with your handset through credit card information stored in your Google account. Unfortunately, Google Wallet what not activated on our early demo device, so I wasn't able to test drive this feature. Until I get more information, I'll keep you posted. Another feature called tags lets you organize all the things you tag and share through your NFC chip, like texts, URLs, and pictures.
Sprint well as included its selection of apps, with two sports apps (NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and NBA mobile), two media apps (one just for music, the other for TV shows and movies), and Sprint zone, an app that keeps you in the loop for Sprint devices & news. If you don't want updates about random NASCAR drivers, NBA teams you know nothing about, or have no interest in the entertainment industry, you can, fortunately, delete those apps.
Equipped with Sprint ID, this handset has a customization feature that lets you tailor your home screens with preselected apps, widgets, ringtones, and other items depending on which ID profile you install. There are 42 packs so far, catering to a number of interests including music (CMT and MTV have a Sprint ID pack), sports (ESPN, fantasy football), and colleges like UC Davis (go, Aggies!).
Aside from the fact that the packs are unsightly, deleting on ID package won't uninstall the apps that you've downloaded. Instead, you'll have to manually remove each app. You also can't remove the Sprint ID app from the home screen's dashboard, so if you're not a fan, you'll just have to ignore it.
Other task management apps and goodies include a Web browser, Swype typing, a calculator, a calendar, a clock, Flash Player, a news and weather app, the mobile office suite known as of Polaris Office, smart share (where you can upload and distribute media to other DLNA-enabled devices), TeleNav GPS navigation, and a voice dialer.
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