LG Bliss UX700

LG Bliss UX700 : Capture everyone's attention with the fresh look of the ultra slim LG Bliss. The sleek rounded design, next generation user interface, and a large 3" touch screen are sure to make a lasting impression. The exclusive Bliss also comes with a 2MP camera and camcorder, full HTML web browser, Widget support, and is Stereo Bluetooth capable.

This phone is one step below a smart phone. It has more Internet capabilities than does the standards phone, but lacks full Internet ability like a smartphone. Furthermore, it will not allow you to save images from the web browser.

Overall Rating

This phone is not recommended due to a combination of logical design oversights, poor ergonomics, intentionally handicap software, and plenty of annoyances that could have been resolved had someone used a little common sense in the development process. It is a phone that had potential, but was perhaps rushed to the market before it was well though out and tested.

Features

• Interactive Phone Demo - See how cool the mobile really is.
• microSDTM 16GB Support - Lets you preserve your favorite pictures or videos on a separate memory card. Uses a USB connection to transfer files quickly and easily from your phone’s microSD™ card to your PC.
• Bluetooth Stereo Capable - Stream music from your computer to your phone’s music-player, and listen wirelessly with a Bluetooth® stereo headset.
• Large Responsive Touch Screen - The large, interactive touch screen lets you select, scroll, and control your phone with the touch of a fingertip.
• 3D Rotation - Check out this phone with a unique 360 degree perspective
• Next Generation User Interface - Customize up four different interactive home screen menus that let you personalize your phone to match your style.
• Music Player with Background Music Mode - No need to stop the music while taking a picture, shooting a video, or accessing other features on your phone.
• 2.0 Megapixel Camera and Camcorder - Capture high-quality, crisp images and videos with the push of a button.

Review

Pros- the signal is great, the volume is loud and easy to hear, the four different home screens, the full keyboard, internet (myspace,facebook,weather,yahoo,google,ect..) mp3 player, bluetooth, camera/video player, gps.

Cons- can't watch videos on youtube or use the myxer, it cuts off by itself if you overload on data,

Bad Design Example: The screen touch click indicator (clicks when you touch the screen) clicks, as it should, each time you press a character, including numbers, on the screen. However, it also clicks if you fail to press directly on a character (such as touching accidentally between two letters) which is very stupid because the click should only sound if a successful touch to a character is made.

Bad Design Example: The buttons on the side of the phone are too easy to bump. There is no way to hold the phone comfortably in the had without some button being bumped on the sides of the phone. This causes the camera to be activated when it is not desired, or the phone volume, or ring volume being changed when not desired. Buttons on the side are a bad idea, especially when they are on both sides in 3 different places. Just picking up the phone usually results in undesired camera operation.

Bad Design Example: Pressing the lock button on the side is supposed to prevent accidental activation or dialing due to side buttons or the screen being bumped, especially while the phone resides in your pants pocket. However, when there is an incoming call it automatically unlocks the phone. Trying to retrieve the phone from your pocket often causes it to answer the call because a button is bumped, which is bad if you screen your calls. A call ringing in, or hanging up during a call all automatically disengage the screen lock feature. Very stupid.

Bad Design Example: It takes several screen click throughs to send a text message (unless replying) but a call can be made by one touch, often accidentally.

Bad Design Example: Notes, memos, and other text data saved on the phone, using the phone's own supplied applications, cannot be saved to the SD card or transferred to another phone. They purposely prevent this to encourage customers to upgrade to a so called smart phone, which also increases the monthly plan rate.

Bad Design Example: The audio jack is not the standard 1/8" size, it is the smaller 3/32" size.

Final thoughts: stay clear of this phone. It has so many annoying glitches and examples of poor design that you will want to throw it off a tall building rather than use it for the duration of your contract.

Support

Format MicroSD Card

1. Insert a MicroSD card into your Bliss
2. Press the Menu button at the bottom of the Home Screen
3. Select the Phone Settings Icon on the screen (Little Phone with a Gear Icon)
4. Click on Memory
5. Enter your unlock code (Usually the last 4 numbers of your Phone Number

Activate USB Mass Storage Mode on my Phone

1. Click on the Menu icon on the home screen.
2. Click on settings.
3. Click on "USB Connection." This screen will allow you to choose whether you want to set your phone to USB Modem or USB Mass Storage mode.
4. Plug in your USB Cable.
5. Your card will mount as a USB mass storage device and you should be able to access the folders and files on your card. With your Phone plugged into your computer, you will be able to use Windows Media 10 (Or Newer) or Rhapsody you will also be able to sync music with your phone.

Copy or Move pictures from your internal Memory to your MicroSD Card

1. Click on the menu Icon on the Home Screen.
2. Click on “My Stuff”
3. Click on "Gallery"
4. You should now see all of your pictures.
5. Click on the menu icon in the top right of the screen. (it looks like several Horizontal Lines)
6. Choose "Move"
7. Select "Card"
8. Touch each of the pictures you want to move and a little check mark will appear at the bottom of the picture, or simply choose "Select All"

   Choose "Done" and It will now move them. LG-Bliss info

US Cellular

There is an option to install a program called "My Contacts Backup" through US Cellular's Easy Edge utility. After using "My Contacts Backup" to Synchronize the phone contacts list with what is stored on US Cellular's central database, you can access your contacts via the US Cellular web site. You can use the web site to edit, add, and delete your contacts. You can even use their Import feature to import contacts from a CSV file or other formats.

However, US Cellular has no option to Export your contacts to a file you can save on your computer. The My Contacts Backup web site feature will allow you to Import, but not Export. You can even choose Print, but not export. You can neither export your contacts from your phone or the web site. From the phone you can't even export them to your SD Card.

US Cellular has to be intentionally limiting this functionality as it would not pose any kind of technical challenge to implement. The closest thing to doing an export is to goto the web site and select the option to Print your contacts. This opens a web browser window with all of your names and numbers in a two column html page. It would be easier for them to allow it to do it as comma separated values (a csv file) that could easily be opened in MS Excel, Access, or many other applications.

US Cellular's poorly designed "My Contacts Backup" is also problematic. It does not perform a proper "Sync" but rather overwrites without regard to which list (the one online, or the one on the phone) is the most current. There is no option to do a synchronization to preserve all data on both lists. In some events new contacts are transferred, but existing contact updates are lost. The web interface is poorly designed and the features are not well explained. In fact, it is difficult to locate the area of the web site where you can edit and view your contacts from the web site. It is not under your regular account interface. Account information and bill pay is separate from the online SMS feature, which is also separate from the contacts backup. They are all different areas of the web site and do not share one secure login.

The US Cellular web site is poorly organized. Web site functions are not well though out and simple things that most people have come to expect from online interfaces is just overlooked on the US Cellular web site. For example, when you go to pay your bill, even though the initial bill screen shows the amount you owe, the next screen makes you type in the amount rather than auto populating the field, or allowing to check a box that would pay the full bill. If you didn't pay attention to the exact cents to the penny you will have to click back a screen and look again, then type that into the box on the next screen. That is just a stupid design.

Basic common sense was not applied to the design of the US Cellular web site nor was it applied to the functionality of the LG Bliss phone. The combination of a backwards web site with a backwards phone makes for a very disappointing customer experience.

US Cellular is kind of a backwards company that has a lot of operational inconsistencies. The support staff are usually friendly, and wait times are reasonable. However, there seems to be a lot of idiots behind the design of their phone software and their web site. And the Belief Project sounds good in theory, but it costs more.

US Cellular needs to take their web site out of the 1990's and spend a little more time getting user feedback on the design of their phones before going to the market with this stuff. User features on the web site need to be consolidated. It is understandable that smart phones will have more features, however, things should not be intentionally disabled in the other phones that they could otherwise be capable of doing just for the sake of restricting the customer when a particular feature comes at no additional expense to US Cellular. Why not allow the customer to save their contacts to their SD Card, or transfer them to their PC? This could be accomplished with a basic phone using Sprint.

US Cellular - Nice people, stupid design decisions, and dimwitted engineers.