LG Venus Music Player Review: FAIL!

[VvWolverinevV]

I buy my cell phones on a single criteria: How cool will it make me look?

Yet somehow I forgot about this when I went looking for a handheld media player and opted to add memory to my LG Venus cell phone instead of buying a new iPod for $500. The experience was altogether frustrating, and I found myself wishing I had bought the iPod at every step of the game.

1) The cell phone headphone jack is 2.5mm instead of the standard 3.5mm that most headphones use, so the only readily available headphones also have an attached microphone that frankly looks really dorky.

2) When transferring songs from my PC to my phone, there were many files that did not transfer with the correct title, transferred with a jumbled title, or transferred with no title at all. To add to the confusion, the errors were not consistent. The same file could be given two different filenames when transferring to the phone even after clearing the memory!

3) (and this is by far the most annoying) When the phone's music player is on shuffle mode, no matter what song you start with and no matter how many times you press next/previous song, the songs will ALWAYS play in the same order both forward and reverse on the "shuffled" playlist.

Luckily Verizon gave me a full refund for both the memory card and the headphones, and my new iPod Touch 32GB is already on the boat from China. But don't risk it. If you have ever used an iPod, you will be throughly disappointed by the LG Venus as a music player.

I hope this helps someone out there, or better yet, I hope someone from Verizon/LG reads this and steps the game up. Apple is putting up perfect 10's; there's no room for 3's and 4's in this game.

[Philip]

Which goes to show that the iPod is still the king. Often imitated, never equaled. Thanks for sharing this with us, Wolverine. Rep's up for you.

BTW, I don't have a portable media player yet. But if I do have the $ to buy one, it'll definitely be an iPod.

[bronxy]

I just bought my Venus about a month ago, and I love it!

[VvWolverinevV]

Do you use it as a portable music player?