Why You Can Trust CNET LG Wine III (U.S. Cellular) review: Reliable flip phone with a unique LED ticker display
With its sleek external LED display, LG's clamshell Wine III handset serves up style and reliability.
Editors' note: Due to their similarities, sections of this review have been taken from our review of the LG Exalt . In addition, this review has been updated on October 3, 2014 with the correct on-contract price.
LG Wine III (U.S. Cellular)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
As one of the more stylish flip phones available, the LG Wine III (or Exalt as it is known on Verizon) stands out from the crowd of bland feature handsets mostly because of its design. But in addition to its looks, the device has other things going for it as well, like its big colorful screen, convenient shortcut keys, and a useful external display that lights up to show the time or missed notifications (similar to the LG dLite).
Unfortunately, all this comes with a pretty big price tag. Whether you get it with or without a two-year agreement, the device costs $99.99. This may be due to a lack of a manufacturer subsidy on LG's part, but it's still pricey considering the carrier has other basic handsets at notably lower prices.
Indeed, if you're shopping for a feature device, the Wine III will satisfy your basic needs. But consider U.S. Cellular's other offerings before you pull the trigger.
Design
Because it's a flip phone, it's reasonable to expect that LG didn't spend much time on its design. But surprisingly, the LG Wine III doesn't skimp on style. In this day and age, it's one of the most chic-looking clamshells I've seen in a while, and it's nice to see that a conscious effort was made for this device's look, despite its old-school build. Its smooth and glossy design can make it slick to handle at times, but it's comfortable to hold and will easily slide into your jeans pockets.
When opened, the handset measures 4.37 inches tall, 2.06 inches wide, 0.62 inch thick and weighs 3.88 ounces. Compared to other flip phones, the Wine III is a bit bigger in terms of length and width, so if you want to open it up with one hand, you'll need to give it hard flick.
On the outside, there is no obvious external display. However, once you press any of the side buttons, moving LEDs will shine from underneath the device's black surface and the time will appear. We've seen this before, with the LG dLite, but it's still a stylish addition. The lights can also show you when you've a missed call or get a text message. If you receive an incoming call from an unblocked number, the lights will also scroll the number though, similar to a news ticker.
On the handset's left edge are a volume rocker and 3.5mm headphone jack. The right houses a shortcut key -- you can push it once to launch the camera, or long-press it to go directly to video recording. On the very bottom edge is a Micro-USB port for charging.
Located on the back are a 2-megapixel camera (without a flash) and two slits at the bottom for the audio speaker. You can pry off the battery door using a small indentation near the Micro-USB port. Once it's removed, you can gain access to the removable 900 mAh battery and microSD card port that accepts cards of capacities up to 32GB.
The phone has a 3-inch WQVGA display with a 400x240-pixel resolution. For a clamshell device, that's quite a big screen, and I like that it's colorful and bright. However, with that resolution level, it's not the sharpest screen. Photos do look pixelated, there is some aliasing on texts and icons and images appear grainy. For what it is, though, the display suffices, and you won't have a problem using it day to day.
Below the display is an alphanumeric keypad that is generously sized and spaced, and comfortable to press. The buttons are stylish, too: they're flush with the rest of the device's surface, which looks modern, and their shiny tilelike design is chic.
The keypad includes two soft keys up top, four navigational arrows with a center select button and two shortcut keys to launch the speaker and voice commands. Along with the number keys, there are also three keys for sending a call, ending a call (which doubles as the power button when you long press it) and a "clear" button to navigate backward. When you long-press it, this key also launches audio recording if you're at the home page.
Software features
The Wine III can hold up to 1,000 contacts. You can save up to five numbers, two e-mail addresses and one street address under each person. You can also assign a photo, a ringtone (there are 38 already included) and add a personal note to each contact. Contacts can also be organized into groups, such as colleagues, friends and family.
When you're at the homepage, press the center OK button to launch the menu. There you'll see 12 icons for contacts, messaging, call history, multimedia, a U.S. Cellular app portal called "easyedge," a calendar, a native Web browser, tools, settings, a ringtone store portal, Bluetooth 3.0 and the game Uno.
You can change the background color (either black or white) under display themes, and change how these icons are displayed (for example, if you prefer, as a list instead).
Under tools, useful features include two calculators (a regular one and another that specifically figures out restaurant tips), voice commands and a search tool for looking up information on your handset. You'll get a world clock, a unit converter, a notepad and a stopwatch as well.
Additional accessibility features are a large text option and a readout mode, as well as 260MB of internal memory.
Camera and video
Given that this is a 2-megapixel camera, photo quality was passable, but not at all sharp. Though objects were distinct and easy to make out, they still lacked crisp focus and featured blurred edges. With photos taken indoors, whites appeared more amber or yellow, and colors altogether looked muted. For more on photo quality, check out the images below and click on each individual picture to see them at their full resolution.
One flaw about the camera is that, by default, if you hold the phone vertically, and the viewfinder looks as if it is framed vertically, the photo actually ends up framed horizontally and at a farther distance than what it originally appeared. To take a vertical photo, you'll have to tilt your device to the side.
You can change this setting in the options menu and have it framed in "actual view" instead of "full screen." But again, this switched preview is the default setting, and it's confusing and unintuitive. It makes it difficult to compose your pictures, and you'll have no idea what will be included in the frame.
Video quality was also expectantly poor. Images looked grainy and heavily pixelated, though. The camera was slow to adjust for lighting, and you can see a notable amount of color banding. White, bright colors were often blown out and dark hues were hard to distinguish from one another. The feedback also lagged behind my moving of the camera.
Some basic photo options include an exposure meter, four photo sizes (from 320x240 to 1,600x1,200-pixel resolution), a timer, five white balances, four color effects, and a night mode. Video recording also has the same exposure, white balances and color effects, and your recordings can be shot in either 176x144 or 320x240-pixel resolution. In addition, if you want to send a recording, the camera allots 15 seconds of recording time of MMS video. For regular saved videos, the length of recording depends on how much internal memory your phone currently has to store recording.
Performance
I tested the single-band (CDMA 800MHz) Wine III on U.S. Cellular's roaming network in San Francisco. Call quality was good: my calling partner was easily understandable, and volume range was appropriately loud. During my testing, none of my calls dropped, audio was consistent, and I didn't hear any extraneous buzzing or noises. I did notice, however, that my partner sounded a bit staticky, and that her words came off muffled. Although it wasn't at a level that was too distracting or annoying, it was still noticeable.
Audio speaker yielded similar results. Though I could still understand what she said, my calling partner's voice was slightly obscured with static and tinny, especially at a high volume level. As for her, I was told that I could be heard clearly, though there were hints of static here and there with my voice.
Podcast
The phone has a 900 mAh battery, which has a reported talk time of 5.5 hours and a standby time of nearly 18 days. In our unofficial tests, it has a solid battery life, lasting several days (under minimal usage) without a charge. During our battery drain test for continuous talk time, the Wine III lasted 6.52 hours. According to FCC radiation measurements, the device has a digital SAR measurement of 0.43 W/kg.
Conclusion
But while its off-contract price tag makes sense at $99.99, its $79.99 price tag is quite steep when you sign up with a two-year agreement. If you see yourself going the latter route, consider U.S. Cellular's other alternatives beforehand, like the Kyocera DuraPro . It's only $20 more, but it has a rugged build and is waterproof. In addition, the LG Envoy II is cheaper than both at $39.99 with a carrier agreement. Though it lacks a camera, you wouldn't be benefiting that much from the Wine III's middling 2-megapixel shooter anyway.
As for those who want to go off-contract, the Wine III is a solid buy. However, if you're willing to explore other carriers and want to save even more money, the T-Mobile 768 doesn't have as great of a screen as the Wine III, but it makes good calls and it's cheaper at $72.