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LG CU500 Review

The User Reviews

Average User Rating: 5.7

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  1. Horrible battery life!
    Donna Ashley

    By: Donna Ashley
    September 6, 2009 @ 7:18 PM

    I really wish I had found this site before I bought TWO CU500’s off Ebay. The reviews I read on another site were good. I like the phone and it’s features EXCEPT the battery dies after a few calls, which makes it almost useless. I exchanged one of the phones thinking it was defective, but apparently almost ALL of them are defective when it comes to battery life. I bought a new battery and same story – will not hold a charge. Very disappointed that I threw my money away on two of these phones.

    Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  2. Not a very good phone
    Jim

    By: Jim
    June 12, 2009 @ 9:06 PM

    I’ve had my phone for 2 years. I bought a microSD card for it which it has not been able to read. Frequently I don’t know I have a call until I get notice of a voice mail. This may be due to using vibrate function mostly, but it’s not good at letting you know it’s ringing. The camera is OK, but it’s almost impossible to get the pics off the phone. My contract is up and I’m looking for a (non-LG) replacement.

    Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  3. Poor battery life. Not good outside AT&T
    Will

    By: Will
    May 20, 2009 @ 4:52 PM

    I charged the phone for 24 hrs as directed. The battery will go dead after one call of 15 minutes or less. If you then turn it off and back on a few minutes later, the charge meter shows almost a full charge. I guess the chip on the battery that is touted in the phone description has bugs. How should I know whether a replacement battery will work any better?

    I bought this unlocked, but despite all the efforts of the tech support team of the carrier where I use it, we cannot get multimedia messaging set up, so that good camera is useless.

    Buy something else.

    Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  4. DON'T BUY
    Glenda

    By: Glenda
    June 24, 2008 @ 10:39 AM

    I have had this phone for a year and a half now and it seems like there’s been continuous problems. The phone is in good condition (no water damage) but it looses calls. Whenever I loose reception I have to keep turning my phone off and on to get it to work correctly. The buttons have also started to not work. If you’re going to spend money then spend it on a better phoneâ…preferably not an LG.

    Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  5. Could be better
    AR

    By: AR
    June 17, 2008 @ 1:46 PM

    I have had the phone for over a year and a half now. The phone has poor reception (fewer bars) although sitting right next to another phone from the same network having full 5 bars. Moreover, whenever the phone changes between the Edge to GPRS network, it drops its signal to zero bars and then gets full bars gain. Poor reception as compared with the cheaper phones.

    Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  6. LG CU500 is a great phone
    RJ

    By: RJ
    May 8, 2008 @ 12:18 PM

    I’ve owned my LG CU500 for well over a year now and have had no problems whatsoever. Battery stays charged, no heating problems, calls never seem to drop unless I’m in a dead zone, but even in places most friends phones can’t connect, mine can. So simple to work my 5 year old granddaughter can snap pictures, record video and even record voice. She snags my phone regularly and goes off to have fun with it. I have had cell phones since back in the early 80’s. My first was a monster Motorola that was as big as a shoe box, so you can imagine what I am comparing it to. Overall I would say the LG is the best of the bunch hands down.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  7. Battery life - poor.
    Stacy

    By: Stacy
    April 1, 2008 @ 2:57 PM

    I have had this phone for over a year now. I hate it. I text a lot and the battery doesn’t stay long. I get bad reception and bars since I’ve had it. I’m in process of finding a new phone because I can’t take it anymore.

    Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  8. Not so great - pictures aren't bad, but that's it.
    Jeff  Windish

    By: Jeff Windish
    March 10, 2008 @ 11:06 AM

    It’s a cheaply manufactured phone and it shows. A no-frills, plain black phone that refuses to be found if it’s misplaced. Perhaps it doesn’t want to be found as it fails to live up to expectations time and again.

    1. Calls randomly dropped. Always when you need the call to go through most urgently;

    2. Main problem is the skimpy, hot battery. I am now on my third LG CU500 because of battery problems. One battery got so overheated it was burning my face as I talked; another got such a short life that my phone conversations had to be kept under 40 minutes or else the battery would die.

    Another one began to heat up just as the first one did. I give up on this phone. Third time’s the charm only in that I now have a legitimate reason to dump this thing for good and never look back…

    Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  9. Awful phone.
    Jim Bob

    By: Jim Bob
    November 20, 2007 @ 4:10 PM

    This phone is horrible. Screen resolution is horrible compared to Motorola phones. The memory card is hard to access. The buttons on the side are hard to push. The camera started out good but as it got older it lost quality. The battery will last for 30 minutes if you listen to music. It randomly drops calls. Never any signal. It also freezes up if you get a text message that has any enhancements. The speaker is on the inside of the phone so if you close the phone when the music player is on the speaker becomes hard to hear. This phone is a total disappointment.

    Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  10. Pretty good phone
    Adam

    By: Adam
    August 12, 2007 @ 2:21 PM

    I was really excited about the CU500. I really like the swivel camera lens, the music player on the outside on the phone is really cool as well. One of the downfalls of the phone is the batter life. It needs to be charged quite frequently. Another thing I dislike is the speaker phone. The phone cannot be closed. If you close it, it will hang up your calls. Otherwise, it’s a great phone with quick downloads and a relatively quick internet.

    Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  11. LGCU500
    paul

    By: paul
    July 23, 2007 @ 7:57 PM

    The phone is not very good at all. It has very weak and wavering service. Made me think that all LG phones were bad. You can not use speaker phone with the phone closed, it drops important calls randomly and cuts alot with its wavering service. It receives a score of a 1 because phones are supposed to reliable enable you to make and receive calls not listen to loud music which this phone does provide. Occasionally when people call they tell me the phone rings without me knowing and goes straight to the voice mail. If your using a phone for fun, get this phone to play with camera, video, voice recording and listen to great sounding music clips. If you like the aforementioned but also like to do what the phone needs to do, look else where because the LG CU 500 does not get the job done.

    Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  12. Nice Phone
    Bonnie

    By: Bonnie
    June 16, 2007 @ 2:53 PM

    I’ve had this phone for about 3 months and it is great. I love the camera, takes great pictures, and it is sleek enough to fit into any pocket. It has great Bluetooth and awesome MP3 sound. The battery life is SO short though! And you can only hold about 40 pictures only, and constantly have to be deleting them. You can’t create your own ringtones and it is a bit complicated to put music in it. But overall, it’s a good phone.

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  13. Probably the worst phone I have had
    Sandy

    By: Sandy
    June 2, 2007 @ 8:54 AM

    The salesman at Cingular talked me into this phone. What a mess. I have had to replace it 3 times. Battery life is so short…I spend most of my time charging it up. The volume button on the side is hard to manuever when you need to turn it down or up as you are talking. I will definitely opt for another brand phone when my free phone upgrade is available. Don’t buy this phone. Totally sucks.

    Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  14. Could be better
    Mick

    By: Mick
    May 17, 2007 @ 4:12 PM

    I recently purchased this phone through Cingular and its all around a good phone. It has great MP3 sound and the music bundle that I purchased for it is great! It has so many features that I seem to find a new one every day just messing around with it that is not listed in the manual. The only problems that I found with it is that the battery SUCKS!! It dies really fast. I had to immediatly buy a car charger just to keep it from dying on me if I had to go somewhere, and then charge it every night also. It’s even worse when I am in an area that doesn’t have strong signal. Its like it kills the battery even faster trying to pull a signal. Overall, it’s a good phone. The sound quality is great in both the voice and the MP3 player.

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  15. Great phone!
    Vivian

    By: Vivian
    April 24, 2007 @ 12:26 PM

    I have had this phone for about 4 or 5 months now and I absolutely love it! It’s the best phone I’ve ever had. I haven’t had any problems with the battery dying on me or anything like that. Was a little pricey but it was worth the money.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  16. Eh okay
    Anniez

    By: Anniez
    April 24, 2007 @ 11:33 AM

    I love this phone. The camera is fantastic and it has really good sound for the mp3 player buuuut and a big but, the phone goes dead seriously every forty-five minutes. I ALWAYS have to keep it on the charger. It drives me nuts and if I don’t it goes dead in the middle of the night and that really makes me mad. So I give it a seven, because there’s nothing I can do to change the fact that it goes dead too often.

    Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  17. Great Phone!
    Kaila

    By: Kaila
    April 20, 2007 @ 8:53 AM

    I love this phone! The MP3 Player works great. I use it all the time. One disadvantage with this phone is that when you have it on speaker phone, it has to stay open and it drains the battery life quickly. That is annoying! It hangs up on people all the time too. Other than that it is a great phone.

    Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  18. 0/10 - a real nightmare
    Nathalie

    By: Nathalie
    April 19, 2007 @ 8:00 AM

    I did switch from Nokia to LG after having my last 3 cellphones stolen.

    I have to say that the LG CU500 is a real nightmare!

    - The battery has a REALLY SHORT life.

    - Calls drop all the time.

    - The reception goes from very good to zero, without any reason.

    - The Cingular salesman told me that I wasn’t the first one to complain about it and they get a lot of returns.

    - I am receiving SMS or voice mail sometimes 2 days later or, worse, not at all.

    - I already had the phone replaced but I still encounter the same problems.

    - I cannot even download pictures onto my laptop or save them through email.

    DON’T BUY IT… You might regret it quickly

    Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  19. Great
    Amy

    By: Amy
    March 16, 2007 @ 7:27 PM

    This is the best phone I have ever had. It is so durable and amazing. There are a few things i don’t like. The camera can face you or the people in front of you. When it is facing you, it turns you upside down. Otherwise it is great!

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  20. Great phone, good price
    Michael

    By: Michael
    March 3, 2007 @ 12:37 PM

    Overall I’m satisfied with my LG CU500. It’s Mp3 playback works flawlessly, allowing you to create playlists, multiple format support, and dedicated buttons, internal and external. The 3G network is also incredibly fast, and the internet works fine for me. The external and internal screens are both fabulously lit and have great resolution as well. The 1.3 MP swivel camera also is a great feature. The only thing that I am unsatisfied with is the annoying SD card slot. You have to take out the battery to access it, however I don’t think this should be taken into huge consideration when buying the phone. Great purchase, worth every penny.

    Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  21. I generlaly like this phone
    Carter Tx

    By: Carter Tx
    February 21, 2007 @ 7:46 AM

    This phone has served me well. It has nice mp3 stereo playback which is hard to beat and takes great pictures. One thing I do notice is that when i am holding the phone my pinky does tend to cover the single microphone pickup hole which ticks some people off but now that I am aware of it it isn’t as big of an issue. I have had no dropped call issues but speaker echo does exist. I do not actually know of a phone I had that had no speaker echo though.

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  22. Great Phone
    Rob in WA

    By: Rob in WA
    January 10, 2007 @ 5:37 PM

    The phone is not perfect, but in its price range it is hard to beat.
    Unlike the previous poster, I have never dropped a single call, the blue tooth is flawless, have tried an Erkicson and an LG bluetooth boom mic headset both work perfectly. The sd card location is my major dissatisfaction with the phone. Else wise I couldn’t be happier.

    Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  23. Still not sure about phone
    vikki

    By: vikki
    January 8, 2007 @ 12:39 PM

    Battery life is short, drops calls without notice and echos when talking on phone. This is my second phone, after four days, exchanged phone due to problems.

    Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  24. Mp3 Player is no good.
    Carla

    By: Carla
    December 27, 2006 @ 2:30 PM

    I have bought over $100 worth of accessories for this phone and cannot use them. I am now on my second one because I cannot download music to the mp3 player. I bought a USB cable and have connected it to my computer. It is not recognizing the phone as a file. I have called LG and Cingular to no avail. Can anyone help me??

    Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  25. Problems playing video
    KC

    By: KC
    December 19, 2006 @ 2:07 PM

    I’m on my second CU 500, because the first would not play video correctly. Cingular acknowledges I have correct video package, but the phone doesn’t retain the information in the handset, telling you to contact 611 whenever you want to access video.

    Second phone is now misbehaving in the same way as the first – customer service suggests powering off the phone and/or removing the SIM card then trying again, which is not a workable solution every time someone wants to access video.

    Other features are very good, with my favorite being the stock tracker.

    Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  26. Battery life too short
    GS

    By: GS
    December 10, 2006 @ 9:45 PM

    I love the screen, functions, pretty decent signal strength in areas where i had trouble with other phones but the battery life is so bad. I have to charge it daily. And the only thing I use it for is maybe SMS and make and recieve calls.

    Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  27. NEVER AGAIN!!
    Melissa R

    By: Melissa R
    December 8, 2006 @ 7:17 PM

    i will never again buy an LG phone. i got this phone in july, soon after coming out, and about a week later i started experiencing dropped calls. it got to the point where the phone would not even make a connection and if it did, stayed connected for only a few minutes before dropping once again.

    luckily, cingular had received complaints similar to mine and replaced my phone immediately, allowing me to get a phone for the same price as the LG CU500 when i purchased it.

    i highly suggest the Razor. i love it and haven’t experienced any dropped calls.

    but listen to me…DON’T BUY THE LG CU500!

    Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  28. Dropped calls/In and Out
    Tammy Payn

    By: Tammy Payn
    December 6, 2006 @ 4:16 PM

    Please, tell me which phone actually works best for a phone connection and also has a great speaker to hear the conversation. I don’t care what you can or can’t do with your computer! I need to call someone without this In and Out connection problem and dropped calls. This phone would be great if I could utilize it as a “phone”!! I’m taking it back tomorrow and I’m not sure what I am going to get to replace it……..Any suggestions?

    Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  29. Not so great
    Rebecca

    By: Rebecca
    November 12, 2006 @ 7:53 PM

    After reading these reviews, I feel out-numbered. I’m glad some people are happy with the LG500. It’s a thumbs down for me, though. I had a nokia dinosaur that was still going strong. Now I’d trade it back. I took my LG back to the store today and traded it for another one to try. It was not registering calls (10 or 15 tries before going through), dropping calls once it did get through, and cutting in and out. This one I have tonight is doing ok with calls so far, but still has interference. Maybe it’s a problem with these 2 specific phones, or the Nashville area I’m in, but I’m going to take this one back tomorrow and get another phone that’s more tried and true

    Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  30. i love it!
    lizzie

    By: lizzie
    November 12, 2006 @ 4:02 PM

    heyy .. i love this phone! its like the best .. i love it! one thing .. in the front where it has like the play button and fast forward and rewind .. does it play music or somethin? pleazz RESPOND BACK pleazz! thanks soo much

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  31. I like it alot!!!
    Dana

    By: Dana
    November 9, 2006 @ 9:25 AM

    I just got this phone a week ago. It was this or the RAZR. For some reason I went with this one. It just felt better. I LOVE IT! My friend has the RAZR and she let me play around on hers and I think it’s aweful. The LG cu 500 is much better made and far many more options. The camera phone even takes better pictures. The only problem I do have it that it does get hot when within a few minutes. Whats that about ??? Also I do have to charge it at least once a day. Over all, I’m very happy and she goes every where with me at all time!

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  32. LOVE THIS PHONE!!
    Ekta

    By: Ekta
    November 7, 2006 @ 10:23 AM

    this phone is the best phone you can ever get. because of its features you find in this phone you will never find it in another phone. but i broke mine so im in a search to get another cu 500 phone

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  33. First cellphone i'm excited about
    macheteman

    By: macheteman
    November 4, 2006 @ 8:15 AM

    This phone makes the Moto V551 seem like a dinosaur. TV, great sound, fast data, firm construct. A friend has the RAZR, which is nothing more than a 551 in a different case. Same basic shape, but similarities end there. Makes RAZR seem like a rotary phone. PDA woks much faster w/this phone. Hats off to Cingular on this one. Gets hot easy, seems to burn batt quick when using video data streams (naturally). For 100 bucks, feels like a steal!

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  34. lgc 500
    mike

    By: mike
    October 20, 2006 @ 12:48 PM

    this phone has great features and
    and works well, great signal best
    phone I ever had

    Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  35. LG CU500- Only buy if you live in a
    Christine

    By: Christine
    October 4, 2006 @ 4:47 PM

    PROS: Light weight, good sound, lots of options

    CONS: Doesn’t work well with headsets, looses signal in fringe areas and metal buildings (like WalMart), keypad gets hot after prolonged use, poor battery life.

    Imagine my excitement when I first received this phone… my first gadgety device with MP3 player and 1.3MP camera and an upgrade from my existing Motorola v551 cellphone. Out of the box it was great, bluetooth was easy to sync up with my v551 and I was able to transfer my existing photos from one phone to the other. Programmed in all of my numbers then tried it out for the first time. My first call was made just holding the phone… the call was clear on both ends of the conversation.. but then I noticed that the keypad was warming up… the longer I talked the hotter the keys got. I looked this up in the manual and it stated that this was normal… but really it’s not very comfortable to the human face when you talk for a long period of time. Also transferring pictures via Bluetooth and talking on the phone for about an hour depleted half of the battery. The next disappointment came on my way home… I live in a fringe area (non Metropolitan) and the phone dropped calls in every marginal zone along the way- something my Motorola v551 never did. This was also the case when I went into WalMart and tried to use the phone– it only worked consistently by the front doors of the building. Day two and now I’m testing various headsets with the phone. I tried two different wired 2.5mm headsets and one motorola bluetooth headset… I could hear clearly but the people on the other end could not hear me (the comment made was “you sound like you are far away/ at the bottom of some barrel)… I was repeating myself so many times that I disconnected the headset and opted for the face against the hot keypad (explained earlier). After two days I decided to return the phone (buyers remorse). I’ve gone back to my trusty Motorola v551… maybe someday I’ll venture out and try again but it won’t be another LG.

    Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  36. EXCELLENT PHONE-LG CU500
    Shellie

    By: Shellie
    September 23, 2006 @ 5:12 PM

    I purchased the LG cu500 after researching many phones. This is by far the best phone I have ever had. The features are awesome. I wanted an MP3 plyaer and it works great and the speakers are super loud. The phone gets great reception. The only negative that I can think of is that you have to buy the USB cord and accessories. I purchased my USB on EBAY for 8.00 and it works great. It is easy to transfer files. You don’t need any special software. I would highly recommend this phone. I will use it for a long time. The video is excellent, and the 3g network is very fast. If you want a great phone, this one you will love.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

  

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