LG Enact Review

Introduction

With most smartphones touting large displays (and large prices), it’s nice to see manufactures still making affordable phones with physical QWERTY keyboards. Enter the new LG Enact, which is available from Verizon Wireless for only $20 with a 2-year contact. We’ve seen a few QWERTY devices from LG over the years, including the LG Enlighten back in 2011, but this time around LG has increased the features (though not high-end) with a slightly larger 4” display, 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 5MP camera, and naturally can use Verizon 4G LTE data network. Though the Enact does stand with some competition, mostly from the Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II, Pantech Marauder, and even the Motorola DROID 4.

Included in the retail box is the LG Enact VS890 smartphone, 2460mAh battery, wall charger, microUSB cable, and user guides.

Design

The overall appearance of the LG Enact isn’t going to win any awards, but we like the two-tone black and gray combination and we appreciate the textured back and sides, which allow for a firm grip, when compared to the slippery feeling of the Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II. The device is also fairly compact and fits comfortably in the hand, but it does feel a bit heavy for extended use, coming in just under 6oz.


Below the display are four capacitive buttons for back, home, recent apps, and settings, while above the display is a standard VGA camera for self-pics or video chatting. Along the left side is the volume rocker with microUSB port, and the power/lock key is on the right, but we found these buttons are hard to distinguish from the surrounding plastic by touch alone. Up on top is the 3.5mm headset jack, while on back is the 5MP camera with LED flash. Removing the battery cover will allow access to the SIM slot and the microSD memory card slot.

Display

Keeping with the low price-point of the device, the LCD display comes in at only 4” in size with a WVGA resolution of 480x800 pixels. Because of this, most text and images have noticeable jagged edges, instead of looking sharp and clear as with a higher-resolution display. And since it's LCD, colors look a bit washed-out as well, while the Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy Stratosphere II produces more vivid, over-saturated colors. Overall, the display quality on the Enact isn’t bad, especially for the price; we just wish it was higher resolution so that it would look sharper.

QWERTY Keyboard

One of the main features of the LG Enact is the physical QWERTY keyboard. Sliding it open and closed is pretty easy to do (even with one hand) with a better feel to it than the Pantech Marauder and Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II. Once it is opened, we are presented with a nice 5-row keyboard with dedicated number keys across the top. In fact, the layout is pretty much similar to the Stratosphere II. Using the QWERTY keyboard is a pleasant experience, as the keys have a nice size and feel to them, but larger hands may have an issue, as there isn’t much space between the keys. Our only complaint here is that the backlighting for the keyboard is not very bright, which does make it less visible when there is low surrounding light. In our opinion, the keyboard’s backlight needs to be brighter. Because of this, the Motorola DROID 4 still remains king, as it has a larger keyboard with enough backlighting for it to be visible at night.

User Interface

Nestled within the LG Enact is the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system, though we would have hoped that Android 4.2 were on-board. Like most other LG smartphones, the Enact is layered with the Optimus UI that offers some nice visuals and customizations. First off, you can select between either a standard mode or a starter mode – which is designed for people that have never used Android before, with larger icons and easy access to menus. There is also a selection of four Themes (Optimus, Biz, Cozywall, and Marshmallow), six screen swipe effects, font styles, lock screen settings, and even a nice selection of desktop widgets.


LG and Verizon include some extra apps on the device, such as Amazon, Audible, Dictionary, IMDb, Mobile Hotspot, My Verizon, NFL Mobile, Quick Translator, Slacker, and VZ Navigator. A couple others are File Share, which allows you to transfer images, videos, music, and documents between other LG phones, Polaris Office for opening MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files, Richnote for note-taking, and Smart Share for DLNA connectivity between the phone and other compatible DLNA devices.


Everything else is pretty much standard, including the Calendar, E-Mail, and G-Mail apps.

Processor and Memory

The LG Enact comes with a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8930 Snapdragon S4 processor with 1GB of RAM.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	GFXBench	Vellamo (HTML5 / Metal)
LG Enact	5231	10699	2765 / 24 fps	2033 / 526
Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II	4122	2700
Pantech Marauder	4882	6601
LG Optimus L7 II	2823	6674

As you can see from the above benchmark, the LG Enact is pretty much in the same class as the Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II and Pantech Marauder. For real-world use, the Enact does feel a bit sluggish, mostly when swiping between the home screens and opening apps. Again, keeping in mind the price-point of this phone, we do wish that a faster processor were used, to speed things up a bit.

Also on board is 8GB of internal storage, though only about 3GB is available. But you can always install a microSD memory card up to 64GB in size for added storage.

Internet and Connectivity

There’s nothing really out of the ordinary here, as we have the Google Chrome Browser for our web browsing needs, though you can always install a different one if you so desire. Making use of Verizon’s 4G LTE network, web pages loaded fast, but there was some stutter when scrolling and zooming, most likely due to the processor. The 4” screen also does an OK job here, but again we wish it was higher resolution so that text would look sharper.


When using the SpeedTest.net app, we were able to get speeds up to 21 Mbps for download and 10 Mbps for upload, which is average for our area. Also supported is Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz), Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC.

Camera

The camera interface is easy to use and has plenty of options, including 7 scene modes, HDR, Panorama, and Burst shots, flash, focusing, resolution, ISO, white balance, and color effects.


Images that we took outside with the 5MP shooter provided average results, with colors looking mostly neutral and with good detail, though some areas were a bit over exposed. Unfortunately, inside images were a disappointment, as they all looked blurry and out-of-focus, even if there was plenty of light. Furthermore the LED Flash gives images a green hue, which we doubt anyone will like.


Videos can be recorded at 1920x1080p resolution at 30 frames-per-second. While this sounds good, the video quality is also disappointing, as the image looks dark and grainy, and every small motion of your hand is picked up and amplified.

Multimedia

LG includes their own Music Player, in case you’re not a fan of standard Google Play Music app. It has a nice user interface, with tabs across the top for songs, albums, artists, genres and playlists, but lacking is any EQ settings – only a Dolby Mode when connecting wired headsets. Music played through the rear speaker is adequate, but is lacking in volume and overall fullness.

The thumbnail view in the Gallery app is nothing that we haven’t seen before, as it’s pretty much stock Android. For playing back your own videos files, most formats are supported, including MPEG-4, H.264/263, DivX and Xvid.

Call Quality

The overall call quality on the LG Enact was moderate, not great, but not horrible. Voices on our end sounded a bit “digitized” instead of sounding full and natural, and when raising the call volume up, there was some distortion in the earpiece speaker. People that we called could easily tell we were using a cell phone, as again it lacked natural sounding tones and was a bit “choppy” at times.

Battery

We were glad to see a large 2460mAh battery included with the LG Enact, which is said to provide up to 11 hours of talk time or 9 days of standby time. During our testing, we were able to get up to 10 hours of talk time, or about 1.5 days of mixed usage on a full charge. This is more than sufficient, as most phones are charged every night.

Conclusion

The LG Enact is an average Android smartphone for an on-contract price of $20, as it does everything OK, but doesn’t exceed at anything. The main feature is the physical QWERTY keyboard, making it ideal for teens, or anyone that doesn’t like to use an on-screen keyboard. But the lower resolution screen, slower processor, and mediocre call quality doesn’t scream “buy me” – unless you find the pricing the most attractive feature.

Software version on the tested device:
Android 4.1.2
Baseband: VS89010A-M8930B-AAAATAZM-3.2.25033
Kernel: 3.4.0-perf-gc2a23d7
Build: JZO54K
Software : VS89010A