This is a review for the Tracfone LG500G prepaid cell phone. I’ll start the review by going over all of the important specifications taken from the Tracfone website:
Battery life with up to 5 hours of talk time and up to 9 days of standby time.
Storage: External micro SD card (not included)
Downloadable ringtones & more using Airtime
Voicemail and Call Waiting
Key Pad Lock
Phonebook with up to 1000 Entries
Battery Talk Time: 5 Hours
MMS Picture Messaging
LCD Color Display
Hands-Free Speaker
Java web browser (No 3G)
The phone also has a lot of standard stuff that I am going to skip like a calendar, stop watch, alarm clock, notepad, ETC.
The LG500G has a 1.3 megapixel camera, which is decent in terms of quality but it isn’t mind blowing.
I use the camera from time to time and most pictures come out pretty good, but keep in mind this is no iPhone.
One of the best features Tracfone has to offer is that If you buy a new cell phone there is a chance that you can get double or even triple minutes for life for free. So if you added 120 minutes to the phone and you have triple minutes for life it will instead give you 360 minutes, the company also gives out promo codes for additional bonus minutes to help save you money. At one point I had saved up a very large amount of rollover minutes because my phone had double minutes, plus they gave me a free promo code book for the entire year of 2011. Depending on the card you buy all of your unused service days can also roll over to the next month. I currently have 696 unused service days since I added so many minute cards before the service date expired. That is close to two years worth of phone service, but I doubt my phone will actually last that long…
After doing a bit of searching I found a forum that said the screen size was about 176×220,
which is the same screen size as the Samsung T404G’s screen. The LG500G phone is pretty sleek and small and weighs about 2.93oz. It has a QWERTY keyboard, but it is not a slider phone, it is fixed to the bottom of the phone like a Blackberry which I believe is called a “Candybar” QWERTY phone. I prefer the slider keypad on the T404g cell phone over this one because I find the small buttons on the LG500G a bit hard to press while holding the phone upright and I keep smashing down multiple buttons at one time.
The LG500G does have Bluetooth support and I use that to send files from my PC to the phone, the best part is that the phone also has a built in installer so that it can install apps and games without having to go online. The Bluetooth and the installer works perfectly. Send files to the phone using the Bluetooth and when you click on the file the LG500G will ask you if you wish to install it, it’s that easy. There is no need to do complicated things like go online or download a new program just to install games and apps.
LG500G Quality
The phone doesn’t come with a SD card, but I believe that it can support up to 16GB SD cards. I recommend you pick up an SD card because you will quickly run out of phone memory if you use custom ringtones, games and wallpapers because the phone doesn’t have much memory to start with. The phone also supports a video and MP3 player to watch movies and listen to music. There are some newer phones that have better playback quality, but I found the audio and video quality on the LG500g was clear enough for you to see and hear everything perfectly.
When talking and texting on the phone there were a few times where I had really bad reception. For example if I was in the grocery store I would lose my signal the farther I went to the back of the store and there were a few times where I would lose all of my signal bars and would drop calls because I had absolutely no reception. There were other times where my text messages took hours to reach their destination because my signal was completely blocked. Depending on your current location will determine your signal strength, so you may have to hold the phone in the air and ask “Can you hear me now?” a couple of times before continuing your conversation.
The phone is pretty durable in terms of taking a beating because I did drop it a couple of times, all it did was shut off and reboot but I didn’t lose any information and it didn’t crack or dent. I’ve had this phone for a couple of years now and it is still holding up pretty well, but I did notice a couple of the buttons are starting to stick from time to time as they wear down. As for running games and apps, it can actually run most of them without crashing, but keep in mind this cell phone is now a bit old and it is not an Android or iPhone so it does have its limitations.
Should you buy it?
I bought my phone online from Amazon.com for a little under $30.00, but t he average price ranges anywhere between $27.99 and $49.99. If you go to the Tracfone website they are currently running a crazy sale for $9.99, so this new low price is a great deal. My guess is that since the phone is now a bit dated compared to other phones this super low price may become permanent so that they can keep selling them. Should you buy it?
I would say yes, because for the most part the phone can text, make calls and can also run games, apps and play videos and MP3s without any major problems. For such a low price you will be getting a great deal for a new cell phone. Adding more minutes and service days is also very easy and very fast because the phone has a built in function where you can enter the card’s number to add more minutes straight from the phone without having to go online or call customer service.
If you need a basic cell phone for talking, texting, or the occasional use of the web browser, I would say that the LG500g will be a great phone for you. It has enough features to make it modern but it isn’t too expensive where you will waste your money if you don’t use it often.
The only real complaints that I have is that the Tracfone customer service could be better. A lot of the technical support team can barely speak English and a lot of times they will place you on hold for at least 20 minutes before an actual person will help you. If you don’t have unlimited minutes you can see how that can quickly become a problem.
Oh, and I almost forgot about the web browser button!
It is located on the front of the phone and shares with the phone’s cancel button. So if you press the cancel button too fast and too many times the phone will automatically start connecting to the web and charging you for it. I wasted several minutes because of this horrible web browser button and I found that most customers also complain about its bad design and placement on the phone. I would prefer if the phone didn’t have a web browser shortcut button at all, or better yet if you could choose which button you wanted it to be or have a option to disable it completely. The phone also doesn’t have a parental control function so if you bought this phone for your child they would have full access to the internet. Needless to say, I think they drastically messed up with the web browser button design.
Overall though I would give this phone a 7 out of 10 in terms of quality and phone service. It loses points for the bad customer service and the occasional loss of reception bars, but I placed the rating higher than 5 because I use it so often I have found the LG500G to be quite reliable in the times I needed it most. If you want to check this phone out you can buy it at most stores like Walmart, CVS, or the official Tracfone website, as well as online dealers like Amazon.com.
Own a LG500G phone? Comment below and tell us what you think of it.
