Summer Round-Up: LG Voyager - Verizon Wireless

I was thinking earlier about all of the new phones that have hit the market over the past several months and decided it was high time to do a little Summer Round-Up of what's out on the market now, in case you're looking to pick up a new cellie.  I'll try to throw in what I know about phones that might be coming soon in hopes of helping you avoid the dreaded buyer's remorse that comes when something newer and cooler gets released the day after you pony up for a new phone.

I'll start with Big Red - Verizon Wireless - and move on to the three other major US carriers, and some of the noteworthy unlocked GSM phones, in subsequent articles.  And I'll do one phone per post to keep the articles to a reasonable length.  So let's start at the top:

LG Voyager (VX-10000)
The Voyager is still the flagship VCAST messaging phone in VZW's lineup, though it's almost a year old now and is no longer the most expensive model when purchased direct from Verizon.  With its external touchscreen and internal display and QWERTY board, Voyager does it all and does most of it quite well.  For me, the two big drawbacks with Voyager are it's size (it's a boat - seriously) and the fact that because it's a clamshell phone you can't use the touchscreen and QWERTY board at the same time like you can on the Glyde, which is a sliderphone.

Pros: Touchscreen and QWERTY board, full VCAST and Mobile TV support, HTML Web browser

Cons: Big and Bulky, HTML browser is somewhat disappointing

Buying Advice: Voyager's being discounted now, which means we should be seeing a new Voyager before too long, perhaps at CTIA San Francisco in early September.  Whether the new Voyager will be a minor refresh or full redesign is still unknown.  Wait a month or so to see what the new version might bring.