Verizon sent me their new LG Voyager Titanium late last week and I played with it throughout the holiday weekend. Voyager Titanium is a sharp-looking phone and it basically works like the original, save the additions of Visual Voicemail and the Rhapsody music service. Visual Voicemail works pretty well on first blush, though you'll be paying a few bucks more on your VZW bill each month to use it.
Upgrades aside, my feelings about Voyager Titanium echo those I've had all along for the original Voyager: Great phone if you don't mind the size and one key design flaw. Voyager supports just about every service Verizon offers, including HTML Web browsing, VCAST Music, and Mobile TV. The phone also sports a touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard, which makes it a gadget fiend and hardcore texter's delight. I found both the original and the Titanium easy to use, with good response from the touchscreen and plenty of room for my thumbs to roam around that QWERTY board.
The problems I have with Voyager basically boil down to form factor. First, Voyager is a big device. It's long and it's thick. This might not matter to you, but it does to me - I tend to carry my phone around in my front pants pocket and Voyager is anything but easily pocketable. Second, the phone's dual-display, horizontal clamshell design makes it impossible to use the touchscreen and QWERTY board at the same time. Granted, Voyager's internal display is big, bright, and easy used with the D-Pad packing thumbboard laid out beneath it, but I can't help but wish Voyager had instead been built as a slider instead (see: Samsung Glyde) or tilting slider (see: HTC Tilt). Me personally, if I've got a touchscreen on my phone and can't use it half the time, I'm going to get annoyed with the design. But that's just me.
Voyager Titanium isn't any sort of radical redesign, but rather a minor refresh based around a new color scheme and a few key feature upgrades. I like the Titanium color, and I generally like Voyager - though I probably wouldn't carry it around as my daily dialer. Like I said, though, that's just me - plenty of folks are more than happy packing their Voyagers on a day-in/day-out basis. Check back for a full video review of the new Voyager Titanium soon.
