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Two confessions, and a word about Verizon’s new Voyager, a clear effort to imitate, compete with, and best the iPhone:
Confession #1: I haven’t used an iPhonemuch, so this is not intended as a scientific (or especially informed)comparison, or, for that matter, an intensive Voyager review.
Confession #2: I didn’t read the Voyager manual. Rather, Iapproached it like most consumers too eager to send off a first textmessage than read any actual text.
Verizon Voyager
Now that we have that out of the way, some background. The Voyager,made by LG and costing $349 with a two-year contract, looks on its facelike an iPhone — namely a 2.8-inch touch screen.
But touch here has its limitations. In my meager interaction withthe iPhone, the most impressive feature to me is the ability not justto touch, but to scroll, push and pull content with a fingertip. TheVoyager’s touch screen is more limited in the respect that you can’tdrag content. You can merely poke, say, for instance, to open themusic, messaging, web and phone book apps.
Sometimes you have to poke more than once to get the desired result.
That said, the screen seems easily navigable. When you want to makea call, the screen – iPhone-like – brings you a numerical touch pad soyou can easily dial. The Web appears, albeit none too fast, on a brightcolorful screen big enough to see crisp pictures, and so on.
From where I sit, the chief difference from the iPhone is that theVoyager is a clam shell. Opened up, it reveals a full Qwerty keyboard,and another screen on the inside. It might be preferable to people wholike to send lengthier messages, or who like typing, Lilliputian-style,on a “regular†keyboard.
I’m loathe to make any further comparisons. But I can state theobvious: the iPhone has quickly generated like-looking devices, and, insome ways, like-acting. One question is whether the Verizon Wirelessnetwork, or existing relationships with Verizon, will make the Voyagerpreferable to AT&T and the iPhone. Another is whether consumers,who have made the iPod synonymous with music despite many finecompeting MP3 players on the market, will brand the Voyager and othersas mere imitators.
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