[Christopher Price]

The first thing that I said when I opened this phone was... why hasn't LG filed a lawsuit yet?

Other companies constantly sues companies that blatantly steal design aspects, pursuing knock-off phone makers. When you see this phone for the first time, it doesn't just scream that it's an LG Rumor, it walks, talks, and works just like one.

LG gained quite a bit of marketshare just because of the Rant... err... Rumor alone. I'm still surprised that LG hasn't seen fit to pursue any intellectual property claims against Samsung for stealing their thunder. And design. And everything else. So, because of that, while it is a Samsung phone... this mini review is really only going to highlight on the changes in product from the LG Rumor.

For Sprint, the dueling Rumor and Rant is a win win. Or, is it? After all, most readers of PhoneNews.com asked for a Rumor with EV-DO. Well, the Rant is a Rumor with EV-DO. It adds all the features that the Rumor had cost-cut out of the offering, Power Vision, Sprint TV, Sprint Music Store, etc.

Unfortunately, they added a few things too. For starters, the Sprint One Click interface. While innovative, it doesn't make good on the ability to disable itself easily. When Sprint gave PhoneNews.com an early look at One Click, we were told Sprint was proud to offer an off switch that any plain user could flip off. Sadly, that turned out to be bad information, from reliable sources no less. The only way to disable One Click on the Rant, is via a painful debug menu.

Also added was the web browser. Gone was LG's robust implementation of Polaris. Samsung did a bad job with the web browser, and it has us running back to Opera Mini. Unfortunately, Opera Mini wouldn't run on our review unit. Opera says they're working on a patch... in the mean time... we hope you have another web browser in your pocket.

Above all, this is what people asked for... a Rumor with EV-DO. But, there are a few details that miss the mark. These could be updated with firmware updates to fix... but we won't hold our breath. Sprint hasn't had a stellar track record for remedying these type of aforementioned issues in their non-smartphone product lines.

Buy a Rant (Black) from Wirefly
Buy a Rant (Red) from Wirefly

[miketech_79]

You forgot one thing, it lacks Roaming Only option. Whereas the Rumor has roaming only.

[Christopher Price]

You forgot one thing, it lacks Roaming Only option. Whereas the Rumor has roaming only.

Yes, however, that is consistent with Sprint phones going forward.

And, Sprint is likely to issue a PRL update for older phones that deliver a similar effect... so don't think the Rumor won't get the same treatment. AT&T did this via a SIM update back in the Cingular days, and Sprint is preparing for a similar option.

[miketech_79]

And, Sprint is likely to issue a PRL update for older phones that deliver a similar effect.

Can you explain this with some more detail?

I could just keep the same PRL that I have now, as PRL push doesn't work on Sprint. Or since I have the Mogul that supports changing the PRL by loading a file, I could manually revert back to an old version if I wanted to.

[Christopher Price]

PRLs can be pushed out on just about every current phone. Older phones still need to be updated either via *2 or over-the-wire.

The new PRLs will basically prioritize roaming as home network SIDs. That way, even if you force the phone to Roaming Only, it won't find any roaming SIDs. But, when on Sprint, it will load the next available tower.

I should stress that this is probably awhile off, since Sprint still has a lot of people on older plans which don't include roaming, and they would have to be given free roaming... it's really a cost-benefit analysis as to when this will happen.

Of course, you can always hack the PRL, but very few people are technologically experienced enough to do that. Those few have been doing it for years on Verizon.