September 17, 2012

Tracfone Review - LG 500G

The LG 500G is Fast, Feature Equipped, and a Great Value

The LG 500G from Tracfone is a prepaid cell phone with full QWERTY keypad and follows a blackberry in its styling. 

It does not have any flipping or sliding parts which often have a tendency to break or malfunction. 

The LG 500G is faster than many Tracfone prepaid phones, especially older phones such as the Motorola W376G.
lg 500g tracfone
Tracfone LG 500G 
Texting and navigating through the menu and options is quick and fluid. Texts are sent fast with a notification box that flashes on the screen to say thy have sent.

The Tracfone LG 500G also has plenty of features to keep anyone busy.

LG 500g Features:

  • Full QWERTY Keyboard
  • 1.3 Megapixel Camera and Video Recorder
  • Voice Recorder
  • Mobile Web
  • MP3 Player (cable and microSD Card not included)
  • 2.2 inch LCD Color Display
  • Hands Free Speaker
  • Keypad Lock
  • 1,000 Entry Phone Book
  • Alarm Clock
  • Long Battery Life - 9 days on standby, 4-5 with average use
  • Includes Double Minutes for Life
  • Cell Phone Charger
  • Thin Design - Dimensions: 3.3 x 1.7 x 0.9 inches (3 ounces) 
The Tracfone LG 500G does not have all the capabilities of a smartphone from Verizon or AT&T, but it brings plenty of features that offer great functionality for this phone.

What TracfoneReviewer Thought about the LG 500G


What We Liked about the Cell Phone:

Great variety of useful features. The keypad lock, alarm clock, hands free speaker, large phone book, and qwerty keypad are all great and very useful.

lg500g prepaid cell phone
LG 500G
Slim and sleek design that looks good and fits easily in a pocket.

Camera, video, and voice recording nice to have and work well enough. But don't expect to take high resolution pictures of beautiful mountain scenery with this camera phone.

The LG500g has fantastic battery life compared to most other cell phones, especially smartphones. Tracfone advertises a 9 day battery life on standby mode which seems easily possible. In TracfoneReviewer's testing, the phone lasts 4-5 days when used normally (a few texts/calls everyday and use of alarm clock and other features throughout the day). 

Many smartphone batteries only last 2 days when new, and some become reduced to a 12 hours of battery life after a few months of use. But the LG 500G still lasts 4-5 days after 12 months of use.

And our last big like about the LG 500g is that you can find, and download for free lots of games from websites such as MobileRated.com. These games aren't super fancy, but they are fun and will keep you, or others entertained!

What We Did Not Like about the Cell Phone:

While the LG 500G is a fantastic phone, there are a few things TracfoneReviewer did not like about it.

The biggest issue we had is that the internet access button is easy to accidentally push and each time you do that it costs 0.4 minutes. 

There is no way to change what this button does, so you will be accidentally hitting this quite a bit while you are getting used to the button layout. 

It can be very frustrating to see several minutes of service be burned by accidentally hitting the internet button, but one does get used to it. We have found that using key-lock does a good job at avoiding accidentally hitting the internet button or dialing someone while the phone is in your pocket. 

One does get used to the key configuration relatively quickly, and stops accidentally hitting the internet button.

What we wish the Tracfone LG 500g would allow would be to change what the internet button does, so that it isn't accidentally pushed.

While on the topic of the LG500g's Mobile Web, it is worth mentioning our dissatisfaction with it. It burns through minutes quickly surfing the internet on the Mobile Web, and isn't very good. But no one should be getting this phone with an expectation of surfing the web from it.

Overall, the Tracfone LG 500G is a great buy at its regular price of $29.99. It can sometimes be found for even cheaper prices, both in stores, on the Tracfone website, and most often on Amazon

4 comments :

Anonymous said...

Interesting, because I have never had an issue with this "internet" button, so maybe it is best that I not figure out which one that is on the LG500g I am going back to using...

Unknown said...

I do the internet button all the time, at least several times a week!

Kevin said...

Great and informative reviews! I have been a TracFone user for a while now, and I currently have the LG500G. It is a great phone that does resemble a BlackBerry. I have never really ran into any problems while using the mobile web. I use such sites as: Zedge and Myxer for my ringtone downloads. And for 3gp videos, I use VuClip which works great! I also have the LG900G for NET10. Overall, I prefer the LG500G because the texting and mobile web rates are cheaper than the LG900G for NET10. Thanks again for the reviews and the promo codes!

Tillett4CT said...

Sadly today I have to say "GoodBye" to my trusty "Smart Looking Dumb Phone" TracFone is forcing me to move my number to a new phone because they are no longer going to allow this 2G phone to access the services )0;} I do not want to switch to a "Smart Phone" but they gave me $20 credit towards a new smartphone so I've given that as a gift & then decided that if I buy a cheaper smartphone I can transfer my number which I want to keep to his 3g non-android cell - so far transfering his number to his new smartphone has been completed & his old cell now reads "unregistered sim" for the past 12 hours & all of his time/minutes are properly showing in the 3 Buckets on the new cell - so at the end of the day I'll swap over my old cell number to his old triple minutes 3g tracphone - keeping fingers crossed & prayers said that this swap will work for me - I will miss my imitation blackberry with it's easy texting - wishing there was a way to keep my trusty simple little cell with it's fun ringtones