LG CHOCOLATE (VX8500), (Chocolate LG White)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LG CHOCOLATE (VX8500).

The LG VX8500 (or "Chocolate") is a slider cellphone-MP3 player hybrid that is sold as a feature phone. In the U.S. it was released by Verizon Wireless in July 2006 and made available online, and later released in Verizon stores in the U.S. on August 7, 2006. In addition to the original black model (dubbed "Dark Chocolate"), the LG Chocolate VX8500 is also available in the U.S. in a light green, white, pink, and red (called "Mint Chocolate," "White Chocolate," "Strawberry Chocolate," and "Cherry Chocolate," respectively). The LG Chocolate has another successor called the LG Chocolate (VX8550) which has: touch buttons with improved accuracy, a scroll wheel, support for 4GB microSD cards, and tactile send and end keys. The LG Chocolate 3 was recently released, the current price is $179 with a 2 year contract.

ORIGIN. The original LG Chocolate(KV5900) was released in Korea long before the UK or U.S. version. In Korea, it was available in three colors which were black, white and red. After becoming an extremely popular item in South Korea's mobile phone market, it saw its GSM release into the UK, and a modified version was released in Canada. The US Chocolate is a different phone (VX8500), with a QVGA (320x240) LCD over the KG800's 176x220 LCD. The touch panel on the VX8500 has a slightly different design, with a circular button arrangement bordered with glossy metal, versus the KG800's square arrangement featuring simple arrow designs (a defining part of the ads for the original LG Chocolate ) , and a rounded silver rectangle bordering the "OK" button in the center. The A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles are available on the VX8500, but not on the KG800. The KG800's number pad also features a matte grey and glossy black checkerboard pattern, and the camera has a white LED flash, both of which the VX8500 does not have.

AD CAMPAIGN. The in-store release of the VX8500/Chocolate followed six television commercials, four of which featured music playing while the device was displayed from various camera angles, often with the glow from the touch-panel leaving a trail. The device was shown closed, making it look like an MP3 player, and the commercials ended with the music pausing, the phone opening, and a phone call or message being played. In one campaign is featured the song "Candyman" by Christina Aguilera. The fifth commercial simply played Goldfrapp's "Strict Machine" while the phone emerged from liquid chocolate. The sixth commercial showed cherries being squished into a paste to make a redish phone, a chocolate dipped into a pool of white chocolate, and mint being chopped to make a green phone, also to the song Candyman. Verizon also scented select units to tie the phone into the ad campaign.

TOUCH PANEL. The face of the Chocolate LG has no tactile buttons, but rather touch-sensitive panels with red-orange illuminating symbols to designate the touch-sensitive areas. The buttons include four corner buttons (Left option, right option, Call, and Return), and a wheel. The four sides of the wheel behave like a direction pad in most applications. In the music player, they work as scroll up/down, and next/previous track. The OK button in the center of the wheel doubles as Pause/Play in the music player.

CHOCOLATE LG WHITE