Bottom Line
Despite a tough-sounding name, Sprint's first LTE device is a cute-yet-powerful, environmentally friendly phone.
Welcome to the future: Sprint's LTE future. The LG Viper 4G LTE ($99 with contract) is a great little Android-powered
smartphone,
and it's the first phone we've tested that supports Sprint's upcoming
LTE network, which should bring lightning-fast, unlimited data to most
of the nation by 2014.
But you aren't buying this phone in 2014. You're buying it
in 2012, and that's where you're going to need to think this one
through. The Viper has a lot to like, even as a 3G handset, but it's
part of a crowded field of excellent smartphones on Sprint.
Physical Design, Call Quality, and 4GAt
4.59 by 2.44 by 0.46 inches (HWD) and 5 ounces, the Viper feels solid
and fits in pretty much any hand, although it isn't super-slim. It's
mostly plastic, but tightly built and classy feeling, with a slate-gray
back. The 800-by-480 LCD is bright, and in this 4-inch form factor it
packs a nice, dense 233 pixels per inch, which isn't up to "Retina
display" standards, but looks good nonetheless. The standard Android
touch buttons sit below the screen, and there's a 3.5-mm headset jack
and Power button up top. There's no dedicated camera button, though.
The Viper wins our
GreenTech Approval by
fulfilling six of our seven criteria. The phone's casing is 50 percent
recycled plastic and the package is made from 87 percent recycled
material, and it comes with an "energy-efficient" charger that
essentially turns itself off when not in use. LG is a member of the
Rechargeable
Battery Recycling Corporation, and Sprint takes back phones to recycle.
The Viper is missing Energy Star certification, but it is both RoHS and
ULE Platinum Certified, meaning in part, that it is free from a range
of hazardous materials.
An average-quality voice phone, signal reception on the
Viper is fine, but voice quality is just okay; it's a bit harsh, and
there are some gain problems with very high-volume inputs. Transmissions
through the mic are acceptable, if a little nasal. Noise cancellation
is spectacular; I couldn't hear a bus roaring by. The speakerphone is
loud enough for indoor and outdoor use, and transmissions through the
speakerphone sounded surprisingly good thanks in part to that aggressive
noise cancellation. The Viper didn't have any problem with our
Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4 stars) or our
Altec Lansing BackBeat stereo Bluetooth headset ($99.99, 3.5 stars), either.
We're still testing the Viper's battery, but at the moment it looks to provide acceptable, but not extraordinary performance.
The Viper connects to Sprint's 3G EVDO Rev A network,
along with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Sprint's upcoming, but still nascent
LTE network. The Sprint 3G network doesn't offer great speed: in last
year's
Fastest Mobile Networks
tests we found Sprint's network to be the slowest of the nationwide
networks, with download speed averages around 500Kbps. That's balanced
out, to some extent, by Sprint being the only carrier to still offer
unlimited data, and Sprint told us that those plans will continue with
LTE. The phone also functions as a hotspot for up to five devices, but
you don't get unlimited data for that.
Sprint is in the middle of transitioning between two 4G
networks. WiMAX is on its way out; LTE is on its way in. Sprint has said
that it'll turn on LTE in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Kansas
City and San Antonio by "mid-year," which most people take to mean June.
They've also
released a map of what LTE coverage will look like in 2014.
Between six cities and 2014 all is shadows, though, which
makes it difficult to tell when Sprint LTE is coming to you. The company
has said it'll cover 123 million people by the end of 2012, but not
where. So buying a Sprint LTE phone right now is a gamble. If the dice
fall your way, you'll have blazing-fast performance on a fresh new
network that'll only get bigger with time. If they don't, you have a 3G
phone.
The decision is much easier for those who live in one of
the six listed cities. But we could recommend the Viper to many more
people if Sprint would just be more straightforward with its rollout
plans. At the same time, it's also hard to recommend WiMAX phones with
much enthusiasm, knowing that Sprint is moving away from the technology.
Android and Apps The Viper's
dual-core, 1.2GHz processor runs the 400,000 apps for Android 2.3
"Gingerbread" beautifully. It performed within the top rank of Android
2.3 phones on our benchmarks. And it'll stay on Android 2.3 for the
foreseeable future: Sprint hasn't said anything about an Android 4.0
"Ice Cream Sandwich" upgrade. At least Gingerbread is mostly unskinned
here, except for Sprint's typical bloatware and its Sprint ID packs.
Sprint ID lets you automatically load a set of wallpapers, ringtones,
and apps around a theme like NASCAR or MTV, but you don't have to use it
if you don't want to.
The phone's big differentiator is Google Wallet. The
integrated NFC chip, along with the Google Wallet app, allows you to
"tap and pay" (with a PIN code) at stores that accept MasterCard
PayPass, which includes a lot of small and large shops (major chains
include CVS, Walgreens, Macy's and Gap). Filling your Google Wallet is a
little awkward, though: Unless you're a Citibank Mastercard holder, you
have to add money to a prepaid Google card periodically, which is an
annoying extra step. I unfortunately couldn't test Google Wallet on this
phone because Google hadn't activated the system for Viper phones yet.
Multimedia and ConclusionsYou get
about 1.5GB of free onboard memory and a 4GB MicroSD card in a slot
under the back cover; the phone had no problem with our 64GB SanDisk
card. Its powerful processor easily handles most music and video files,
including 1080p HD video. There's no HDMI out, though, so you'll be
watching those videos on the four-inch screen.
The Viper has an excellent 5-megapixel camera. I was very
impressed by its speed, sharpness, and dynamic range. Low-light photos
show dramatic contrast, but aren't blurry. Outdoor shots managed to
capture both a dim foreground and a bright blue sky in my tests. The
video mode captures 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second, both
indoors and out, although the autofocus took too long (more than a
second) to adjust to a change in target. There's also a VGA front-facing
camera, which is about as good as these things usually are.
With or without 4G, the LG Viper is a fresh, fun, fast
little Android smartphone, and it'll fly of the shelves at $99. While
the
Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch ($199, 4 stars) and the
Motorola Photon 4G
($199, 4.5 stars) have bigger screens and WiMAX, the Viper's clean
design, fast performance and forward-looking LTE put it among the best.
For now, our Editors' Choice on Sprint remains the
Apple iPhone 4S
($199, 4.5 stars), which has a better camera, world-phone capability
and faster Web browsing (even though the 4S is strictly a 3G phone).
That recommendation may change when we hear about more Sprint cities
getting LTE. Higher-end LTE phones are coming, too: Sprint has announced
both the
Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the
HTC EVO 4G LTE, which will appeal to phone buyers looking for bigger screens.
The LG Viper 4G LTE is available for preorder now; according to Sprint, it will be in stores by the end of April.
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