My old cell phone was on its last legs. I had twice given my "free
upgrades" to my kids so they could get the "latest-greatest" music-enabled
whiz phones, so my old phone was...just a phone. It looked like a hockey
puck after a full season on the ice, with hardly any paint left on it, and
the sound quality was starting to go.

So, when my "free upgrade" came up again, off to the Verizon store I went.
I wanted something with a built-in planner, something WITHOUT a touch screen
(my son's experience with his "Chocolate" taught me that lesson), and a
decent built-in camera. The LG EnV was the one I settled on.

The EnV has all the features of their top-of-the-line "Voyager", but without
the problematic touch screen. The feature list is quite impressive, but the
ones that are most pertinent to aviators a

1. GPS
2. Internet access.

1. GPS. I had heard that cell phones were GPS enabled, but I didn't know
how far they had come. The EnV has two LCD screens. The one on the outside
is standard "cell-phone" size, but it opens up to display a much larger
internal LCD screen that is actually a bit bigger than the one in my Garmin
496. The navigational interface is easy and intuitive, and all you have to
do is enter an address (or point of interest) in and let the phone give you
street-by-street driving instructions, complete with a moving map.

Cooler yet, with the bluetooth earpiece, the little voice in your ear TELLS
YOU "turn left, 300 yards". It's quite remarkable.

Better yet, it's NOT really GPS, which requires a clear view of the sky.
The phone is actually more like LORAN, using cell towers to triangulate your
position against its internal database of the world. Thus, it works
indoors, and there's no need to position the thing on the dashboard. No
power cords, not antenna wires. Very nice.

I presume that it can't be used in the air, but it's sure making finding our
way around a strange city easier after we arrive.

(Yes, the 496 has turn-by-turn driving capability, too, but in practice
we've found that we just don't take it with us when we borrow the courtesy
car. The 496 is just too futzy to take out of the panel dock, and we never
seem to remember to bring the little bean-bag dashboard mount and the little
antenna. And, of course, you can't leave a $3K GPS sitting on the dash of a
clapped-out old police cruiser, so we're always trying to lock it in the
trunk.

The EnV, on the other hand, is always on my belt, so we're using it all the
time.)

2. Internet Access.
I used to subscribe to a cell phone weather service that gave me access to
radar and satellite info, as well as METARS and TAFs. It cost the same per
month as full web-access does on this phone -- and now I can get much of the
same weather as I can on any computer.

When you open the EnV it's got a full QWERTY keyboard that makes entering
data easy. That big (relatively speaking) color screen makes viewing easy,
and I'm surprised at how quickly the web loads. Verizon has invested
heavily in improving the speed of mobile web applications, and it shows.

There are a host of other great features (the planner is terrific, the
camera is very good, the 2 GB memory card holds lots of pix and video, it
can record digital audio for hours, it's a very nice speaker phone) that I
use daily, and a bunch I may never use (texting, iPod-like music, etc) but
the future really is NOW.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"