Glimmering Upgrade

<--See also: It’s Here

My contract with Alltel was due to expire next month and for a few weeks, I have been wondering what I should do.

1.) Renew and upgrade my phone.
2.) Continue using the service but be released from the contract. Or,
3.) Move to another carrier.

The next generation iPhone is expected to make its debut soon. Also, Google’s Android phones are expected out by the end of the year. So I was hesitant to renew with Alltel. After some thought, however, I decided that an iPhone was still not a practical decision and Android was still too much of an unknown. My E815, while still dependable phone, was having trouble connecting to the charger and has been for almost half a year. So I decided to go ahead and go with door number one.

So the phone that I got was the LG Glimmer:

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with it but there are a few complaints that I have.

The physical keypad is smaller than I like but the Glimmer allows the user to use the touch screen without having to slide the key pad open. The touch screen’s key pad is sufficiently large. The complaint that I have is that they forgot to put an End Key on the touch screen. I am finding that the only way for a user to end a call is to use the physical End Key.

Alltel has prevented users from creating their own ringtones. I am going to look for a work around for this.

An issue that a lot of reviewers brought up was the fact that the Glimmer’s ringtones are graduated. They start off low and then gets louder. The explanation is that because the Glimmer only has one speaker (the ear piece), it prevents a blast from going into the ear of a person who may have it up to their face. I can understand that. My solution is to put the phone on ring and vibrate mode. This option hasn’t been available to me since my Nokia that I bought in the Philippines. Even if the Glimmer had an option where the ringer would be loud the first time out, I would still put it on the graduated+vibrate mode.

It’s not a fancy phone but I realized that I never do fancy stuff on my phone nor do I really want to. I wanted a phone that would allow me to do the things I do better which is texting and taking snapshots. This one fits.


h/t to phonescoop for posting this video on YouTube.