Help me take advantage of my first high-tech phone!

November 17, 2007 12:22 PM

Help me take advantage of my first high-tech phone! I have some questions about the LG Chocolate, Bluetooth, and mac connectivity.

I just got an LG Chocolate (the slightly older version released last year, not the one released several months ago) and I'm noticing that it has Bluetooth capabilities. I know that Verizon is known for crippling its phones, and that this thing has supposedly terrible Mac support, but I'm still curious as to the different things I can do with this phone and my iBook G4 (which doesn't have Bluetooth, but I can get a dongle if there are neat things I can do with it).

Anyone have experience with this phone and a mac? I'd love to be able to use custom ringtones and sync contacts with Address book -- I could really care less about playing music on the damn thing. I've also seen cool programs that pop up a Growl notification when your phone rings nearby. Are any of these available to me?

FWIW, this is my first experience with a phone that wasn't the "free" or $29 option, so I'm not expecting iPhone-like connectivity. I'll be pretty much happy with anything here.

[Any other Bluetooth and/or LG Chocolate-related tips and tricks are also welcome].

posted by rossination to technology (7 comments total)

I didn't have that phone, but my RAZR connected to my Mac over bluetooth without issues (and automatically did everything I wanted like syncing addresses).

Just turn on bluetooth for both devices and bring 'em in range of each other. Chances are this will do exactly what you want.
posted by TeatimeGrommit at 12:48 PM on November 17, 2007

I don't have a chocolate, but my co-worker did, and he was never able to get it to connect to his mac.
posted by kpmcguire at 1:31 PM on November 17, 2007

You can't do anything but back your contacts up to your Mac from the Chocolate. I had one and tried everything short of a flash/flex to get it to work... and then the phone broke. The only Verizon handset that will communicate with a Mac AFAIK is the RAZR.

If I were you I would return that phone and get yourself a RAZR or a Nokia (though I don't know what Verizon offers when it comes to Nokia). The Chocolates are notorious for malfunctioning or flat-out breaking, and I went through three of them before they let me switch to a Motorola. I am very nice on my gear and rarely drop phones, too, so. Your luck may vary.
posted by roygbv at 2:16 PM on November 17, 2007

I'm able to back up contacts, upload my calendar, and load mp3s and photos to my LG 8300, all using a program called BitPim..
I would imagine it will work with your phone as well.
posted by HuronBob at 2:48 PM on November 17, 2007

I used a chocolate (probably the same one you describe) until a month ago, and I used bluetooth to send it .jpgs for wallpaper and .mp3s for ringtones from my macbook. Nothing remarkable and nothing I couldn't have done with the usb cable. That's the thing... there's really nothing you can do via bluetooth that you can't do via the cable.

I have to second the opinion that the chocolate kinda sucks. It looks so nice, and is dead-simple to operate, but the over-sensitive touch surface makes keeping it in one mode while holding it up to your ear very tricky, and the buttons along the side for volume and whatnot are far too small to use effectively while talking. The camera is downright aggravating, in my opinion, particularly if you ever want to use the flash.

Not that there aren't things to like... best of luck.
posted by chudmonkey at 3:54 PM on November 17, 2007

I had the Chocolate VX8500, thinking it would be great to be able to play MP3s on it, do fun things with the Bluetooth capabilities and hopefully sync my address book between it and my Powerbook & MacbookPro. Unsurprisingly, it sucked to the point of uselessness for all those things, and the fact that Verizon cripples EVERYTHING useful about this phone (and virtually every other phone it sells) is the #1 reason why I broke my contract with them and bought an iPhone.

You can use a program like BitPIM to connect your phone to your iBook, and you can update your Address Book from the computer to the phone, but you'll be sorely disappointed with how badly some of your contact information gets munged in the translation.

I found that the only way to do anything useful with my phone was to buy a 1GB microSD card to stick in the phone, so I could move my camera photos and MP3s off to my Mac. It's a pain in the ass to always have to carry around an SD card reader to do so, though.

Unless things have drastically changed in the 4 glorious months that I broke up with my Chocolate, my advice is to not bother trying to get it to do anything useful between itself and your Mac.

If you're still hell bent on trying to squeeze a drop of fun and usefulness out if this phone, you may find the Verizon LG phone section of the great HowardForums.com useful.

I spent MANY hours on HowardForums, trying to hack my Chocolate to do cool things and hopefully get it to play nice with my Macs, when it finally became clear to me that I wasn't gonna be accomplish anything of the sort. I came to the conclusion that my time and energy is actually worth something, hence the reason I gave up and bought an iPhone.
posted by melorama at 4:03 PM on November 17, 2007

There are many different models of RAZR. The ones available through Verizon are often locked down, so that you cannot use them with a Macintosh without risking the contents with third-party software kludges.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:19 PM on November 17, 2007