Ok all I have to say is this phone is SICK! A VZW engineer came by my store last night to transfer his phone book to the vx8500 he had just gotten (I don't know how or why he was lucky enough to get it). Unfortunately my store was extremely busy at the time so I only got to play with the
phone for a moment but here's what I can tell you about it:

-The picture featured here was in fact the phone i saw (I also removed the battery and the label behind it said vx8500).

-The phone is a slider with the camera located on the back of the part that slides up. (Meaning the camera is hidden when the phone is closed). I didn't catch how many megapixels it had.

-The phone is entirely black and does feature an internal antenna.

-The screen was of very good quality. I don't know much about the differences among TFT/QVGA/etc but the quality reminded me of my friend's Samsung "Blade".

The END button was actually on the side of the phone, along with camera button and one or two other buttons. The only thing on the front was a touch pad almost exactly what you would find on an iPod. That's right, it was a TOUCH pad, not just a few buttons arranged in a circle.

-The phone was very small. I'd say it was no bigger than a vx3200 in terms of W/H/D. (Not counting the antenna on the 3200).

-I didn't see the memory card slot but I would assume it uses MicroSD.

-The charging port was entirely different than anything out there. It resembled the port used for other LG's but it was only about the size of a miniUSB port. It was located on the right side of the phone.

I wanted to take a picture of the phone but the guy wouldn't let me. I can only assume he's under a NDA or something.

I know some will probably say that because I have no pics or other "proof" that I could be making this all up. All I can give you is my assurance that the phone is very real and I did get to see it first hand. (If you really must, take a look at my past posts. I've been a HoFo member for almost a year and a visitor for much longer than that. I have no history of outrageous posts or false claims).




Ok that's everything I can think of. This phone completely blows every current VZW phone out of the water. I can't wait until I get one.

When will they release it?

Your making it all up! there's no way this guy has it... haha j/k. I just had to say it. I believe this post because verizon loves phones that have different ports, and thus make us buy more parts. I bet we will see this phone in no less than 12 months. Thats about the standard testing period for a phone, which is probably why the tech had it.

that sounds pretty sweet. i cant wait to see it. man i wish i was the one testing all these phones!!! lol

chocolate anybody?

I tend to stay away from units thta have a slider. I had the palm t3 and the slider wore out. I didn't use it as much as my phone, which would probably wear out faster. I looked at a buddy's samsung slider phone and I can see it wearing out with side to side play.

.......ill take some.

ya i would kill a slider pretty fast too.

yea thats what im thinking

i think the slider wears out depending on how much you open it plus the force you open it with. like if you flick it open real fast and hard than it will wear out faster.

I'm not brutal with sliders, but I would be opening and closing it a lot.

Yeah sliders just wont do.

Hopefully LG will prove us wrong. My sole experience with slider phones is the Kyocera SE47, which most will agree was a pretty horrible phone (it was a Kyocera, after all!). The 8500 felt very solid; I'm hoping LG designed it well enough to withstand some punishment.

does the phone look like the chocolate phone from like phonescoop and phonearena and other pics?!?!?!

It was similar to the Chocolate phone, but the send/end buttons were on the right side of the phone. The only thing on the front was what I referred to as a "touchpad". It really did look similar to this, with a larger screen of course.

Do you have any idea on when Verizon will begin to offer the 8500???