By 
Last week Sprint announced the availability of LG Muziq (LX-570), the successor to last year’s Fusic. To begin with, the main feature that sets this phone apart from others is the built-in FM transmitter, which allows broadcasting music muziq to your car stereo wirelessly! We’ve been messing with the phone for about a week and we have been pleased with its overall performance.
LG LX-570 Specifications:
- Provider: Sprint (1.9GHz/800MHz CDMA)
- Form Factor: Flip Phone w/ external controls
- Dimensions: 3.80H x 1.94W x 0.61D (inches)
- Weight / Battery: 3.14 oz / 4hrs talk-time
- Screens: Internal 176×220 | External 128×160
- Camera: 1.3 mega pixel camera w/ flash
- Storage: microSD up to 4GB (64MB included)
- Others: Bluetooth v1.1 | Multitasking Capable
- Special: FM Transmitter (88.1-107.9 MHz)
- Price: $80 via Sprint w/ New Plan
LG Muziq Body: 3.5/5 stars
The Muziq is a major improvement, when compared to its bulky predecessor the Fusic. The LX-570 is slim, compact, easy to hold, shiny, and lightweight. The Muziq shares a similar appearance with the LG VX8600 Chocolate flip-phone. Now for the drawback, the phone’s glossy finish attracts TONs of fingerprints and dust. The keypad’s buttons are nice and large for easy typing, however since they are flat typing without looking at the device becomes difficult. We also hated the fact that the volume toggle and camera buttons (side keys) were awkwardly placed on the upper portion of the phone, besides the screen, making them hard to reach. Finally the power port (also the data port) can be found on the left, while the microSD slot and the 2.5mm headphone jack are on the right.
Music Playback: 4/5 stars
You’d expect a phone called the “Muziq” to have a set of stereo speakers, but for some reason it doesn’t. After formatting the microSD card and loading about a 100 songs, the phone was able to get right into playing songs within a few seconds. The external display didn’t display album art, but showed the song name and artist. The main problem we found was that the UI for browsing through your songs was not exactly well developed. All songs are lined up in one long alphabetical list. (no search function) Since I had a 100 songs, it would take a 100 clicks to get to the last one. Although the phone allows sorting by albums, it’s still a mess. Sprint seriously needs to develop a new UI which is something like the ones available on most Verizon phones today. This means a decent search function as well as the ability to browse by albums, artists, genres, and songs neatly. The online music store has a large selection of music and songs can be purchased over the air for just $.99!
Displays: 4/5 stars
Both the inner and outer displays are decent. The inner screen’s resolution (176×220 pixels) could have been higher, but doesn’t look bad. The outer screen is excellent mainly because it is much larger than the external displays found on most flip-phones. One thing we didn’t like was that we couldn’t find a way to reduce or increase the screen’s brightness.
Speakers: 3/5 stars
Once again for a phone that’s called the Muziq, you’d expect it to have a set of built-in stereo speakers (it doesn’t) . The quality is decent, however it begins to crack at loud levels. The speaker preformed pretty well during voice calls. The speakers aren’t the greatest for music, but if you use a set of bluetooth stereo headsets or even a wired one using the included stereo headset adapter, quality isn’t a problem.
Digital Camera: 4/5 stars
Although most phones will have a 2.0 megapixel camera by the end of this year, the Muziq still has a 1.3MP one. The photo quality was mediocre since the image was a bit blurry and colors were washed out. The camcorder allows recording clips of unlimited length (limited by the storage space), however only clips under 20 second can be mailed. The phone also has a neat little LED light which can be enabled while recording video clips. (same light flashes for photos) The camera and camcorder have a set common set of light filters, color tones. Self portraits can be taken via the external screen.
Interface: 5/5 stars
Ignoring the music playback portion of the UI, the rest works smoothly. Although the original “Sprint” theme enabled when the phone is first turned on looks horrendously ugly, the included “LG” theme is a lifesaver. The colors, fonts, text size, and icons all look great. The menus load up smoothly and quickly without any delay. The interfaces for the browser, call history, messaging, contacts, and settings are neatly laid out as well.
MicroSD and Sync: 5/5 stars
The microSD storage works like a charm and access to the card is easy. In addition as a BONUS the LX-570 supports the use of 4GB microSD cards, while most phones on the market still are limited to 2GB. When the included USB data cable is plugged in a menu pops up on the Muziq prompting to either Sync Music, become a Mass Storage device (a thumbdrive!), or function as a Modem. Sprint also bundles a CD with some software and drivers for Windows in case the phone isn’t recognized by your computer when connected. Syncing music with Windows Media Player 11 worked perfectly. Mac OS X users will need to directly transfer music to the microSD card using a SD card reader. Deals: 2GB microSD just $20
Bluetooth: 3/5 stars
While most phones being released today are now using Bluetooth v2.0, the Muziq is still using v1.1. (not even v1.2) Despite this it successfully paired with the Samsung WEP200, a Lexus IS250’s built-in handsfree system, and a HP dv6500t laptop. In addition it also supports the use of wireless stereo headsets. The only problem we had was that getting the devices to pair was a bit confusing. Unlike normal bluetooth phones and devices the Muziq first requires adding a found device to a “trusted list.” Then only after this can the two devices be paired by entering a pin.
FM Transmitter: 4/5 stars
To clarify for those who didn’t read the “FM” portion, the LG Muziq has a FM transmitter not a FM tuner. This means that you can broadcast the music on your phone to radios, however you will NOT have the ability to tune into your favorite stations. The most common use of this feature is to play your phone’s music through your car’s stereo. If you plan to do this a lot, you should probably purchase a car charger since battery life will drop drastically. The transmission feature works as advertised. Only annoyance we found was trying to find a clear frequency to broadcast on because it required us to go through multiple menus to try each station. (Once it’s set there won’t be any more hassle.) Transmission quality was clear and it worked best when within 5ft range of the radio.
External Controls: 5/5 stars
The touch sensitive buttons work as well. To activate the controls the keypad lock must be deactivated by holding down the camera button. Once activated, when a touch-sensitive button is pressed the phone vibrates providing feedback to the user. When playing music The red backlight is bright and the buttons are clearly visible. Only problem is that it takes a bit of getting used to since you keep hitting the wrong button when trying to navigate.
Email Client: 5/5 stars
We added this new category because this was one of the first phones we’ve seen of this price range to include a built-in push email client. Setup is extremely easy for average users since the phone already knows all the mail servers for AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Gmail, therefore only requiring a username and password. POP and IMAP users may enter their server information and login. The simple email client loads only a small amount of text/links. You will still need to get to a computer to view any images or other media. Accounts can be setup to push new messages to your phone as they reach your inbox or to be manually checked. The client also supports replying and sending new messages consisting of only plain text.
Other Info:
Sprint bundles a good amount of accessories along with the phone and the charger. They include a USB data cable for syncing music and other files, A adapter with a microphone for use with standard headsets, and a 64MB microSD card and SD adapter. The phone’s signal strength was also impressive and was one of the better ones we’ve had in a while (It maintained at least 2 bars in places where we usually get disconnected). The phone has a contact backup feature which is now becoming quite common for new phones. We were instantly able to retrieve all the contacts from a previous Sprint phone we had instantly from their network (Only downside is the $2/month). Another bonus with this phone is the ability to use J2ME apps. This allows access to a ton of free applications such as Google Earth, Gmail, GPS Navigators, Pandora, and thousands more!
Overall in a sentence this phone is pretty good for the price you pay, but isn’t exactly the best music player. Even cheaper phones from other service providers like Verizon have better playback interfaces. Also unless you really need a phone that’s got a built in FM transmitter, there are plenty of better phones available. I’d personally purchase a better phone and then buy a cheap FM transmitter to go along with it. This phone is now available from Sprint.com for $79 with a new 2 year contract and after a $50 Mail in Rebate. It’s a good deal considering the included a microSD card, USB cable, and headset adapter.
DEAL ALERT: LG Muziq for FREE! (w/ new Sprint Contract)
Links: Sprint.com | LG LX-570 Fact Card
Offical Product Shot: Front Side | Flipped Open
Help & Support: fourms.skatter.com
this phone looks wayy sexier than the vx8600
but still cant pick to get this 1 or the upstage
i know this got the FM thing but upstage looks cooler
any thoughts?
I’d just get a better phone cuz this one isn’t exactly that great. I upgraded to it and im not such a big fan. if i were you i’d get like a blackberry pearl and just get a $20 transmitter to play music in your car.
I use a Mac. My iPod and phone was stolen so I thought maybe this would fill both rolls. WRONG! Apple has this kind of thing figured out. LG does not! Everything is hidden deep in a menu somewhere and requires too many steps to exicute. Since it isn’t Mac compatable I had to transfer mp3s through the Bluetooth, a slow and laborious process which is hardly worth the effort considering the lousy music UI. Just get and iPhone and be doone with it. Wish I had.
The terrible interface for playing music on the LG Muziq can not even compare to that of the iPod (or iPhone). The easiest way to use the Muziq is simply to place it in shuffle and listen to songs and skip those that you do not like. Also i suggest using a SD Card adapter to add the music onto the microSD rather than Bluetooth. (is way way faster) Also make sure you format the card, the time it took to playback songs dropped by a lot. Also don’t be to upset, an iPhone costs $500 vs. the $80.
Hi,
I just bought one of these and I am still trying to figure it out. I have a Mac with OS X but I can’t load music via bluetooth and don’t have a card reader. How were you able to load songs via bluetooth? It is telling me that my files are in an incorrect format but I believe that they should play. I normally use Itunes, if that makes a difference.
Connect the USB cable that LG included in the box and connect the phone to your Mac. Place the phone into the mass storage mode. The phone should appear as a drive on you Mac. Now just copy your music files into the ‘music’ folder on your phone. It’s that easy! The phone won’t be able to play purchased iTunes Songs, but CD ripped WMAs and MP3s work fine!
Thanks for the suggestion. I tried to connect the phone via the usb cable but it isn’t showing up on my computer.
Sahas,
Good suggestion for Mac users, I have not tried it, but I’m sure you’re right. But this is another example of why this phone sucks. The manual says that it’s not Mac compatable. Too bad if you use a Mac, we don’t care, huh? Just put it in Mass Storage mode, gee where in the labyrinthian menu system might one find that? Oh, just look it up in the manual. I’m sorry but it’s 2007 it should just pop-up on the desktop when you plug it in, that’s it. Just put it on shuffle and skip the songs you don’t like! Well, you’re right that’s the only way to use this thing because anything else is just too much of a hassle. I guess the iPod and iPhone are jtoo easy, the Windows geeks can’t take it seriously! It’s supposed to be difficult and non-intuitive, that’s all they’ve ever known. If this over-designed piece of crap had been made by Apple we wouldn’t need to go online to figure-out something as basic as getting songs onto the phone. Hell, I’ll bet the good folks at LG really didn’t know you could transfer music files onto it from a Mac. So far I’ve got 3 different ways to do it but it’s not anywhere in the 200 page manual! Folks, I’ve played around with the iPhone and I can tell you it’s absolutely brilliant (you don’t have to be). And as far as the music interface on the iPod goes, chances are most people reading this already own one and love it!
I’ve had my Musiq for 4 days now. Overall I like the phone. However, at the end of day 3 the external screen went white-out. I cycled the power, pulled batt. and restarted, left it off for a while, still white. However, after being off for a while the screensaver would return momentarily but in reverse. In two of our familys three vehicles, the FM transmitter is almost useless. The only way to get a remotely clear sound is to hold the phone right in front of the radio at a particular angle. It also works best if your touching it or your hand is in close proximity. I tried it on a clock radio and unless it was within a foot of the radio it had static. I manipulated the radio antenna and the phone but still on got decent sound if touching it. I’m not a great typist but its much harder to type one-handed. We’ve got two Motorola hs-820 bluetooth headsets and it will pair with them individually and has respectable clarity if the phone is on your person. In light of the fact that I have the screen issue, I suspect the problem might extend futher and maybe hamper the other functions of this phone. I wish it had an equalizer (even preset ones) and that you could play it mono through a bluetooth headset, but, oh well. Still, reception, compactness, and features far exceed my previoius Sanyo 8200, so can I really complain?
I will return to the Sprint store this morning and try to affect an exchange, and maybe I’ll have better luck. incidently, I did have a little trouble loading music. After reading some previous reviews, I saw where people were just dropping and dragging files. I did this and the songs were loaded on the card but not in the file that the player recognized. I didn’t want to reformat the original card because it has a file on it default, and I was afraid that it wouldn’t work at all. I will get a 2GB. card if they take care of my current phone and will experiment with it. I ended up having to use thier software and it wasn’t too bad. I was using Win. media player 11 on Vista home prem. on my previous attempt. Any advice on how to set this up more effectively would be great.
Does anyone know if you can load music from Yahoo Music Unlimited onto the Muziq? If so, how?
Do not buy the Musiq!!!!!!!! the fusic was way more practical. The fusic had a media folder, and they left that out of the Musiq to start forcing people to use the G** D*** sprint store. I cant even listen to music the way I want to on this new “musiq”. I was much happier with the function ability of the fusic. These guys just lost my business.
@wendigo992
Music from Yahoo’s Music Unlimited subscription-based service have DRM on the files. Even if you did copy those files onto your phone, it probably will not play since they are protected.
@Brendon
A lot of Sprint phones did offer a “second” player which was based off the phone’s own software, but Sprint unfortunately has removed it from their new phones. You’ll now have to use the Sprint Music Store interface to get your music to play. And yes I agree that it is slow and painful to use. (I don’t necessarily like Verizon’s interface for music either, but it is a WHOLE LOT better!)
Bought my wife and daughter each a new muziq. I tried to pair with samsung wep 200 and could not find a signal. Phone seems okay and works pretty well once you are setup but some odd issues do arise. Does anyone have ideas with regard to the wep 200?
I noticed that when the music was originally programmed, it did include a media folder. The quick pocket guide that comes with the phone says that when you hold down the player button externally, that it will give you the option of going to the sprint store, or using the “media folder”. Then in the manual it clearly states that the musiq does not use a “media folder”. Yes I know…I sound really pissed off right now because I AM! Sprint screwed me over- I thought I was getting an upgrade from the fusic…not a downgrade!
@sb
Hold the multifunction button down on the WEP200 until the LED light becomes a solid blue. Now go to your LX 570 phone and go to Menu -> Tools -> Bluetooth -> Add New -> Search. The WEP 200 should appear in the “found devices” list. Select it then choose “Add to Trusted”. For the PIN code enter “0000” and hit Pair. It should say successful! Once complete chose an alias to finish. The phone should take you back to the Trusted Devices list. Choose the WEP200 then hit connect!
Sahas Katta… Got it! thank you so much for emailing the information. Holding until same became solid blue was the key. My thanks to you and this forum.
The mass storage usb connect on this phone does not show up as a drive on my mac. The bluetooth capability is kinda buggy too. I was painfully uploading music to the Musiq and then all of a sudden (with plenty of space left on the memory chip) it isn’t working or reading the file anymore. Not sure what happened – the exchange file is the same… I guess I will have to go spend more money to get the disk reader for my mac. Any suggestions?
hey guyz, can any1 tell how to download songs on LG 570 MUSIQ phone, because when it finds the USB, its asks for a disk.
Yo waz up my old phone broke(nokia 5300) i dont know if i should gt this phone?
SHOULD I?????????????
I am very pleased with this phone. It was a 16th birthday present and everyday is an adventure into the cellular unknown. I would recommend this phone to anyone choosing the Muziq as their first phone. The interface is nice and endless amounts of free 30 second Tetris (that’s the only problem I had with it… No Tetris…) will amuse anyone. Highly recommended.
Alright If anyone can help can u plz email me.. When I first got this phone I had windows vista 32bit and The cd that came with the phone work perfectly and I could take music of my playlist and put it on the program it came with using the USB link. Now I upgraded my computer and use windows vista 64bit and the CD will not fully install on my computer, so now I have no way of getting music on my phone even though its plugged in using the USB cord can anyone plz help me thank you
Why is it that when I try to put songs on my phone from my computer they say that the songs are not protected? How can I change that? Or what can I do to get it protected so I can transfer the songs to my phone?
hey i was thinking about getting this phone? recommended? does it pick up finger prints, etc. very bad?and can you hook up the phone to your computer to download music? are the keys pretty easy to use for texting as well? thanks
my phone (the musiq) messes up a lot. i bought it brandnew and when i open it the screen just turns all white. that pisses me off! now im starting to hate this phone and i barely got it 2 days ago! can anyone tell me how to fix it or……..