The LG MUZIQ targets, obviously, music listeners. But it approaches them strangely as it comes with a ridiculous 64MB memory card (able to hold a whopping 16 mp3 songs!) and a "headset adapter" but no headset. Of course, that doesn't matter if you own a better quality headset already. Touch-sensitive music controls located on the front panel work well and generate a quick vibration to confirm you touched them, very nice! It supports USB mass storage and the box includes a USB cable, that you can plug in to transfer your music easily. Or just use your laptop's memory card reader.

However, music uploaded from the memory card can not be assigned to ringtones, obviously to force you to pay for them instead of making your own. A classic situation. But the LG MUZIQ comes with a melody composer. The built-in 1.3-megapixel camera is nothing to call home about. Pictures were just typical of camera cell phones. Battery life was above my expectations and the LG MUZIQ recharges quickly. Instead of having only two assignable soft buttons, the MUZIQ has one "Favorites" button with 11 user-definable favorites. Great!

Text messaging was well-organized and straightforward but, for the record, there is a strange feature called "word prediction". It drove me crazy until I found a way to disable it. It pathetically attempts to detect the next word in your sentence but fails all the time and all you get is the annoyance of having to get rid of them. Nice try LG! But I'll pass.

But I wonder why we should bother about all the above since the LG MUZIQ suffers from a fatal deficiency: the microphone just isn't up to par. All my calling parties, without exceptions, complained that they could hardly hear me. I believe that's unforgivable for a cell phone and that explains the low rating I gave to the LG MUZIQ.