My wife and I bought two LG Revolutions v2.2.2 in June 2011 - they are certianly not "multimedia or feature" phones like we have become accustomed. After 5 months we were starting to overcome and forget about the quirks and shortcomings when Gingerbread arrived.
Both phones updated automatically to Gingerbread v2.3.4, my wife's phone on Oct. 28 and mine the following Monday Oct. 31. These phones are junk now. When powered on they take 34 seconds from the time it vibrates or sounds indicating the power is on until we can see the "desktop" or home of the phone. When the phone is locked it takes 4 or 5 swipes of the lock screen to get the phone open. This is just the beginnings of trouble with the phones. The spacebar in the keyboard screen works after tapping on it 4 or 5 times in both messaging and web browsing. Most of the keys along the bottom of the keyboard require multiple taps with firm pressure to make them respond. My wife's phone, being so slow, games lock up while playing. I am not a game player so commenting on my phone having the same glitch would be unfounded.
When in the browser using the "back" softkey used to take you back to the previous web page. Now it takes you all the way back to the home screen. LG and Verizon indicate the fix is to download another browser from the market. The largest drawback in doing this is the built-in browser is small and does not take much memory and battery to run in the background all the time the phone is running. No frills no spills. With an different browser one has to remember to exit it or it drains the battery faster than these pigs do anyway.
The really NICE icons in the notification area for the 4Glte icon, which used to be red and blue, and the 1x signal strength, which used to be green, are now simply white - UGLY. The battery icon used to be colorful too but with nice colors. Now it's green, **bleep** yellow and flat red. When in the browser or market the progress bar (which used to be a beautiful sea green) is now also **bleep** yellow.
It also changed the size of pixels alloted for each wiget on the homescreen to a larger size making less room on each of the 7 home screens. Apps which worked comfortably in v2.2.2 Froyo are now requiring work arounds to cohabitate in the same space.
When in an active call the notification bar could be quickly pulled down to see an incoming email or text message. Now the phone has to be returned to the home screen to allow pull down of the notification window while in an active call.
The my verizon icon on home screen 3 has now been replaced with a my data usage graph which will take you to my verizon though it eventually if you click long enough.
After talking to both LG and Verizon on numberous occasions about intermittent problems with the handset after the upgrade, they indicated if the phone gets powered off at any point during the upgrade it will not install properly. Well we had returned from the store when my wife's phone started to upgrade (without asking us) with the battery at about half. After 3 hours of fighting to get it to turn back on we left it on the cabinet with the softkeys lit but the home screen black. When I got up the next morning and powered on the phone the battery was dead but the home screen with a message saying the upgrade applied came up. But the phone has not worked right since. This phone constantly reboots at will and often requires removing the battery and turning it on several times to finally get it to power up.
I replaced the battery in my phone at 7 pm (we purchased the dock and extra battery for both phones) with the extra battery and my upgrade started at 8 pm (again without consent). When I got up the next morning the battery on my phone was dead also and when I finally got it to power up it took over an hour for the home screen to become useful and the upgrade complete message to show. Then I started the journey to misery along with my wife.
Point is, they don't have the upgrade setup to ask the user and present a message the phone needs to be plugged in before the upgrade starts. There are many posts on the internet about failed and bricked phones after the force of gingerbread to the phones. LG and Verizon did not think this one through clearly before they rolled it out.
Verizon is sending us two handsets from their warehouse (new or refurb unknown) but the consultant promised they will have gingerbread applied before the phones ship. I was also told they apply the updates with a fully charged battery and the phone plugged into a power source. Truth is - maybe it might work and maybe it won't.
Will report back in the next two weeks with a report on the new handsets. Good luck to all those who own this handset and update package. The hardware is well thought out and seems sturdy enough. The Android OS Verizon hacked could have been a little more refined but with the update it appears it's like having gecko sauce poured over a great plate of pasta.
