Joel Spolsky Reviews the LG Fusic From Sprint

Joel Spolsky of joelonsoftware fame reviews the LG Fusic from Sprint, and frankly, this is one strong and very straightforward review. Now Joel is know for his knack for design and usability, particularly when it comes to user interfaces. He should–he’s into software design and development. So you can expect him to feel strongly about the shortcomings of a device and the network’s mobile service when it comes to usability.

Joel was actually reluctant at first to review the phone. After all the marketing people were having a field day sending off (free) review units to bloggers, hoping to start some buzz about their music- and video-download service. It turns out that they were in for some negative publicity.

The phone they sent me, an LG Fusic, is really quite awful, and the service, Power Vision, is tremendously misconceived and full of dumb features that don’t work right and cost way too much. So I’m going to review the dang phone anyway, even though if anybody from Sprint is paying attention they’re going to lose their lunch and some executive bonehead over there is going to go nuts and I sincerely hope that this doesn’t put an end to the entire free-phones-for-bloggers boondoggle, because I’d hate to get beaten up at Etech next year by all the other bloggers who would hate me for spoiling all the fun.

So what’s wrong with the phone and service, anyway? Joel thought the phone’s built was too cheap, and the interface unintuitive. The Fusic is supposed to be an MP3-capable phone, but it does not offer the usual functionalities one would expect from an MP3 player such as bookmarking and even basic capabilities like playing music with the clamshell closed.

Joel found the video aspect lacking, too, with no decent movie titles and a screen too small for viewing. The pricing for both music and movies was prohibitive, too, especially in light with the de facto standard that Apple had set, at $0.99 a pop (for songs).

I consider Joel to be quite fortunate. For one, he’s a blog A-lister. Secondly, companies are sending him freebies for review (hey people, if you’d like me to review some of your gadgets, I’d be glad to send you my postal address). But Sprint was probably wrong to send him a Fusic for review. The phone might have been considered decent and even cool by a younger, less tech-savy user, but it wasn’t meant for a tech- and design-savvy individual.

Here’s a lesson to companies who are starting to turn to blogging and bloggers for word-of-mouth marketing. Do your research first. And make sure the product you plan to market thru blogs are aptly targeted.