Why it matters to you
Are you still holding on to your old flip phone? There is now a device you can upgrade to, if you would like to keep the flip form-factor.
The humble flip phone is largely considered to be dead, but that is not stopping mobile manufacturers from catering to those who prefer the older form-factor. For example, Samsung recently launched the SM-W2017 flip phone. Now, LG is here with a competitor — the LG Exalt LTE.
The device is a little slimmer and more old-school than Samsung’s offering. It comes with a 3-inch LCD display with a resolution of 240 x 400, along with 8GB of storage, which is expandable by up to 32GB through a microSD card slot. The camera on the phone sits in at 5MP and the 1,470mAh battery life is rated from up to six hours of talk time.
Now, there is no fooling anyone here — this is not a top-of-the-line device, but it does serve to bring in a little nostalgia with its number pad and textured design. It is available through Verizon and does not support Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) but it does come at a relatively inexpensive $168 and you can pay it off over 24 months for $7 per month.
Perhaps most interesting, however, is the fact that this appears to be Verizon’s first LTE-only phone. Verizon is working to shut down its CDMA networks because it plans on using that network for LTE rather than for voice calls — so ironically enough, it seems like this flip phone is in a way heralding the future of cellular connectivity in the U.S. It does make sense — in order to fully shut down its CDMA network, Verizon needs to move customers off of it. That means it needs to get old flip phone owners to adopt new phones, which is where the LG device steps in.
Is the flip phone making a comeback? No, absolutely not — but just like some people still prefer real keyboards like the ones on a BlackBerry, some people also prefer the flip form-factor, so it makes sense that manufacturers continue to offer one or two flip models.