Smartphone Review: Small but Playful

The LG VX9800 phone from Verizon Wireless is probably a little like meeting Tom Cruise in person. It's smaller than you expected and far more dogmatic about personal choices than you'd hope.

Standing 4 1/2 inches on end and 2 inches wide, the VX9800 is surprisingly compact. It looks like a thick candy-bar phone until you flip it open to find a keyboard, a color screen and a pair of speakers. It is one of the first multimedia phones designed to work on Verizon Wireless' new third-generation, or 3G, network.

Verizon bills this as the all-in-one phone that unlocks the door to a dazzlingly rich and informative wireless world. Unfortunately, what the phone actually delivers is a world with lots of limits and plenty of little price tags attached. ...