Phones used to be fun. Really fun. Before every device became a glass slab of utility, we had the LG Chocolate Touch, a device that felt more like a fashion accessory than a piece of telecommunications equipment. Released in late 2009 on the Verizon Wireless network, it was the successor to the wildly popular LG Chocolate (VX8500), but it arrived right at the awkward puberty of the smartphone era. It wasn't quite a BlackBerry, and it definitely wasn't an iPhone, but for a specific group of people, it was the absolute peak of cool.
Honestly, the name alone tells you everything about the marketing of the late 2000s. We were obsessed with "touch" and weirdly obsessed with food-themed branding. The Chocolate Touch—model number VX8550 for the nerds—tried to bridge the gap between a dedicated music player and a mobile phone. It had this dedicated side button for music that felt like a revelation at the time. You didn't have to menu-dive just to skip a track while walking to class. It was tactile. It was chunky. It was purple. Well, it was officially "Black Cherry," but we all knew it was purple.
Why the LG Chocolate Touch was basically an iPod clone
Let's be real for a second. LG wasn't trying to beat the Motorola Droid with this thing. They were aiming straight for the people who still carried an iPod Nano in their pocket alongside a flip phone. The LG Chocolate Touch featured a 3-inch resistive touchscreen. If you weren't around for resistive screens, count your blessings. You didn't just tap them; you had to press them, often with a fingernail or a stylus, to get the pressure-sensitive layer to register a hit. It was clunky by today’s standards, but back then, the haptic feedback—that little buzz when you pressed a button—felt like the future.
Music was the soul of this device. It came with a built-in FM transmitter. Think about that. You could broadcast your crappy 128kbps MP3s directly to your car’s radio without a single cable. It was magic. It also featured "Join the Band," a feature that let you tap on a virtual drum kit or piano over your songs. Was it useful? Not even a little bit. Was it a great way to kill time during a boring lecture? Absolutely.
The phone also used a 3.5mm headphone jack. That sounds like a basic requirement now, but in 2009, many phones still forced you to use proprietary dongles or weird mini-USB adapters just to plug in your earbuds. LG knew their audience. They knew we wanted to use our Skullcandy Ink’d buds without an adapter.
The Specs That Time Forgot
We live in a world of 108-megapixel cameras and 8K video. The LG Chocolate Touch had a 3.2-megapixel camera. No flash. If you tried to take a photo in a dimly lit basement at a house party, you ended up with a grainy, purple-tinted mess that looked like an impressionist painting of a shadow. But there was a charm to it. Those photos didn't need filters because the lens itself was a natural lo-fi filter.
The screen resolution was a staggering 240 x 400 pixels. To put that in perspective, your modern smartphone probably has more pixels in the icon for your settings app than the entire Chocolate Touch screen had in total. Yet, it felt spacious. It was a "wide" screen compared to the tiny squares on flip phones. It had a microSD slot that could handle up to 16GB. At the time, 16GB felt infinite. You could fit your entire Limewire library on there and still have room for a few blurry videos of your dog.
Verizon’s "V CAST" service was the centerpiece of the software. It was a walled garden of expensive ringtones, low-res music videos, and a browser that felt like navigating the internet through a straw. You’d accidentally press the browser button and panic, hitting "End" repeatedly to avoid the dreaded data charges that would show up on your parents' bill.
Living with a Resistive Screen in a Capacitive World
The biggest hurdle for the LG Chocolate Touch wasn't the competition; it was the screen technology itself. The iPhone had already proven that capacitive touch (using the electrical properties of your skin) was the way forward. LG stuck with resistive for this model, likely to keep costs down for the prepaid and mid-range markets.
Typing on it was an exercise in patience. You had a virtual T9 keyboard or a very cramped QWERTY. If you were a fast texter, you were constantly outrunning the processor. You’d finish a sentence, and then watch the phone slowly catch up, character by character, like a tired typewriter.
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- Weight: 4.23 ounces (it felt solid, not flimsy)
- Battery: 1000 mAh (lasted two days because the screen didn't do much)
- Dimensions: 4.30 x 2.20 x 0.47 inches
- Colors: Black Cherry, Blue, Teal, and a very shiny Silver
The UI was surprisingly customizable. You could drag "widgets" onto the home screen. They were basic—a clock, a calendar, a shortcut to your favorite contact—but it gave you a sense of ownership. It felt like your phone, not just a generic tool.
The Social Status of the "Cool" Phone
Owning an LG Chocolate Touch in 2010 said something about you. It meant you weren't ready for a "work" phone like a BlackBerry Bold, but you also weren't quite ready to drop the cash for an iPhone data plan. It was the "it" phone for teenagers and college students. It looked sleek on a coffee table. It fit perfectly in the pocket of skinny jeans.
It also marked the end of an era. Shortly after the Chocolate Touch faded, the Android revolution hit Verizon with the Droid Incredible and the Samsung Fascinate. Suddenly, "feature phones" like the Chocolate Touch looked like relics. We stopped caring about FM transmitters and started caring about apps. The Chocolate Touch didn't have an app store; it had "Get It Now," a slow marketplace where you could buy a "Tetris" clone for $6.99.
Looking back, the LG Chocolate line was one of the last times a phone manufacturer took a massive risk on aesthetic over raw power. They wanted the phone to feel like a literal bar of chocolate—dark, sleek, and tempting. The Touch version traded the iconic "glow-in-the-dark" red touch pads of the original slider for a more modern screen, but it kept that same spirit of being a lifestyle device first and a phone second.
Why We Still Talk About It
Nostalgia is a powerful drug. People are currently buying old digital cameras from 2008 to get that "vintage" look, and the LG Chocolate Touch is starting to pop up in the same conversations. There is something satisfying about a device that does three things well instead of fifty things mediocrely. It was a dedicated music player, a texting machine, and a fashion statement.
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It reminds us of a time when the internet wasn't in our pockets 24/7. Sure, it had a browser, but it was so bad you only used it if you absolutely had to. You used the phone to talk to people, to listen to the "Black Eyed Peas" on the bus, and to snap a quick, grainy photo.
If you find one in a drawer today, it probably won't even turn on. The batteries bloat, and the 3G networks it relied on have mostly been decommissioned. It is, for all intents and purposes, a paperweight. But it's a paperweight that represents a very specific moment in tech history where we were all just trying to figure out what a "touchscreen" was supposed to be.
How to Handle an Old LG Chocolate Touch Today
If you've stumbled upon your old LG Chocolate Touch and you're feeling sentimental, there are a few things you should know before trying to resurrect it.
First, check the battery. If the back cover is bulging even slightly, do not plug it in. Lithium-ion batteries from that era are notorious for failing ungracefully. You can still find replacements on secondary markets for a few bucks if you're desperate to see your old messages.
Second, don't expect it to work as a phone. Most carriers have shut down the CDMA networks this device used. It won't make calls or send texts. It is now, effectively, an offline MP3 player.
If you want to pull your old photos off it, your best bet isn't the software—which likely won't run on Windows 11—but the microSD card. Pop the card out, put it in a modern reader, and prepare for a trip down memory lane filled with 2048x1536 resolution mirror selfies.
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The LG Chocolate Touch wasn't a perfect phone. It wasn't even the best phone of its year. But it had character. In a world of identical aluminum rectangles, we could use a little more "Black Cherry" and a lot more "Join the Band."
Practical Steps for Tech Archeology
- Extract the Data: Use a microSD card to move photos and music. Don't rely on the internal memory, as it's difficult to access without legacy drivers.
- Battery Safety: If the battery is dead, recycle it at a dedicated e-waste facility. Don't throw it in the trash.
- Media Conversion: If you're using it as an MP3 player, remember that it prefers lower bitrates. Modern high-fidelity FLAC files will likely crash the simple media player.
- Display Care: Resistive screens are made of plastic, not glass. They scratch incredibly easily. Use a microfiber cloth and avoid harsh chemicals if you're cleaning the screen.