Saturday night, a friend let me let me play with her LG VX6000 Mobile Phone for a few minutes. If you haven't seen one of these, you probably will because it might be the only camera phone that Verizon Wireless currently sells.

This is a very striking phone, eliciting something close to the reaction that my old Nokia 8810 used to get. Probably the biggest traffic-stopper is the extremely bright three-line external OEL color display. When you close this clamshell, the external display shows time and status information for a liitle while. During that time, the phone displays a simple-but-mesmorizing series of animated dots above the icons for signal strength, message waiting, and alike. CNET called the dots "Tron-like" in their review and I agree with them.

I got a chance to look at some of the pictures that this camera produced, and they seemed clear when I looked at them on the phone's built-in display. I probably ought to make contact with my friend and have her send me one of the pictures, so I can look at it on my PC. From what I understand, reception on this unit is good, but I've come to expect that on any phone that Verizon sells.

It's a little hard for me to understand why Verizon is rolling out camera phones so slowly compared to other major carriers in the United States. But, this is a good one. It's not too expensive, particularly when you consider the brightness of the internal and external displays. None of the other color phones I've seemed this bright.