At last, someone got it right with multifunction phones.

That someone is Verizon Wireless, which is offering a most amazing gadget, light-years ahead of anything I've seen yet.

It's the LG VX9800, a combo cell phone that also lets you browse the Web, write and read e-mails, take photos and send them wirelessly, view and take video clips, send and receive e-mail and text messages, and listen to MP3 music. It also has Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

Sorry, kitchen sink not included.

The clamshell-style phone is a 1.3-megapixel camera on one side, a phone with a screen on the other. Just 4 1/2 inches long, the phone opens up to display a nearly complete miniature keyboard, along with an extremely sharp, rich color screen. The screen is flanked by two mini-speakers. (Although the sound is a bit tinny, you get better sound quality by plugging in earphones.)

A stunning amount of engineering has gone into this phone, making it surprisingly easy to use. I found the phone's functions set up intuitively, so you won't need to consult a manual to use it. The buttons and software controls give you step-by-step information to guide users.

Within a few minutes of charging the phone, I was downloading and playing back news video clips. A short time later, I was busy taking photos and e-mailing them from the phone.

Here, Qualcomm's ultra-fast digital wireless technology comes into play. Verizon Wireless uses this technology, called Code Division Multiple Access, to great advantage in transmitting large video and photo files. It just takes seconds. I'm watching a clip from Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" as I write this.

The contrast to other technologies is stunning. Cingular, which I have for a wireless carrier, uses other technologies that can barely handle downloads at one-eighth the speed of Verizon Wireless. Only Sprint PCS, which also uses CDMA, can hope to match Verizon Wireless in data speed.

Verizon Wireless also decided to make the full use of the phone's capabilities, by allowing it to play MP3 music without annoying digital rights management technology. Music is played from mini-SD cards, which you can buy in any major electronics store. Just plug the card into an SD adaptor and card reader, hook up to a computer, drag and drop the MP3 music onto the card, pop the card into the phone, and play away.

Again, a favorable contrast with Cingular, which foolishly locked up its Rokr phone (which I reviewed a few weeks ago) with cumbersome DRM that treats all users like potential thieves.

Battery life, rated at a little more than four hours of talk time, is fair. You might want to spring for an extra battery or two. And, of course, if you do a lot of video or photo transmitting over Verizon's network, the charges can add up. But the price, just $300 with a two-year contract if ordered online, is extremely reasonable.

The only major negative is not part of the phone itself. It's Verizon's branded news service. This is just a bunch of repackaged wire service stories, transmitted without the news service's tag or the reporter's name, or even the dateline. That last omission can be especially annoying, since sometimes the dateline provides the only clue where a story took place.

News fanatics would do better to go directly to news sites, which can be entered under the "Favorites" category. I was able to log on to The Wall Street Journal with the phone, as well as The New York Times. My passwords were accepted with both, although I could not access my Gmail account that way. And sometimes, large Web pages would overwhelm the browser's memory.

These are minor drawbacks, easily fixed. I'm awed by how much LG and Verizon Wireless packed into this marvelous tool of the wireless age.

Contact staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at (760) 739-6641 or bfikes@nctimes.com.