My problem with touch screens is they’re not like buttons. They are, of course, much better looking than buttons, especially on cramped devices such as cell phones, but when I’m typing, be it on a computer keyboard or a handheld, I like the sensation of pressing something solid. Without that tactile feedback, I just don’t feel my device and I are communicating.

LG Electronics seems to understand. The designers behind LG’s Voyager VX10000 clearly took pains to make this touch-screen phone not only beautiful, but delightfully user-friendly. At $300 with a two-year Verizon contract, the Voyager is fairly pricey compared with most cell phones. But it’s also more wallet-friendly than many BlackBerrys, Treos, and iPhones — devices with higher-end features the Voyager also offers.

When you press Voyager’s external touch screen, which measures nearly 3 in. diagonally, it vibrates slightly beneath your finger. This reaction from LG’s VibeTouch technology lets you know the device has registered your tap in the same way you’ve been conditioned to expect from any keyboard or keypad — by feel. It’s a little thing. But for high-end phones, it’s the little things that matter.

It’s Simpler To Use the Keys

Voyager has plenty of features that make it easy for push-button people to join the minimalist, mobile future. In particular, this device opens like a clam to reveal a pearl of a keyboard. This full QWERTY board’s keys are big and not jammed together. There’s also a mini-mouse for scrolling and clicking on the large inner screen’s commands and links.

The keyboard is particularly important in this device because the touch screen has some frustrating failings. For starters, it doesn’t share the multi-touch capability of Apple’s iPhone, which lets you swipe a finger across the screen to see the other side of a Web page or the lower half of…