The LG Venus KF600, provided to me by LG Blog, is a fairly new slider phone which is partially touchscreen. Unlike the LG Viewty, there are two screen (one of which, the InteractPad is touchscreen) and numbers and letters are inputted through a standard keypad.
The phone's key feature, the InteractPad, replaces traditional navigation keys and updates depending what you want to do. When the phone is shut, no buttons are visible because it is a screen which will power off!
For example, if you wish to make a call, you will have buttons such as mute, in addition to the hard connect and disconnect on the keypad, but if you wish to use it as a camera, the screen will change to having camera buttons (zoom in etc). For bog-standard Java applications (the phone supports Java MIDP 2.0), like Google Mail, you will be given a fairly boring set of up, down, confirm and cancel buttons. I wonder if LG provide an SDK for Java developers to create interactive applications considering the default games interactively utilise the InteractPad. Quite impressively, this screen has a resolution of 176x240px in addition to the phone's main 240x320px screen.
The phone is 2.5G, using EDGE which compared to 3G technologies is slow with a maximum of about 240kbps. Whilst I understand this is probably for cost cutting (or battery conserving) purposes I do think it's a disappointment which may put certain users off. To be honest though, I have yet to meet anyone besides myself who requires 3G but it would be nice to support features such as video calling etc, which EDGE cannot.
I am not a massive fan of the phone's browser but it seems somewhat fit for purpose (it does not like sites like Gmail due to their SSL (it doesn't recognise the certificate authority) and provides no option to 'cancel' on sites with 'questionable' certificates). Personally, I would suggest the free Opera Mini.
The phone is light but the exterior, especially the battery cover, feels like it's cheap plastic. One design feature I do like, though, is the fact the battery does not have to be removed to change the SIM card.
For the average consumer, features such as the phone's camera and MP3 will be more important. The phone has a fairly good camera, with a resolution of 3 megapixels and a 'flash' (not a flash which actually flashes but one which simply acts as a light!) in addition to an image stabiliser. It is also capable of video recording.
The phone's MP3 player can handle MP3s, WMAs, AACs and AAC+s. It also possesses an FM radio which requires you use their earphones which come with it (you've guessed it, the phone doesn't have a nice, standard 35mm jack!).
The phone's built in memory of 25MB is expandable using a MicroSD (TransFlash) card.You can easily buy a 1GB MicroSD memory card on Amazon for £5. You can also use this as mass storage by plugging it into a PC.
Call quality is absolutely fine and so is battery life, the phone having survived 48 hours with a GPRS connection (which was actually used for around 2 hours).
The phone supports Bluetooth, but not IrDA or WLAN, MMS and of course SMS. The phone also comes with some really nice themes, design by Keith Haring, which affect both the main screen and touchscreen.
What comes in the box?
A pouch for the phone Manuals A CD A USB lead A mains adaptar Earphones A battery Advantages of phone
Half-way between touchscreen and a traditional phone Good camera Fairly good battery life Compact Fashionable Good interface and menu systems (despite what people may say about G!)
Disadvantages
No 3G No IrDA No 'proper' flash Proprietary earphones Not cheap An unlocked, SIM free KF600 will cost you £220. It is available on O2 and Orange 18 month contracts, being free of charge on O2 if you are on a £30/month contract.
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