As usual, I go into the phone shop to renew my contract telling myself to get the most sensible hard wearing phone for calling. However I come out with the one with the most gadgets! Came free on a contract, but if your looking to get this on pay as you go be expecting to pay up to £400.
This is a good phone for those of you looking for something a bit more than your ordinary mobile. I aquired it because I happened to need a new camera. The 5 megapixle's are more than enough to be used as a primary digital camera and theres pleanty of memory even without expanding it up to 2gb with an SD micro card. The camera really is great, I can shake the phone vigorously while taking a photo and still get a perfect shot. The auto focus and auto flash mean that there is no fiddling around with settings every time you need to take a quick snap.
Using the phone in general did take a fair bit of getting used to. The touch screen is not something for those of you who dont like fiddley electronics (me). Simply scrolling up and down through your list of contacts is something which is hard to master, you have to touch and then drag up or down although it really isnt that simple as the pressure of the touch has to be just perfect, and too hard or too soft will result in you selecting whatever it was at the point you touched. Input in general is actually quite simple. Every time you sucsessfully touch a digit or icon on the screen the phone will give a short sharp vibration to confirm. So texting can be acheived just as quickly as with a normal button configuration. You can input letters with either the normal phone digits in T9 mode, a tiny keyboard with the phone held horizontally (not for the big fingered) or handwriting recognition which you use with the LG stylus included with the phone (sadly not internally, attaches with a lanyard).
As with most modern mobiles, the LG Viewty can be used as an MP3 player. The phone functions well playing music however the software which it comes with is not user friendly. It does'nt convert music files into MP3 so if you have any .wav or other sound files they will get copied to the phone but will not be playable. Other phones and MP3 players I have used, automatically convert all music files into MP3. So if you want to copy one of your CD's to your phone to listen to, you have to find a way of converting the whole thing to MP3 first. The LG sync program is in general hard to get to grips with. This does let the phone down considerably in my opinion as I have enjoyed using previous mobiles as MP3 players effortlessly.
Battery life does'nt seem that great, it needs a charge with every 2 days of normal use. This is understandable though with that nice big colourful screen.
I dropped my Viewty while taking a photo the first day I owned it! From about 5 foot onto a hard wooden floor. I nearly cried expecting the worst but found it to be completly damage free and hasnt gone wrong once.
Overall this is a great thing to have in your pocket (ok alongside a decent MP3 player). I've taken loads of great photos with the camera and regularly made general phone calls and texts without a problem. Once you have learned your way with the touch screen, Its really quite a pleasure to use!
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A good first review, and welcome to Ciao. Only one complaint - I find it 'off putting' to read one big 'lump' of text - would much improve if you paragraph/section it better. BUT a very helpful review otherwise so well done. - if you decide to edit it let me know -drop a line in my GB - and will happily re-rate. Manda. :o)
very helpful by (67%):
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