LG Shine KE970

◄ Born to Shine From the Black Series. ►

■ The LG Shine KE970 ■

With it's stylish mirrored casing to front, and it's brushed steel finish to the back, it has to be be the most aesthetically pleasing of mobile phones on the market to date. Measuring 99.8 x 50.6 x 13.8 mm, and weighing in at 119 g. The LG Shine is a solid and beautiful piece of equipment.

When I went to choose a new mobile phone I scoured many mobile shops in search of a slim, neat, attractive design to replace my Motorola Razor which I had stupidly put through the washing machine in my jeans pocket when in a rush to get my washing done after our holiday.

I had always chosen a clamshell style mobile as I was fond of this action. But when I came upon the Shine I was totally taken with its slide action, as it was wafer thin, so beautifully designed, and the way the front slide could be raised at ease with just the thumb. It sits neatly in the hand, and with it's slim, smooth metal design it has a strong feel of quality about it.

At £140.00 from the 'Phones 4 u' shop it wasn't exactly on the cheap end of the market, but it was worth it for me because it was so pleasing to the eye, and it's ease of use. I chose the Vodafone network, as I have always found this to be one of the best providers on the Market for reception, along with O2 which I have not had a problem with either.

◄ The LG Shine from The Black Label Series. ►

On holding the phone you slide the front mirrored casing upwards to reveal the brushed steel keypad, this is beautifully designed and flat to the touch. It has the usual alpha numeric keys, speed dials, and of course incorporates the shortcut menu for multi functions. The microphone is placed to the bottom right of the hand piece.

One of the unique selling points for me was the navigation scroll bar. This has to be an innovation in mobile function design. It is a joy to use and accesses the various parts of the menu with ease.
The menu tree can be displayed in 2 ways. One is by grid and the second is by list type. It is set by default to 'List type'. The menu is accessed by the left soft key, navigation keys, and OK. All quite standard and simple to apply. The right soft key accesses the Contacts Menu which contains your phone book.

You have the usual attachments to the Menu such as: Profiles, Browser, Multimedia, call history, messaging, Contact, my stuff, tools and settings.

The LG Shine has WAP ( Wireless Application Protocol) access. This is where you can access the 'Mobile Web'. You can find services such as, News, Banking, Weather, flight info etc.

~You sign up for full Internet access which you can purchase from Vodafone for £7.50 per month, which will give you full Internet access unlimited, which is a pretty good deal, and fun to use. To be able to receive this you will have a contract with them, and it is not available for 'Pay As You Go customers'.~

The LG Shine also has an integrated MP3 player. The sound quality is pretty good, but it can become slightly distorted if played at too high a volume. You can transfer MP3 files from your computer to the memory of your mobile using Mass Storage. There is no software required, and files will be sent straight to your phone. You can listen through your headphones or the loud speaker function

◄ The phone comes supplied with USB cable and will be displayed as removable disk through Windows Explorer. Specifications for Windows should be: Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP operating system. There is no mention of Windows Vista, but I presume this would be OK also. It would be a good idea though to check before purchasing if you have the Windows Vista installed on your PC, just to make sure it is compatible. ►

◄ The LG Shine incorporates a 2 mega pixel camera. I find this adequate enough, and LG recommend you rotate the phone to sideways form when taking the picture, rather than straight up. It has a built in Zoom and many settings, resolutions, and effects such as Sepia, Mono, etc. The picture quality is excellent and the close up zoom is sharp and clean, and it incorporates a self timer. The time between 'snapping' the picture and the camera accepting does seem quite extended, and it doesn't seem quite as crisp as it should be considering the camera function is quite an important aspect when choosing a phone. ►

◄ The LG Shine also has a built in Video Camera which allows you to send a 30 second video file through MMS, or unlimited recording on the General mode. The quality of the clips are excellent. The Video camera comes with 2 resolutions of: 128x96 and 176x144. ►

I find when fully charged my phone will last about two days with normal use before it needs charging again, which I find more than adequate.

The LG incorporates predictive text, which is the T9 mode, and is such a quick form of composing messages, and save lots of time when writing them, working on a built in dictionary created by the writer, and added to, when new words are keyed.

♪ The ring Tones are polyphonic and are actually quite pleasant ♫ compared to other phones I have previously owned. The phone comes with Email, Bluetooth, games, and is also set up for conference calling. It also has a voice recorder.

◄ The mobile came in a stylish silver hard cased box. The LG logo is of a half face, smiling and the motto 'Life is good'. The box contained the LG Shine mobile. A DVD users Manual. The USB lead. A sweet miniature rubber which is designed for care of the mirror front of the phone. It comes with a cord which enables you to dangle it from the hole that is supplied on the top side of the phone, or for the use of a strap or mobile jewellrey. It also comes with beautifully designed headphones with variable controls. And paper instruction Manuals. I have supplied pictures of said contents at the end of this review. ►

■ The only real things that disappointed me were the lack of a protective case. I feel this phone could be easily scratched if not covered when not in use. And for the price my Fiancee paid, I feel a case should have been supplied. Another slight drawback is that the mirrored casing on the phone can make it difficult to read the menu when in direct sunlight, and needs to be angled downwards for complete visual accessibility. ■

Nonetheless it is a Quality product with each phone part designed with care and style. I can honestly say it is the nicest mobile I have owned. Stylish and functional, encased and completely made of metal, and lying at the top end of the market. I would say this is more a womans phone as it is mirrored and elegant, but I also feel it would look impressive in the hand of a man.

I have listed here some of the features of the LG Shine.

- Stylish all metal design with a mirror finish display
- QVGA display resolution
- 2 mega pixel auto focus camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens
- Scroller navigation
- MicroSD memory card slot
- Office documents viewer
- WAP
- MP3 Player

All other details and information can be obtained from this LG Link.

http://uk.lgmobile.com/webwar/main.jsp