LG Shine KE970 > Reviews (72)

The LG KE970 'Shine' Mobile phone

I've recently traded my faithful old LG chocolate for the LG KE970, also known as the LG Shine. After having my previous phone a year- I was so impressed with LG as mobilephone providers it felt an obvious choice to stick with LG and upgrade to the Shine from LG's 'Black Label' series.

It can be bought from most stores/websites that sell mobile phones and depending on which network you are wanting it on- the price can range from 100pounds right upto 170pounds- and of course if you purchase this along with a contract it would be free.

Who are LG?

LG are an electronics company that started business in 1958- However it hasn't always been known as LG- it started its life as 'Goldstar'and it wasn't until 1995 when it became the brand we all know now. The company was founded in Korea.

They haven't always been involved in the mobile phone market- It wasn't until 2003 when they unveiled their first design of handset.

Appearance

Its a very striking phone, and earns its name Shine because it has a reflected screen making it seem like a mirror so you can look in and see yourself. It is cased in stainless steel and quite heavy in weight because of this, so I wouldn't exactly recommend this as light weight phone- but its still not a bad weight at 115g, and its a slim phone at only 14mm thick.
The phone is 100mm tall and 50mm wide. Opened up it is 135mm long.

The phone is highly attractive and in my opinion one of the best looking phones of the last couple of years. The screen is exceptionally sharp as it is LCD and uses 262,000 colours! Its also a bigger than average screen at 2.3 inches.

Under the screen is a roller button- its multi-purposed and it can be used to scroll through menu's and be used as a select button to choose an option.
At either side of the roller is a button- in most cases these buttons are pressed to confirm or cancel a request.

To get to the keypad you have to slide up the screen to reveal it. The phone slides up and is assisted with a spring action which makes it easy to open up. The buttons are stainless steel like the back of the phone and are pretty easy to press and use when writing a text message. They are backlit with a blue light when in use and its a completely flat keypad.

On the back of the phone is the camera lens which is positioned in the top left corner.
Along the sides of the phone is a shortcut button to the mp3 player and one to the camera- also the volume buttons which can control the volume of the keypad tones and the ear piece volume for while your taking a call. On the side is also one port for the USB cable, charger and earphones.
On the top of the phone is the button which releases the back to change the sim card or remove the battery.

The metal casing is very stylish, but it does have a downside where it picks up fingerprints and makes smudges on the back, its not a big problem though as they wipe off easily with the cleaning buffer they have kindly provided free! It attaches to the phone on a string and on one side has the LG logo and the other have a smooth piece of material to rub away those nasty marks!

Features

Camera

The camera is 2 mega-pixels and uses a Schneider-Kreuznach lens- which provides sharp good quality photo's. There are options for autofocus which will help you get a better photograph, and 2x zoom, 4 different resolutions, super-fine, fine and normal settings, Flash- which is a LED light, a timer to set the phone to take the photo on its own. It also has 4 different colour effects- Negative, Mono, sepia and the most popular- colour. The white balance can also be changed to suit the situation- ie if its dark, cloudy or just normal daylight. Also featured is the video camera with mostly the same features.

Schneider-Kreuznach

They are a company at the fore front of optics technology from Germany- they are renowned for their lens and joined forces with LG in 2006. Because of this partnership they are proving to be a fierce contender to overtake the Sony Ericsson's cyber shot as the best mobile phone camera. For any fan of technology the camera makes this phone a must!

MP3 Player

The phone has 64mb of memory built into it- but can also hold a memory card upto 2gb in size, which is a micro sd- these are pretty cheap to pick up if you purchase them from internet sites who specialise in this sort of merchandise.
The speakers on the phone are of average quality, although they are loud- the player sounds a million times better when heard through the ear-phones that come along with the phone. Available as an extra to buy separately is a wireless headset that works through bluetooth.
Also in the player is a built in equaliser carrying 10 different settings- general, 3d, concert, jazz, pop, rock, dance, live and country. Using the Equaliser can change how your phone plays the music to suit the song.
Shuffle is also a feature, where you can let the phone choose which one of your songs to play in what order. Theres also 2 different visual effects to have in the background behind the player.
Playlists are a fantastic idea as you can store your own music and arrange them in the order you want to play them in.

Making a call

The reception whilst on a phone call gets the thumbs up from me- I have had no problems, even if I'm talking whilst walking the reception rarely breaks up and I can hear the person clearly.
The ear piece has 5 volume settings- but I rarely have it above 3, as 4 and 5 are really loud- sometimes a little over powering.

Games

Java games on this phone are; 'Bubble soccer'- which is a game where you have to shoot bubbles to others of the same colour and eliminate them, and 'Fishing mania' where with working out where the rod should be in the sea you can virtually fish!

Bluetooth / USB

Two ways to send and receive files from the computer or a friends phone using bluetooth and from the computer using the USB data cable provided with the phone.

Flight Mode

Use your phone to play music, games and videos- even use your camera without causing a problem to the aeroplane!

Messages

Send text messages using the manual input or the popular T9 version of texting where the phone predicts what you are writing.

The phone can store upto 300 messages!
MMS messages are picture messages with photos, pics and even sound clips- the phone can hold are many as possible to the size of the phone memory or the sd card.
You can also send an email or a bluetooth message- which is a message you can send to another mobile phone with bluetooth providing they are just in another room to you.

Phonebook

I would defy anyone to fill the phonebook allowance on this! You can have 1000 contacts stored in the shine. You can programme buttons 1-9 as your speed dial, so you don't have to scroll through all your contacts to find the one you want.
Also possible is putting all your contacts into groups- ie; your family, friends, work collegues etc etc. In the phonebook section is a place to save your own number too- which is handy if like me you don't remember your number.

Web Browser

You can access the internet and download games, music and pictures on this phone, theres even space to add some bookmarks which is a similar idea to the favourites section on the computer, and what makes it a mini computer is it even saves your history!

Call History

Missed, dialled and recieved calls are saved as well as the calls duration and if you use the phone on a pay as you go sim you can also keep a check of the costs too.

Images

The phone comes complete with some images to get you started for wallpapers to change the appearance of your phone. As well as still images there are some moving animations too- which make better wallpapers in my opinion. Theres an equal amount of images for the male and females owners of the Shine phone.

Sounds

Packed with plenty ringtones to suit everyones ear- this phone comes preloaded with mp3 ringtones, or if you like you can use an mp3 song you have personally loaded in instead. When setting your phone up you can also choose to have a ringtone playing along with the vibrating battery too.

Videos

Unfortuantly the phone doesn't have any videos already in it, but as long as you stick within your phones memory you can store as many as you'd like.

Tools

Plenty of features in this section including an alarm clock, calendar, calculator, memo's, stop watch, unit convertor (to work out Area, length, weight, temperature, volume and velocity) and world clock.

Battery Life

The battery lasts me about 2 days in total and thats with average use, I make very few phone calls but I do text alot. The phone alerts you several times with a short tone to indicate the battery is low and the battery will flash to let you know if the phone is on silent and you don't hear the tone.
It also prompts you when the battery is full by sounding a different tone.

Overall

This is without a doubt the best phone I have had- Its stylish, reasonably priced, and has lots of features! It suits me as its easy to use, but looks good too! I instantly thought this phone was aimed at females, but I think its a safe bet for a male as well. Its also very durable despite being dropped at least twice!