LG LX370 – silver – Sprint – a basic phone but great value for money

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Great call quality, simple and user friendly interface, doesn’t confuse with too many features, One Click interface is great for accessing the most used applications.

Thumbs Down:

Photo and camera quality is bad, small screen.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: CDMA2000 1X
Band: N/A
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Stereo Bluetooth, camera, music player

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

LX370 has a 2 inch screen which gives a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The handset can play MPEG4 videos and MP3 format for music. The phone has a 2.5 mm head phone jack. It has PIM tools like tip calculator, to-do / tasks, calendar and alarm
The phone is 4.10 inches big, 1.90 inches wide, 0.63 inches thick and weighs about 3.70 oz. The device can take up to 16 GB card in to the microSD card slot. 900 mAH lithium ion battery of the phone has rated talk time of 6 hours. The phone book can take 600 entries for your contacts. Grouping of contacts is supported.

Razzle Dazzle:

The phone is sleek, smooth but definitely not sexy. Such designs have been sported by Samsung phones way back in 2006 and they are outdated now. On the positive side the slider of the phone is sturdy making it easy to open and close the phone. There are dotted bumps behind the phone which makes it easy to grip. The front of the phone is extremely shiny and can even be used as a mirror. The handset is 1.89 inches wide, 4.06 inches long, 0.63 inches thick and weighs about 3.7 ounces.

Inside Dope:

LG gave us two phones before – LG Lotus and LG Rumour 2 and both of them were messaging phones. This time they are out with a phone for people who need a device just for calling and sending text messages. They have also thrown in some advanced features around takes the phone out of the ‘entry level’ category. The main features of the phone include One Click interface courtesy of Sprint, EV-DO REV .0., GPS and 2 mega pixel camera.

The display of the handset is rather tiny, it is just two inch big, has a resolution of 240×320 pixels and support for 262,000 colors. Even though the screen is small, it is vibrant and rich with color, the animated icons look very nice. You can change the font size of browser, notepad and messages and also the back light of the screen. You can personalize your phone with lots of wallpapers, alert tones and graphics.
We were quite fond of the One Click interface of the phone which can be found only of phones by Sprint. You get eight tiles and you can put in any of the 14 applications provided to you. As you cycle through the icons you get more options for the particular application. For example if you are going through Google, you get a pop up which gives you access to Google Maps, Search, YouTube and Gmail.
Underneath the display there are a few physical buttons like circular navigation button with OK button in the middle, 2 soft keys, back key, talk and end buttons. The end button is also used to power up the phone. On the sides of the device there is charger jack, volume rocker, camera button, memory card slot headset jack and voice command button. Speaker and camera are located behind the camera.
The phone is slider based and the numeric keypad is hidden beneath the front half of the phone. The keypad is very comfortable to type upon because the keys are adequately spaced away from each other and even though the buttons are flat on the surface there are lines in between them which you will feel while using the keys.
The phone can take 600 contacts in the phone book, a single entry can take 2 email addresses, 6 phone numbers, memo, IM screen name and web address. The phone supports grouping of contacts and photo caller ID is supported. There are four types of vibration and you can assign a vibration type to a contact. There are 33 polyphonic ring tones to choose from.
Other basic features on the phone includes unit converter, notepad, calculator, world clock, calendar, alarm clock, vibrate mode, speakerphone, voice messaging and multimedia and text messaging.
Other features on the phone include wireless Web browser, memory card manager, stereo Bluetooth, IMs (Yahoo!, Windows Live and AIM) USB-syncing mode, voice memo recorder and voice command. The handset supports POP and IMAP connectivity so you can set the phone to deliver e-mails from your client onto your inbox. There is also built in GPS with support for Sprint Family Locator and Sprint Navigation.
The handset comes with EV-DO Rev. 0 which gives you access to broadband services of Sprint like Sprint TV. You can stream clips from ESPN, CBS and other content providers. You can also purchase songs from Sprint Music priced at 99 cents per track. The music player is pretty basic still includes the features that you need the most like editing and creating playlists, shuffle and repeat. LX370 supports up to 16 GB of memory cards through the microSD slot.
The basic phone has a basic 2.0 mega pixel camera which can take maximum resolution of 1600X1200, it has three settings for quality and four tones for color. Other settings are fun frames, night mode, brightness, self timer, white balance, 4 shutter tones along with a silent option. Photo quality is below average just like a standard 2.0 mega pixel camera. The camera also lets you record videos but the quality is passable.
The handset comes with a trial version of few games like The Oregon Trail, Tetris Pop and Galaga. You will have to pay a fee to buy full version of these games. However, playing games on such a small screen is quite miserable.
The LX370 was tested for phone quality and we didn’t have much to complain there. We could hear the voice of our friends clearly and our friends too didn’t have any issues when talking to us on this phone. Voice was clear, loud and natural. Speakerphone calls were better than what we usually get, it sounded tinny but that is not unexpected.
LG told us that the LX370 has talk time of six hours. In our test the battery lasted for little over four hours.

Nitty Gritty:

LG LX370 is good if you belong to the category of people who just call and send text messages. A few features like music player, Bluetooth and camera thrown in make it a good entry level handset.

Source:-http://www.etechreviews.net/lg-lx370-silver-sprint-a-basic-phone-but-great-value-for-money/

LG Ally – First LG Android phone in the US

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Features latest Android 2.1, great slide out QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 MP camera, Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth and EV-DO REV. A.

Thumbs Down:

Photo quality is below expectations, the handset doesn’t have Verizon’s V Cast apps.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

LG Ally has a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen with 480×800 pixels resolution. It supports 262,144 colors. The phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera which records 640×480 VGA videos. Features for the camera include Auto focus, white balance, macro mode, effects, panorama, self timer, and scenes. Supported video formats are 3G2, MPEG4, 3GP and WMV. Supported audio formats are WMA, AAC+, AAC and MP3.
The phone is based on Android 2.1 OS. The processor is MSM7627 at 600 MHz frequency. The handset has built in 512 MB ROM and 256 MB RAM. The 1,500 mAh lithium ion battery has rated talk time of 7.5 hours and the stand by time is 500 hours or 21 days. PIM features on the phone include Calculator, Calendar and Alarm. Voice features include speaker phone, recording, commands and dialing. Email features include Push e-mail, Microsoft Exchange, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP. A-GPS and S-GPS is also included.

Razzle Dazzle:

This phone reminded us of other LG handsets like LG EnV Touch. Both the phones have same rectangular and blocky design and is wrapped in silver and black casing. The device is 4.56 inches long, 0.62 inch thick, 2.22 inches wide and is a bit bulky at 5.57 ounces. We won’t call this phone light but it is still lighter as compared to heavyweights like Motorola’s Droid or Devour. The bulk also gives the phone a sturdy feel.

Inside Dope:

LG has given a lot of Android phones in the past but all of them have either been for the European or Asian markets. In fact, this is the first Android phone from LG to make it here in the US. This phone doesn’t have anything out of the box but we still like the way the LG has delivered the goods here. The device has a nice display, the QWERTY keyboard is easy to type on and the performance too is commendable. The phone also ships with Android 2.1 which is the latest version of the OS. LG Ally is available for $99.99 and you have to sign a two year service agreement with Verizon Wireless.
LG Ally has a 3.2 inch touch screen display with resolution of 800×480 pixels. The display is made up of tempered glass and it supports 262k colors. You get vibrant and crisp images on the display. The screen can stand bright sunlight too. The display is capacitive and is quite responsive to our touches. You can turn on haptic feedback where in the phone will vibrate when it registers a touch.
Music player of this phone is quite similar to what you’d find on other Android phones. You can edit and create playlists and there are the usual shuffle and repeat modes. You can buy and download music tracks through Amazon MP3 store. Ally comes with 512 MB internal memory and the external card slot can take up to 16 GB of storage cards. This phone is a Verizon product but unlike other Verizon phones, Ally doesn’t come with anny apps for V Cast Music with Rhapsody or V Cast streaming video. But you probably won’t miss them as there is the browser for Flash Lite video and you can get music through Amazon store. However, this is a noteworthy omission

.
LG Ally has a 3.2 megapixel camera and there are three options for quality settings along with five options for resolutions. There are other goodies like five presets for white balance, five scene modes, eight effects for color, self timer, four sounds for shutter along with a silent option and also five special shot modes which include Smile Shot (this detects smiles automatically) and Panorama Shot. You also get macro mode, zoom and flash. If you think that all guarantees good photo quality, you will be disappointed. Image quality is decent but not that great. Colors were good but the images weren’t as crisp as we’d have liked. After clicking, you can geotag the stills and then upload them to various photo sharing sites like Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, etc.
The camera can also record videos and there are three options for resolutions 176×144 pixels, 320×240 pixels, and 640×480 pixels. The settings are quite similar to the camera. MMS clips are capped at a minute but in the standard mode, you can shoot for longer time. Call quality of the LG Ally was good but there were some issues. We heard our friends quite well and there was no static or any distortion. The signal strength was good too but the voice quality was a bit hollow and our friends sounded as if they were calling from a tunnel.
On the other side, our friends had a similar story to tell. They said that our voice was fine along with plenty of volume but the voice was hollow. Speaker phone calls were a bit hollow and the quality was still tinny. Music quality was pretty much average. External speaker audio quality was also tinny. We would recommend a separate headset especially since this phone comes with 3.5 mm headphones jack.
LG Ally is powered by 600 MHz processor which lived up to our speed expectations. However, there was a bit of lag while running multiple apps. The phone has a rated battery life of seven and half hours and the standby time is 20.8 days.

Nitty Gritty:

LG Ally has a good feature set and the design is aesthetically appealing too. We have no problems in recommending this phone to your if you are looking for a messaging device.

Source:-http://www.etechreviews.net/lg-ally/

Review Of The LG Crystal GD900 Cell Phone

Sum n substance:

Thumbs up:Insane transparent touchpad, good voice clarity, luxurious and dainty appearance, high sound quality, S-CLASS 3D interface.
Thumbs down:Bad camera quality,Limited DivX/Xvid playback features,The S-CLASS 3D interface is sluggish when opening certain menus.
Inside the trunk:
Band / mode: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900 ; Talk time: 360 min ; Combined with: With two digital cameras / digital player / FM radio
THE WHIZ KID SPEAKS:LG has always already come up with LG ARENA KM900 and the Viewty Smart CG900, which include the S-CLASS 3D interface. The Crystal is the third one in the list. What we gotta see is ,whether this one is better than the other two like its true in most of the fairy tales… the third son is always best, lets go ahead with the review to see if this comes out to be true for the Crystal as well.
Razzle-Dazzle: The designing of the Crystal is insane to say the least. The brilliant transparent touchpad just blew me off ma chair. Killer looks is something LG always comes up with, but with this one… I have to say they have come up with a masterpiece atleast as far as the designing is concerned. It’s a slider with 3-inch display  which is also touch sensitive and allows you to control the other functions of the phone as well. Also the display is equally fascinating with a support for 16 mln colours it comes up with awesomely amazing animated images.
The phone looks strikingly stunning when the transparent touch keypad is opened. It’s a nice relief from the conventional riggety keypad, innovation at its best I must add. The only drawback of the transparent touch pad being that it loves fingerprints. Its got edgy lights on the sides which just add to the plethora of colours.
The back cover off the Crystal though made up of plastic has a classy feel to it, plus it ain’t solid.
Inside dope:
The crystal touchpad supports many astounding features like multitouch and gesture control. Thanks to the brilliant sensitivity of the touchpad even the handwriting recognition feature works well as compared to its counterparts. The S-CLASS 3D interface is pretty much enticing to say the least. It’s execution is bloody brilliant.
The accelerometer didn’t impress me much though, it does accurately well most of the times but displays some lag at times.
The messaging menu is really simple and is kind of similar to that of the iPhone. Probably even a kid can get easily accustomed too the messaging system of the phone. Also the email settings are quite simple and more so if you use dominant email providers like gmail, yahoo because the settings are already preloaded.


There are certain changes in the phone browser in this one as compared to its other two siblings. The browsing app does display some amount of lag and needs too be worked on. Though browsing with the Crystal touchpad is an experience nothing else can match. Bluetooth 2.1 provides local connectivity and supports the following profiles – HSP, HFP, DUN, FTP, OPP, GAP, SPP, SDAP, SDP, BPP, GAVDP, A2DP, AVRCP, SAP, AVDTP, AVCTP and PBAP. Aside from it, you can simply connect the device to your computer with USB 2.0 cable.
It comes along with a  8 megapxiel camera… whooaaa.. I was tempted to try it out, and lo behold now I really wish I hadn’t tried it out… the image quality isn’t all that great. The colours were kind of unsaturated and nothing like what is expected out of a 8 mp camera. Even the overall video quality isn’t that impressive. The music player is quite a relief from all the clones that we have seen of late. The loudspeaker is kind of tiny but it the sound quality is not bad. Its functionality takes a backseat when it comes to the DivX player which codes movies being played at a resolution of less than CIF (352×288 pixels), with less than 30 frames per second and bitrate lower than 1 Mbps.The battery life is outstandingly amazing and can provide about 300 hrs in a standby. Last but not the least the in-call quality was good enough with no static and no echo isssues.
Nitty- gritty: I got the answer to the question I framed  in the introduction. This one definitely stands out of the three and is the best amongst them. The fantabulous design adds a lot to its weight. The pretty face has a lot of brilliant features behind it. LG has hit it bang on with this astounding marvel that it has come up with. All in all, I would say just go ahead and give it a shot… definitely a head turner.

Source:-http://www.etechreviews.net/review-of-the-lg-crystal-gd900-cell-phone/

Latest Model LG E900

LG is one of the biggest smartphone makers in the market and it makes different phones for various needs. There are high end phones for people who need all the features and the company also makes some good basic handsets for people who just need it for calls. LG has announced a new phone, the E900 and the intruiging part about it is that it has a 1.3 GHz Qualcomm QSD8650A processor. This is the first phone to have such a fast processor. The fastest processor till now clocked at 1 GHz speed.
It will be interesting to see what the new processor has to offer. Previous 1 GHz processors included in smartphones were fast enough for all our needs but then you can never get enough of technology. We expect the faster processor to take a lot of applications at a time without any slow down. The fast processor should also open up applications really fast. Some of the fastest phones out there are sluggish at opening applications like the camera. The fast processor should take care of all these issues. Most high end mobile phones are running on 1 GHz processors but there are also a few mid range handsets have slower 700 MHz chips which are really slow.

On the other side, we are concerned about the battery life. Manufacturers are coy over putting faster processors in their products because they eat up the battery juice really fast. It will be interesting to see if the faster processor gives reduced battery life or not. There is a trade off between speed and battery life; it is something that both manufacturers and users find it hard to digest.
The fast processor is not that only highlight in the LG E900. The phone will be having a really big 3.7 inch screen which promises an excellent video experience.