Reviews MWC 2009: LG overview

The LG booth is definitely one of the must-sees on this year's Mobile World Congress. The crowd that it gathers is hardly a surprise, considering that the Korean company announced a number of rather hot devices. The main star at the booth is our namesake - the LG KM900 Arena. Running on the brand new S class interface the handset really promises an unprecedented user experience and loads of eye candy throughout the menu.

LG also announced quite a large pack of handsets at the start of the Mobile World Congress. While none of them manages to outdo the LG KM900 Arena which was officially unveiled last week there certainly are some interesting names.

As part of a demo at the LG press conference, LG CEO Scott Ahn videocalled Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer on his LG GD910 wristwatch phone. The answer for what the CEO of Microsoft might want in exchange for such a favor came a while later - LG promised to release no less than 50 phones running on the Microsoft OS until 2012.

The first step to fulfilling that promise is the announcement of LG GM730 - a slim WinMo-running handset. The fully touch-operated GM730 comes with a 3" WQVGA screen, A-GPS, Wi-Fi and a 5 megapixel camera. USB and Bluetooth connectivity are also on board and the device still manages to fit within 11.9mm of thickness.

LG GM730 runs WinMo 6.1 Professional with a touch of S class UI

LG GD900 Crystal is definitely the most interesting handset of the bunch, offering an unprecedented see-through keypad. The manufacturer is refusing to reveal most of its specifications, which suggests it's yet in a very early stage of development. The fact that it was only displayed behind a glass at the LG booth also kinda confirms that. We were quite disappointed about that since we are as eager as you to see what a transparent phone fells like (or at least what it's like to have a look through one). Well, we guess we will have to wait a little longer for that. The phone should be released in May so it shouldn't be too much of a wait.

LG GD900 wasn't available at the booth

Yet another disappointment for us was the pretty limited information about the 8 megapixel LG GC900. The handset was there for everyone to see alright, but was only displayed behind a window and only a small portion of its specifications was officially confirmed. Obviously LG are now focusing the whole attention to the S class UI and the KM900 Arena while the other exciting announcement will be kept for later.

The slider LG KT770 runs on Symbian S60 3rd edition UI and comes with FP2 preinstalled. It offers a 5 megapixel camera, a 2.8" WQVGA screen, and 3G with HSDPA connectivity. The internal memory will be 1 or 2 GB and is expandable through the microSD card slot.

LG KT770 offers Symbian S60 3rd edition UI

LG also announced their eco-friendly phone (still unnamed) that has a solar panel at the back for charging its battery. It is yet another handset displayed only behind a glass at their MWC 2009 booth.

LG solar-powered phone

Finally LG announced a bunch of low- and lower-mid-range phones, designed to suit the needs of the emerging markets and the users on a tight budget. You can check out their specifications here.

So completing the list of official announcements we move on to exploring the handsets ourselves. The LG KM900 Arena was quite naturally topping our priority list so once we set foot in the booth we started looking for a sample good enough for a brief hands-on.

First things first - the LG KM900 Arena was the handset that deserved the most attention so once we got to the booth we went straight off to exploring its secrets. And boy, were we impressed with how the device performed. Even at those pre-release stages the interface was really fluid and snappy, even with the huge amount of eye-candy offered.

LG KM900 Arena

Frankly, we haven't been this impressed with a touchscqreen UI since Apple had its iPhone, but this time we're talking serious firepower. The 3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen is amazingly sensitive and the hardware graphics acceleration is easily noticed. There was no lagging or holdups when browsing the menus and the all the animations and transition effects ran as smoothly as one can expect them to.

Here are the photos of the LG KM900 Arena that we managed to snap at the booth. The phone is pretty nice looking with the resemblance to Samsung i900 Omnia not as distinct as one can expect, looking at the official photos.

The LG KM900 Arena really managed to impress us

Apparently there are several ways of finding your way around the phone's menu. You can either drag your finger across the screen to rotate a small cube or select one of it sides to maximize it and than rotate it in full size.

Undoubtedly, both of those navigation methods bear some resemblance to the early HTC TouchFLO UI but with the colorful icons look a whole lot prettier.

Here is a short video demonstration of the LG KM900 Arena S class UI. It should give you the basic idea of how hot it looks and how it performs.

The LG KM900 Arena left us with excellent first impressions and we simply cannot wait to get a sample for an in-depth review. You have our word that once we get back to our office we will be doing our best to provide you with a review of what seems to be one of the hit mobiles of the MWC 2009.

LG Renoir back in black as KC910i, gets an overhaul

Just in time for Pierre-Auguste Renoir's anniversary (born on February 25, 1841) LG unveil an update of their own Renoir, which also goes by the less inspired name of LG KC910. It won't be much of a spoiler to say that a Renoir is only supposed to grow in value over time.

It's important to note though that the black LG Renoir is not a new model, but just a facelift of the original KC910 and both versions will be available concurrently (possibly in different markets).

The newcomer is still officially called LG KC910 Renoir at many sources but at the LG booth at MWC 2009 it was labeled as LG KC910i, so we'll stick to that to avoid confusion.

The most obvious differences are that the LG KC910i Renoir is now all black and has lost the mechanical camera lens cover. In hand, one can't help but notice that it is also slightly thicker - perhaps the same reason why the camera lens doesn't stick out that much now.

The mechanical cover is not the only change in the imaging department. The camera interface has been revamped. It's all new and improved and fixes a little nuisance of the old version - it no longer crops part of the image in the viewfinder so what you frame is what you get.

LG KC910i Renoir

Here's a quick refresh on the specs of the Renoir. It's a full-touchscreen cameraphone with an 8 megapixel autofocus shooter and xenon flash. The camera captures VGA video at 30 fps and can go up to 120 fps in QVGA resolution. Videos are DivX encoded and there's support for playback of DivX /XviD video. The microSD card slot accepts 16gB cards easily plus there's TV-out functionality and a basic document viewer. HSDPA, Wi-Fi and GPS are also included, which means the phone is quite keen to answer most user needs.

The LG KC910i Renoir will be available pretty much throughout the whole world except for the USA and unlike the original Renoir, the LG KC910i will have only a tri-band GSM version.

LG KM900 Arena multimedia powerhouse is as official as it gets

After a couple of leaks last week, it finally came time for LG to step up and officially unveil the KM900 Arena fully touch-operated handset. With a spanking new user interface our namesake seems destined to join the LG KC910 Renoir at the top of the line of multimedia handsets by the Korean company.

Peculiarly enough the official announcement brings less details about the phone than the leaks we witnessed just a few days ago. The company has chosen to keep the rest of its secrets for the World Mobile Congress, which starts next week in Barcelona.

What is certain for now is that the LG KM900 Arena sports GPS, Wi-Fi and the sweet 7.2 Mbps HSDPA. DivX and XviD support are also onboard and the new 3D interface, daringly dubbed S-Class, features some kind of rotating cube, much like the first implementation of the HTC-made TouchFLO UI.

While that is as far as official info goes, the info leaks of last week have revealed much more details about the handset. Seeing how accurate they have turned so far we see no reason to doubt them. That means that the LG KM900 Arena will come with an impressive 3" 262K color WVGA (800x480 pixels) touchscreen display. A 5 megapixel snapper will also be included and the handset is said to be able to record "DVD-quality" videos. We just hope this time LG got the frame rate right on that sweet D1 resolution.

The LG KM900 Arena will stand at 105.9 x 55.3 x 11.95mm and will weigh 105 grams, which are both quite acceptable considering the specifications.

Unfortunately there is no information about the availability or the pricing of the LG Arena ye

LG KF900 Prada review: Messenger wears Prada

For the original LG Prada the best way to travel in style was to travel light. But this time around it's carrying a full QWERTY suitcase packed with goodies. Top of the line functionality and an updated interface sound just the right kind of luggage to us. But good enough won't do if it's not glam enough. The new LG KF900 Prada may seem like the missing link between the techie high end and exclusive fashionware. But will HSDPA, Wi-Fi, QWERTY and DivX ring the right bell with the target audience?

Last week we saw Samsung ride on the Emporio Armani youth appeal and now we're back by the catwalk with the more moderate, perhaps even conservative, but nonetheless attractive, new Prada phone by LG.

Official photos of LG KF900 Prada

And we've got loads to cover. Are the changed form factor and the QWERTY keyboard likely to backfire, and will performance ever be make or break for the fashion savvy? Rarely has a designer package promised so much action, so let's roll.

Key features:

• 3-inch 262K-color capacitive touchscreen display of WQVGA resolution
• Comfortable QWERTY keyboard
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
• D1 (720x480) resolution video recording at 30fps
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Dual band 3G with HSDPA support
• Wi-Fi
• Responsive Flash-based interface with multi-touch support
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and USB v2.0
• Stylish and generous retail package
• microSD memory card slot (verified to work with 16GB cards)
• FM radio with RDS
• Accelerometer sensor for screen auto rotate
• TV-out
• Office document viewer
• DivX video support
• Fashion-related content preloaded

Main disadvantages:

• Two-year-old design
• The large waistline doesn't match the fashionable image (but is OK for a QWERTY messenger)
• Plastic build
• No GPS (LG Renoir has it)
• No XviD video support (LG Renoir has it)
• Multi-touch has rather limited use
• No Flash support in the web browser
• Video recording is a letdown
• High cost-to-features ratio (but OK for a premium fashion handset)

It was about time the first Prada phone by LG got an update, no doubt about that. Data transfers, connectivity, multimedia and user interface upgrades are spot on, but a hardware QWERTY keyboard was hardly essential. It's the Prada phone after all, and it probably needs all those buttons as much as the Sonim rugged phones need a Dolce & Gabbana carrying case.

Oh well, all-in-one QWERTY touchscreens are obviously the new black. Or so the LG KF900 Prada believes. Keen to find a niche within the niche, it lands right in the middle of not so friendly smartphone crowd. It's got the features to stand up to the XPERIA, HTC and the likes but it's kinda hard to imagine the ruthless WinMo machine melting with pity for the adorable, helpless, irresistible Prada.

Anyway, we think we'd be better off skipping our traditional round of window shopping this time. After all comparing the Prada to the smart messengers running Symbian or Windows Mobile will be irrelevant and unfair. There will be of course references to equally equipped messengers as we go, for both performance and looks, but that will be all.

Meet the new Prada

We couldn't find any other handset willing to embrace the LG KF900 Prada concept. The QWERTY touchscreen all-in-one segment is a small niche to begin with, and the haute-couture label narrows it down even further. The new Prada phone by LG finds itself in a difficult position so let's see if it's got what it takes to make the best of it.