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.