LG Viewty KU990 Review
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
After using the LG Viewty for a month we’ve compiled the good, the bad and the ugly on this little black handset. Two people had the phone for a few weeks and swapped it to get different perspectives.
Good points
- Big bright and colourful screen
- SMS / notes can switch to full screen landscape QWERTY mode which is great for extra speed
- Touch screen is nice as buttons are big enough, (still press two buttons at the same time occasionally though)
- Touch screen tactile feedback is useful, and thoughtful feature when making a phone with minimal hard keys.
- Battery life is good for both standby and normal phone use.
- 3G - Good data speeds
- It can play flash / swf content. (although this feels like an after thought with not so great integration)
- PDF viewer built in, that works fast when compared to ClearVue on Windows Mobiles.
- Excellent bluetooth file support (Windows & mac) and file manager
- The bundled game “Space Commander” was a pretty fun third person shooter on rails game. Worked well with the touch screen.
Bad Points
- Stylus doesn’t sink into phone, the lipstick stylus is both gay and gets in the way when strapped on
- Camera doesn’t live up to the hype in our opinion. We are still looking for the wholy grail of a decent phone & camera and this isn’t it. Whilst the resolution (5MP) and the quality is great there is still a long delay between pressing the button and the camera actually taking a photo plus there is a still amount of blur when taking photos with movement in
- Battery drains quite quickly when using camera with viewfinder or taking videos (in contrast to normal use as battery is good there)
- Youtube one touch upload missing from certain operators, for example our phone on O2 this option doesn’t exist
- I found the jog wheel on the back hard to use ‘naturally’. Since the jog wheel is over to the left on the reverse it feels uncomfortable to use quickly (maybe this is slightly easier for left-handed people, shame it’s not offset to the right as surely most people are right handed?)
- Included software extremely slow, easier to use bluetooth or standard windows removable storage to move files
- No Wifi network capabilities
- Included screen cover didn’t seem to fit nice even when using a squegee (possibly had a badly cut one as it seemed slightly offset)
- When in t9 text entry mode there is no way to add words/names, have to switch to manual mode first.
Overall
A sturdy and great looking phone but not quite as good as what it could have been, still let down with the quality of pictures despite it being 5 mega pixels.
The DivX certified playback of video is a nice extra, but realistically who wants to watch DivX encoded clips on their mobile?
Thankfully the cold winter days are almost behind us now, and spring is always a welcome traveler. The Natural Gas Space Heater will come in handy next winter though, as it features an automatic timer that turns it on for you. 
There’s certainly no shortage of rugged tablet PCs out there, but those still undecided computing options for their next trek through the wilderness now have yet another possibility to consider, with Roper Mobile Technology introducing its new Duros tablet. On the ruggedness front, this one is sealed to IP-65 levels for dust and water protection and tested to MIL STD 810F standards for vibration, shock, high/low temperatures and the inevitable drops. Of course, all that comes with a slight compromise in computing power, with your only processor options being a 1.0GHz Celeron M processor or AMD Geode LX800, along with a max 1GB of RAM. The optional 64GB SSD hard drive is decidedly not low end, however, and neither is the tablet’s connectivity options, including optional GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and, of course, built-in GPS. No word on a price but, like most things excessively rugged, that’s probably best kept on a need to know basis.
We all know that Samsung is pretty much the champion when it comes to slim handsets, thanks to the massive marketing push of its Ultra II line of cell phones. LG isn’t too far behind though, having rolled out a 13.3mm thin 3G handset known as the LG-KH1800. Alternatively, you don’t have to call it by the long model number since it can be better remembered as the ‘Orange color phone’ whenever you’re in Korea, thanks to its enhanced orange colored keypad. Features include SMS service support, telephone directory, alarm setting, a multitasking button, 3G WCDMA automatic roaming service, MP3 playback, text viewer, a camera and an electronic dictionary just in case you come up short on words during a debate. Anyone wants to see this head across the Pacific?
