LG Viewty

Introduction:
The Viewty is LG’s flagship model, targeted as an all-in-one multimedia phone, stressing on the advanced camera features, camcorder and video playback options. It isn’t а direct rival of any device, but tries to target a consumers group as large as possible. It comes with the touch-screen and key-less navigation, similar to the iPhone but has a 5-megapixel camera with Xenon flash, which puts it next to the N95, K850 and other camera-dedicated phones. It isn’t а smartphone but comes with a bag full of surprises, including manual focus, 120fps video capture and DivX playback.


Design:
The first thing most will notice is the huge 3-inch widescreen with 240x400 pixels resolution and up to 262’144 colors. While it is very bright and with a very good image, we would have liked to see a sensor for controlling its brightness level, to help reducing the battery consumption. It is touch sensitive and can be pressed with any object, not only with finger as in phones like the Prada or the Armani. The sensitivity is ok but scrolling needs some getting used to – you don’t have to just sweep your finger but do as if you grab the screen and then move it up or down.

On the front there are only three hardware keys, as in the Prada and Voyager phones: Send, Clear and End. They are in the same glossy black and while inactive merge with the front panel, but when the display is operational they are illuminated in respectively green, white and red.



LG ‘Viewty’ Phone [LG-KU990] - Technical Specifications

- 5 Mega Pixel camera certified by Schneider
-Kreuznach for clear shots
- Manual Focus & Auto Focus
- Xenon light for shot in low light
- Mobile XD Engine
- 30fps VGA, 262K TFT LCD for clearer and sharper pictures and videos
- Video can be filmed endlessly according to memory capacity
- Ultra High speed video capture (120fps)
- Divx Playback (up to VGA 30fps)- H.264, H.263, MPEG4
- TV out
- HSDPA 3.6Mbps, EDGE
- WAP 2.0
- Bluetooth 1.2 (AD2P,BPP)- USB 2.0 High Speed/ Bluetooth 1.2
- PictBridge(Printer direct connect via USB cable) &BPP (via Bluetooth)
- MP3 Player





LG Viewty’s software is identical to the one of the Prada phone in some aspects, but there also are a significant amount of changes. Many things are improved to match the increased functionality yet the good look of the menus remains.

The home screen is almost empty by default. There is a line with service information on the top and in the bottom are four shortcuts: Menu, Dialing pad, Messaging and Phonebook. An option in the menu allows you to put a Clock, Calendar or both in the center of the screen. Tap anywhere in the empty space, and two animated arrows (left and right) will appear above the shortcuts; touch one of them and a menu with 9 more shortcuts will appear.




Connectivity:
One of the greatest drawbacks of the Viewty is its limited connectivity, which means it is not fully usable in the US. It is tri-band GSM/EDGE with single-band (2100MHz) UMTS/HSDPA 3.6MBps, making it suitable only for the European market.

The full HTML internet browser is definitely among the good ones on the market. Even heavy pages such as phonearena.com are not а problem, it visualizes them correctly. There are options for fullscreen, landscape or portrait orientation and for zooming out (so the whole page is visible) and then zooming in a particular part of the page, similar to the iPhone’s Safari. What we dislike is the way one moves through the page: although we are already used to operating the phone, scrolling in any direction works but is far from the iPhone, which is much more adequate.