The new LG’s KU990 is undeniably a slinky number in the world of mobiles phones. It’s a slim and good looking and doesn’t feel plasticky. In simple terms this is a camera that you can ring people on as well as watch TV, browse the web and listen to music. Its large 66 mm touch pad screen occupies most of the front making it look like a tiny plasma whilst on the reverse, a lens encircled by jog wheel used to control the zoom and navigate through menus and adjust volume, gives the familiar appearance of a camera!

Navigation is made straight forward and friendly by the large and sensible icon layout on the touch screen. Helpfully, you can also set the touchpad to vibrate when you touch it – confirming each selection. Although the icons and buttons on the touchpad are a good size, not having small fingers or long fingernails be a disadvantage, but if this is the case, the small extendable stylus on standby. The only slightly annoying thing is the storage of the stylus which dangles untidily from the top of the phone.

I found messaging slightly easier then on my usual phone – being able to swap swiftly from predictive text to alphabetical to numerical. There is also a clever little handwriting entry feature using the small extendable stylus, but disappointingly this led to errors in recognition and was slower than texting via the keypad. You can also text using a QWERTY keyboard if you wish.

The 5 megapixel camera is easy to access with dedicated camera buttons on the side which just as easily allows movie shooting and playback. As with many digital cameras there is an annoyingly long delay between button-press and shot resulting in missed moments when your subject moves – not great for taking pictures of children!

Viewing your pictures is almost as good as having your prints in your hand especially when using the landscape setting. Images can be viewed either as standard thumbnail or scattered around the screen which is quite snazzy. You can also zoom in and move your pictures around by brushing your finger over it which means you don’t miss any detail.

There is a comprehensive editing suite for images and video footage and the software included is easy to install and use which also allows you back up all you phones data. There is also a music player and FM radio.

The web browser is easy to use and allows you to see full web pages and then to zoom. You can even open up two windows at once and toggle between the two.

Battery life can be short if you find yourself playing with all the features – if using the camera on a day or night out, browsing the web and viewing images you will need your charger every couple of days.

In all, the KU990 is easy to get going with but with lots to keep the most active of minds busy.

Full specifications can be found on the official LG site.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: