LG Secret

April 29th, 2008 by Al in Phone Reviews

LG Secret

We got our hands on the latest LG mobile last week, the LG Secret. It’s the latest addition to the Black Label (not the popular lager) range and is the follow-up to the LG Shine: first impressions are it’s a worthy successor.

It’s tough
LG have taken notice of how the current mobile contracts last 18 to 24 months and have made the Secret a tough, long lasting phone. It has a carbonfibre back and tempered glass touch screen front (as found on Rolex watches), thus ensuring you can smack the screen with a set of keys without breakage (a cool trick for down the pub).

Interface
Input to the Secret is via the slide out numeric keyboard, neon touch navigation panel and the main display is also a touch sensitive. The keyboard is fairly flat but responsive and when the phone is locked can be used like a musical keyboard which is a nice touch. The flat navigation panel serves as general left/right/up/down navigation and, like the LG Viewty , it gives you vibrating feedback when pressed. The 2.4” TFT LCD touch screen runs at QVGA resolution (240×320 pixels) and has built in auto-luminance control so the brightness automatically adjusts to make the display clear to read in both bright and dark conditions. Unfortunately only a few of the included applications used the top touch screen and I found I was often touching icons to no effect, but as this is a pre-release model hopefully more applications will be included when it is publicly released.

Motion Sensor
New to the Black Label range, the Secret incorporates a motion sensor so can auto-rotate the screen when viewing photos and documents and has some simple but innovative Wii style games, like rolling a ball around a maze by tilting the phone or playing darts by ‘throwing’ the phone forward with a flick of the wrist (just don’t leave go … um, perhaps this could be another reason for the Secret’s toughness). You can also set the motion dependant m-Toy games as your phone’s background which is another nice touch.

Camera
At the time of writing, the Secret is the slimmest 5 mega pixel camera phone, measuring 11.8mm thick. Image quality is as good as you’d expect on a phone, you still get the customary lag when taking snaps. When recording video it has a 30 fps VGA mode or if you need speed over quality you can record at 120 fps in QVGA mode which puts many conventional camcorders to shame. The included software supports basic photo and video editing.

Conclusion
Overall the LG Secret is a pretty cool phone, it has a few quirks in the software (locking every few seconds when the keyboard isn’t slid out is particularly annoying and the top touch screen being heavily underused). Other than that it’s a good phone and the motion sensor is a great addition for the gamer. It might not look as sexy as the iPhone but it is hard.

The LG Secret should be available May/June 2008. Further info available on the LG Blog and Secret Mini 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:

10 Comments on “LG Secret”

The LG Blogger Bash » Self Made Minds Says:

April 29th, 2008 at 9:35 am

[...] Last week I wrote about the benefits of networking in person, in today’s post I want to share the general format of press event for bloggers. The event I went to on Friday, was for the release of the new LG Secret mobile phone (read my review of the LG Secret). [...]

Gaj Says:

April 29th, 2008 at 11:18 am

I’ve been playing with pre-release model too and I really do think its gonna be hot, probably winning some style awards in the process. I’m a little disappointed by the underused touchcreen too as it is pretty impressive in the apps that it is used it - you can tell that they intend to at some point.

Its a winner for me so far but I want to give it a full M.O.T yet.

Thanks for the review Al.

LG Secret, a mobile with Wii like control » Coolest Gadgets Says:

April 29th, 2008 at 11:38 am

[...] and playability wise) but it’s hopefully a sign of exciting things to come. Check out our review of the LG Secret on our sister Coolest [...]

Al Says:

April 29th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Thanks for commenting Gaj, it was great meeting you at the event and I’ll look forward to reading your review.

LGviewty Says:

June 17th, 2008 at 8:26 am

Oh my goodness!!!!

I just bought an LG Viewty recently until i saw this… What an amazing looking phone!

LG is making strides in the cellphone market.

Anyway, as for the LG Viewty, heres a couple of pics i took using my new baby:

http://www.lgviewty.info/?cat=3

Steve Says:

June 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm

Just got this phone and already found that this phone has serious flaws.

Videos have to be kept short because it is not possible for them to be automatically saved to the external memory card even though it says it can in the guide. They get saved to the phone’s internal memory. To create extra space the videos have to be moved one at a time manually to the external micro sd card which is a slow process.

The instruction manual is very brief.

The LG customer support lacked information and did not help.

The PC software did not let me import my contacts.

It is not possible to delete the ringtones that come with the phone.

It is not possible to delete all the text messages from your inbox in one go.

Rebecca Says:

October 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

ive got the LGsecret and its absolutely crap it turns it self of and doesnt come back on ive had it for about 2 months and it has already needed to be sent back it today has broke again so it will need to go back again
DO NOT GET THIS PHONE

JAke Says:

October 21st, 2008 at 2:02 am

Hi guys I have some questions well first off i wanted the Lg viewty though they stopped making them now Ok the LG secret looks fantastic and sounds good um. Is it that bad with the touch screen i really am considering getting this piece of art. Now what I like is Camera 5mp i also like full touch screens like Lg viewty though is the screen that bad please tell me a LG phone that has great camera, Great full touch screen like LG Viewty and has some cool accesories, good play back and good video.. is this what im looking for PLease help Aj

Sashas Says:

October 24th, 2008 at 2:17 am

KF750 (Secret) world’s slimmest 5.0 MP camera phone with carbon fibre battery cover is an excellent phone with over 4 hrs of talktime and awesome standby time. ITS A MUST PURCHASE…….

Yasmin Says:

October 25th, 2008 at 6:23 am

I have the LG secret and I’m equally impressed and unimpressed. The negatives seem to stick in my head more that the positives. The battery on my phone lasts less than a day, perhaps 20hrs, which is frustrating when I’ve got no songs on the MP3 player part as yet so not been using that not been using my camera as its fustrating, so no excuses for running out of power so quickly. When on calls is easy to press the buttons on the side of the phone (as they’re under your fingers when you hold the phone) and this puts you and the person on the other end on secret mode or silent. Basically you can’t hear them and they can’t hear you. Also when using the camera all the buttons on the side are confusing when trying to take a shot… surely they should be on the other side so aren’t accidentally pressed (which 85% of time has been so far by then the moment for the photo is lost). ALSO the flash is really bright making everything white, but when flash is turned off the pics still don’t come out.