Updated 15 Feb, 2012, 11:00 am IST

REVIEWS / MOBILE PHONES / LG ELECTRONICS INDIA PVT. LTD

LG KU990 Viewty

21 Feb, 2008, 4:10 pm IST | Laiq Qureshi | Mobile phones

After being a relatively bashful brand in the mobile phone segment, LG has seemingly turned its focus on the lifestyle aspect. The Viewty is one such example of the company’s penchant for embellishing its devices. This phone looks very chic, probably in an attempt to take on some high-end lifestyle devices such as the iPhone and the N95.

At 103.5 x 54.4 x 14.8 mm, the phone is thin enough to be able to be pocketed comfortably, and weighs about 112g, which is the only thing that could give away its presence. The Viewty sports a 3-inch wide TFT touchscreen that can show up to 256K colors with a capable resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. Isn’t that cool?

The phone has well-defined contours and is a perfect blend of silver and black. Special care has been taken to keep the face bare by eliminating the need to have buttons, no matter how rudimentary. It has only three keys just below the screen: Call, Cancel and Back.

The right side of the phone has dedicated camera buttons, while the USB, charger, and earphones slot come equipped with a slide shutter on the left. Now, the rear of this baby deserves a special mention. Hugging the camera is a jog dial that's as fashionably insensitive as you can get. I like the idea of having to work up the volume of music or zoom in and out while using the camera using the jog dial, but not at the expense of comfort. The positioning of the jog dial may look cool, but is far from ergonomic, since half of the time your finger will block the lens’ line of vision while using the camera.

There are two things that will make you proud to own this phone: the 5 MP camera and the touchscreen. Speaking of the latter, the whole interface has been designed to allow users to use their fingertips, as in the iPhone. This is good, except the touchscreen isn’t very responsive. If you compare this phone with others in the same price bracket, there is no denying that the Viewty touchscreen takes a beating. A special menu screen can be recalled when needed by swiping your finger on the screen, in an entirely hit-or-miss affair.

The company has included a fat stylus the size of a lipstick. Not cool! While writing a message, if you are intent on using your finger, the on-screen buttons are bigger than usual but requires you to grow your nails for maximum effect. Not a hygienic option though. Having said this, let me just add that messaging on this phone is a painful ordeal.

Would you buy it?

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