LG KU990 Viewty - A High-End Camera Phone
With so many phones backing the latest trends, LG has been pushed to the back of our mind of late, but the latest high-end touchscreen offering is hard not to notice, with it's 3 inch LCD display and 5 megapixel, xenon-flash featuring camera. It's also a highly customisable option, available in a broad range of colours and metallic finishes, so we were quite intrigued to see if it's specifications matched up to the gorgeous exterior.
And there is plenty to like about the Viewty. Firstly, we initially mistook the phone for a digital camera, as it looks and feels like one in your hands. This is no bad thing, as the biggest boost to the Viewty in the marketplace is that it chews up and spits out other camera phone models. Images taken on the Viewty are sharp and well-balanced, and can be uploaded straight to the internet via HSDPA. Of course you can also record videos on the Viewty, which are of excellent quality and can be put straight onto YouTube from the phone.
The bulk of the Viewty experience is the fact that you are able t shoot slow-motion video at an impressive 120 frames per second. Though we felt this wasn't necessarily a function we would use in everyday life, it is an incredibly fun feature to use and works really well in well-lit rooms and shooting fast moving footage.
Unfortunately there is plenty that we don't like about the Viewty as well, namely the lack of responsiveness of the touchscreen. It's quite fiddly to press and doesn't compare with screens such as that on the iPhone 4. Menu scrolling can be quite fiddly to get used to and we think that it is very likely to become annoying in the months to come. You also don't get anything in the way of an app store, which we don't like at all.
As the main selling point of the Viewty is the camera, you wouldn't expect it to be much of a downside, however it will devour your battery life in next to no time whatsoever, so you'll have to take your charger with you wherever you go. Though we were initially impressed with the photography giants Xenon adding their flash into the mix, we were really disappointed with it's performance in low light levels, as images didn't come out anywhere near as sharp as what we managed on phones featuring an LED flash.
The music player is also really annoying to use and there is a distinct absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack, so you're stuck with the headphones that come in the box, which aren't up to much. It also doesn't have Wi-Fi, however you get GPRS, EDGE and 3G as a means to make up for that.
If we conclude here we have a phone that appears to be a high-end camera phone that can deliver some excellent images and videos. When you take that away, the phone is merely a lower-end smartphone that is fiddly to use, has no app store and no Wi-Fi, which translates as the bare bones of modern smartphone technology.
And there is plenty to like about the Viewty. Firstly, we initially mistook the phone for a digital camera, as it looks and feels like one in your hands. This is no bad thing, as the biggest boost to the Viewty in the marketplace is that it chews up and spits out other camera phone models. Images taken on the Viewty are sharp and well-balanced, and can be uploaded straight to the internet via HSDPA. Of course you can also record videos on the Viewty, which are of excellent quality and can be put straight onto YouTube from the phone.
The bulk of the Viewty experience is the fact that you are able t shoot slow-motion video at an impressive 120 frames per second. Though we felt this wasn't necessarily a function we would use in everyday life, it is an incredibly fun feature to use and works really well in well-lit rooms and shooting fast moving footage.
Unfortunately there is plenty that we don't like about the Viewty as well, namely the lack of responsiveness of the touchscreen. It's quite fiddly to press and doesn't compare with screens such as that on the iPhone 4. Menu scrolling can be quite fiddly to get used to and we think that it is very likely to become annoying in the months to come. You also don't get anything in the way of an app store, which we don't like at all.
As the main selling point of the Viewty is the camera, you wouldn't expect it to be much of a downside, however it will devour your battery life in next to no time whatsoever, so you'll have to take your charger with you wherever you go. Though we were initially impressed with the photography giants Xenon adding their flash into the mix, we were really disappointed with it's performance in low light levels, as images didn't come out anywhere near as sharp as what we managed on phones featuring an LED flash.
The music player is also really annoying to use and there is a distinct absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack, so you're stuck with the headphones that come in the box, which aren't up to much. It also doesn't have Wi-Fi, however you get GPRS, EDGE and 3G as a means to make up for that.
If we conclude here we have a phone that appears to be a high-end camera phone that can deliver some excellent images and videos. When you take that away, the phone is merely a lower-end smartphone that is fiddly to use, has no app store and no Wi-Fi, which translates as the bare bones of modern smartphone technology.
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