LG has announced yet another cellphone that has touchscreen as one of the main features. The LG KP500 is a touchscreen phone for those on a budget. It’s a compact device but with a large touchscreen display that’s easy and fun to use. With a 3.2 megapixel camera, a media player, an FM radio, Bluetooth wireless connectivity and a memory card slot, this phone has all the essentials. Although it misses out on 3G and a top class camera, it has most features that most people will want, and for the money you’d be hard pressed to find anything better than this!
The LG KP500 is nicknamed the Cookie. It’s billed as an affordable touchscreen phone and in fact there are some amazing deals out there to tempt you. But before you rush off to buy one, join us in a tour of the Cookie, and let’s find out what’s missing compared to the more expensive rival touchscreen phones.
Let’s start by looking at what you do get. You get a genuine touchscreen-driven phone (not just one with touch-sensitive buttons) that is controlled by pressing virtual buttons and icons with your finger or the stylus that’s supplied with the phone.
In the early days touchscreen phones were often tricky to use, but these days they’re all pretty easy once you’ve got used to them. We don’t think that the Cookie will pose any trouble, although some may find the stylus a nuisance. Anyway, great fun to use! The KP500 also has a built-in accelerometer, which simply means that it senses which way is up and automatically rotates the display.
The virtual QWERTY keyboard slides into view when you turn the phone to landscape mode, which looks very cool. The accelerometer is also used when playing games, so you can tilt and turn the phone Wii-style to control movement. You can shake and flip the phone at other times to control various functions. It’s all great fun, as long as you don’t mind being stared at by passers-by.
The Cookie is more compact than most touchphones. It’s about 20% smaller than the iPhone 3G and several millimetres thinner than its big brother, the LG Renoir. And weighing just 89g, it’s probably the lightest touchscreen phone ever. We can’t think of any lighter ones off the top of our head anyway. But, and this bit is important, LG have cleverly made the phone smaller without reducing the size of the screen. At 3 inches across, it’s a big display by any standards, and when it comes to touchscreen, size really does matter! A bigger screen makes it easier to use, and the Cookie is definitely an easy phone to use.
So, the ergonomics are good, and the screen is good. What else is good? Well, it has a media player that plays most popular digital music formats. It also has a stereo FM radio. It’s got a good web browser. It supports email and has a document viewer installed. Connectivity includes USB and Bluetooth, and the operating frequency is quadband GSM, so you should be able to use the phone anywhere in the world.
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