The LG KF700 looks like a familiar touchscreen phone – the front dominated by a large 3-inch screen with no buttons to be seen. But LG has equipped it with a slide out numberpad at the bottom for more conventional number dialling and text tapping.

In addition, this triple-action phone has a novel Shortcut Dial on the side for quick access to a bunch of functions and applications, and for menu scrolling and other operational duties.

This versatile approach to the touchscreen, is designed to cover as many user control preferences as possible. LG has determined that each type of control does the function that best suits its input method.

Minimalist design

Touch isn’t its only strength, however. This is a 3G phone supporting high-speed HSDPA download technology, and there’s multimedia player functionality for music and video, plus a full web browser. A decent 3-megapixel camera with an autofocus system and flash is also part of the spec.

In case you’re wondering, the KF700 doesn’t support Wi-Fi, nor is it based on any smartphone operating system. Instead, LG has geared up the device with a version of its in-house touchscreen-based user interface.

To accommodate the sizeable display and slider the KF700 has the build of a stocky candybar phone, measuring 102(h) x 51(w) x 14.5(d) mm, weighing in at a respectable 107g.

The front design is minimalist. No buttons, just the 240x480 pixels, 3-inch, 262K-colour TFT touchscreen, a camera perched above it for face-to-face 3G video-calling, and the LG logo.

On the top of the phone is a covered slot for MicroSD card expansion – it supports cards up to 2GB, on top of its 90MB onboard storage.

Friendly interface

On one side of the phone is the LG connector socket for earphones, charger and data cable, plus the useful screen lock/unlock button and a camera key for booting up the shooter and taking snaps. The other flank has the Shortcut Dial poking out, for left-handed thumb or right-handed finger operation.

A button beneath this activates the Shortcut Dial feature, which displays a semi-circular rotating carousel of six icons onscreen (you can set these yourself if you like). You can twirl between these and press the screen or button to select.