The sound performance is rather good too; LG supplies a decent set of in-ear 'phones that produce a fine, balanced sound. Bass is good, with plenty of mid- and high-range detail too. You can also upgrade headphones, thanks to a 3.5mm jack adapter that's part of the two-piece in-box earphone set. Alternatively, stereo Bluetooth wireless earwear is supported.

The Secret comes with 100MB of internal storage, although you can supplement this by adding MicroSD cards (up to 4GB cards can be used).

For more free music listening, the tidily equipped FM radio inside the Secret can store up to 50 channels, which should be more than adequate for anyone.

Web browsing

While the high-speed HSDPA connectivity enables you to download tunes and video clips quickly over the air from network portals, it also provides quick access to the internet.

The nippy browser is pretty good at rendering pages in short order, with the usual mobile options to negotiate pages and optimise them for the mobile screen. It does use motion sensor screen orientation, which is handy, but you can't use the touchscreen to tap on links or zoom. An RSS reader facility also enables you to select feeds from your favourite websites and blogs for regular updates.

There's also web-based apps include links to Yahoo! oneSearch, plus YouTube for mobile.

A selection of standard organiser apps, including calendar, to do and memo, plus voice recorder, caluclator and various clock functions, come pre-installed, and you can sync with a PC using supplied LG software. Email with attachment viewing is supported too.

Decent battery life

Making voice calls, audio quality on the Secret was perfectly acceptable, with decent sound at both ends and strong signal maintenance.

Battery life was reasonable; LG estimates a standby time of up to 260 hours in optimum conditions or talktime of up to 229 minutes. With our average amounts of use we managed about 2 days between charges.

The LG Secret certainly is a stylish phone, with a real high quality build and finish. Its unique mix of touchpad and Touch Media control is novel and snazzy, although the limited touchscreen element doesn't add much extra functional pizazz to the device's overall usability.

Its high quality 5-megapixel camera and fine video facilities, alongside a decent set of additional features do, however, add much to make this durable but elegant design a Secret you might just want to shout about.