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LG KF700

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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.

The numberpad slides out in regulation fashion – no fancy tricks. The flush keys are large and well separated by grooves. Although there’s a touchscreen, all text inputting is via the numberpad, so we’re pleased it’s fuss-free and finger-friendly.

Sophisticatedtouchscreen

The touchscreen is, of course, the key attraction of the KF700. LG has refined the user interface previously given a run-out in the Viewty. While you couldn’t really compare it to the fluid elegance of the (more expensive) iPhone’s benchmark-setting multi-touch control, the KF700’s negotiating the user interface is very intuitive and pleasingly responsive.

Delving into the functions from the home page is straightforward. Four icon-marked buttons are ranged in a row at the bottom of the display. Tapping one of these opens up a particular essential function – phone calls, contacts list, messaging, and main menu activation.

A further icon above these on our O2-branded KF700 sample (O2 has an exclusive deal in the UK for this phone) fires up the web browser, taking you directly to the O2 Active home page.

Another tab near the top of the screen enables you to place a clock, memo note, calendar or world clock on your standby screen, widget-style. Pressing the screen, you get haptic feedback buzzing to let you know your touch has registered (usually a must for effective touchscreen control on most devices).

Typical LG layout

The main menu button opens up a further grid of labelled icons representing functions. They’re arranged according to category, with another set of four tab buttons running vertically up the right side allowing you to view apps by category (roughly multimedia, phone, tools and applications, and settings).

This is visually very useful, and doesn’t overload the user with excessive choices or need to scroll. Options are easy to spot, and logically foldered.

Touch an icon and you open up the feature and appropriate sub menus. Simple. Sub menu follow LG’s usual convention of numbered options; you can scroll down with finger sweeps or press options onscreen, but if the slider’s open you can also press the appropriate number key to select.

The side dial can also be used to scroll through menus, although you can’t click in to select like on other dial-control devices – you have to tap the screen. That click action we’ve seen before on other phones would’ve been more efficient.

An intuitive mobile phone

You can sweep through lists and various other items – such as image gallery - using finger swipe motion. This can work better for certain menus or options than others, though, and doesn’t flow as smoothly as on the iPhone’s screen.

Nonetheless, these belts-and-braces methods of getting about menus makes it easy and intuitive to use. It doesn’t take much getting used to either and, unlike some touchscreen devices, isn’t frustrating to use for day-to-day functionality.

There always seems to be a quick way to functions, with virtual home, messaging and contacts buttons above each sub menu screen, plus a multi-tasking list so you can easily switch between open apps.

There’s no handwriting recognition or virtual keypad for texting or email, but you can neatly combine numberpad entry, dial selection and touch for composing and editing messages.

Effective camera

Using touchscreen control for settings adjustments, the 3-megapixel camera on the KF700 is a pleasingly effective shooter. It doesn’t bristle with the high-end features enjoyed on the 5-megapixel Viewty, but it does produce good quality images.

It is based around an efficient and responsive autofocus system and has a reasonably illuminating LED flash for low light shooting.

The camera enables you to take high quality close ups too, using the autofocus for macro shots. A 2-step shutter means you can select the subject in focus and then change the composition of a shot if you want to, allowing you to be more creative.

Vibrant pictures

The phone is held in landscape mode when using the camera, and on the lower resolution settings you can use the dial to pull in or out with the digital zoom.

The few initial menu options flanking the viewfinder image onscreen are uncluttered, clear and large enough to avoid accidental function-hopping. You can delve deeper with a settings button, but again, options are clearly laid out and easy to use.

Image quality is generally very good, with vibrant colour rendition and responsive automatic metering. There are few typical cameraphone effects and gimmicks in the settings locker, and you can also use editing tools to for a bit of post-shot in-phone tweaking.

While the KF700 can capture video, its quality is average, shooting at QVGA maximum resolution at 15 frames per second – not a patch on the Viewty’s video capabilities. Naturally, downloaded or copied video is played back in a much smoother and more assured way on the large wide screen.

Speedy internet browsing

The browser is another feature that LG has enhanced with the triple action control method. The HSDPA connectivity speeds up download time, so pages load faster.

You can view in portrait or landscape, and the screen buttons give you some useful browsing and viewing options literally at your fingertips. The Shortcut Dial comes into its own, too, enabling you to swiftly zoom in or out of pages – making it easy to read small text and scan pages, and blowing up links for easier finger-pressing.

With other options to adapt the layout for the screen and so on, the web browser experience works pretty well.

Quality music player

The LG KF700 has a very capable music player inside too.

Again, LG has kept the user interface sensible – no unnecessary touch-based gimmickry to confuse the layout. Just simple controls anyone with a digital music player will understand, plus well laid out track information. And it looks attractive enough too (particularly with the black theme activated), with album cover art supported if available.

It sounds fine through the supplied average quality earphones, but you can make it sound much better if you use your own better quality headphones.

There’s no standard 3.5mm jack socket for headphones on the phone itself, but LG’s earphones come in two parts, with a 3.5mm adapter on one that allows you to plug in your own ear-gear. You can then really appreciate the fine quality sound the KF700 can produce.

Stereo Bluetooth is another headphone option, while you can play tunes through the loudspeaker – though this option isn’t big on sound quality.

For further free listening, you can check out the FM radio, which is nicely integrated with the control system.

An array of handy features

LG has lined up a range of additional tools and typical mid-range mobile gadgetry, such as an organiser, voice recorder, memo, calculator, world clock, unit convertor and stopwatch.

A couple of touch-based games are included too, although they may not be that attractive for a typical KF700 user. Maybe more so are some flash animation home page wallpapers based on Keith Haring’s distinctive artwork – as introduced on the KF600.

As far as additional web-based tools are concerned, there’s a link for the Yahoo! oneSearch online mobile-optimised search application. LG is kitting out some versions of the KF700 with support for Google Maps, GMail, YouTube, Blogger and Google Search too, but these were disappointingly absent from the O2 version of the phone we tested.

Standard battery life

Battery life shouldn’t be a major issue with the KF700, despite its 3G connectivity, touchscreen operation and highly playable multimedia functionality.

LG estimates that it can last between charges for up to 280 hours of standby time when operating on a 3G network or up to 340 hours in standard GSM coverage. Or you can expect up to 3 hours of pure talktime.

In effect, mixing up usage in our usual average-consumer kind of way, we usually got between two and three days of 3G action out of the phone before we needed to plug it in. That’s not excessive for a phone of this kind.

The call performance couldn’t be faulted – good sound quality at both ends plus a reliable network performance that ticked the right boxes.

A great multimedia phone from LG

The KF700 has a good spread of mid-range multimedia functionality, which is easily accessible and user-friendly, thanks to LG’s sensibly arranged and functional touch interface.

Its 3G HSDPA connectivity gives its web-based features a speed boost too OK, it’s not the iPhone, and there is no Wi-Fi or smartphone operating system that you might desire of a touchscreen operated phone.

But LG has pitched the KF700 as more of an attractive mid-tier 3G phone with touch control. It may not be a do-everything mobile, but its key multimedia features work well, and are integrated practically with the phone’s variety of input methods.

LG’s shown a sure touch with this mobile.

Sony Ericsson Z770i

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We’ve been waiting for a bit of slimline 3G flip-phone action from Sony Ericsson, and with the classy-looking Z770i, it has delivered a very pocketable device with plenty to get your desire buds going.

The Z770i arrives as one of Sony Ericsson’s few real clamshell eye-catchers. It has high-speed HSDPA 3G connectivity inside, boosting download times and browsing slickness on its full web browser.

An impressive multimedia phone

Also featured is a run-down of multimedia applications that are quickly becoming welcome standard issue for Sony Ericsson’s mid-range line up. Despite no Walkman branding, it has a very able music player onboard plus an FM radio and video player functionality.

A welcome software addition is the Google Maps for Mobile application. Even without onboard GPS, this enables you to get location based information and navigation instructions over the air, with detailed mapping and satellite imagery too.

Unusually for a 3G handset, Sony Ericsson has left off video calling; there’s no second camera for face-to-face chatting. However, this is unlikely to put off most users, as video calling is still very much a minority interest.

What could sap interest for more imagery conscious buyers is the relatively basic 2-megapixel camera that gets an outing on the Z770i – not one of Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot quality best efforts.

Simple and striking design

The Z770i has a stylish, understated design. Its trim 93(h) x 48(w) x 15.5(d)mm dimensions and 91g weight allow it an easy pocket ride too.

Available in a brushed metal-look silver or black casing with a touch of colour accenting, it has a small mirrored panel running across the front. This is, in fact, an external monochrome display – one of those fashionable appear-out-of-nowhere affairs that glows through the panel when the phone’s doing the business with texts, calls or music. It provides phone status info, caller ID or text info, and names of tracks being played.

Flip open the shell, and the understated gives way to a much nattier numberpad. The striking design uses curvy backlit strips on a brushed metal-look keypad that has echoes of the original Motorola RAZR about it. The flush numbers are widely spaced and easy to dab, and are reassuringly responsive when texting or number tapping.

The main navigation pad arrangement is novel, and may not appeal to everyone. Instead of a round D-pad, you have four ultra-thin direction buttons like grains of rice in a cross around a small central button. Although almost smooth to the surface, in practice we found them easy to handle and quick to get used to.

Initially, though, when aiming for the middle ‘menu’ softkey option you may find yourself mistakenly pressing the up button that’s directly beneath the screen instead of the central select key.

User-friendly interface

The Z770i also has conventional call and end keys bookending the left/right navigation keys, but while they’re in close proximity we didn’t have any trouble with stray finger pressing errors.

The control panel shortcut configuration can be set up for favourite functions or left in box-fresh condition. There’s also Sony Ericsson’s very handy Activity Menus button, which drills you into lists of most-useful features, applications and information under one category.

You can get a list of apps like Bluetooth, Google Maps or TrackID in just one click, or tab along to internet functions in just two clicks.

The display is a respectable 262k-colour 2.2-inch QVGA (240x320 pixels) TFT array – with an acceptable amount of screen space for viewing content and browsing. Menus are set-up in familiar Sony Ericsson grid-fashion and are suitably easy to work through.

Speedy downloads

High-speed data connectivity via HSDPA (at up to 3.6Mbps) means you can download content such as music or videos from network operator portals or Sony Ericsson’s own Play Now service in seconds. Naturally, web browsing speeds are cranked up too, making the mobile internet experience that much better.

The Z770i has the latest Access NetFront browser that Sony Ericsson’s deployed on recent releases including the K660i and W890i. The interface is intuitive and user-friendly, and the launch page is well laid out with Google search bar and address entry panel, along with RSS feed and browsing history sub sections. You don’t have to delve in to work out what to do.

You can view in landscape or portrait and pan and zoom to make your way around full web pages, or choose a Smart-Fit mobile-optimised view.

With RSS feeds, too, you can get regular updates from your favourite news websites, blogs or social networking sites without having to negotiate the browser each time you want to check them. You can even set up an RSS news ticker for your standby screen.

Impressive music player

Of course, as well as downloading music, you can easily sideload tunes from a PC using the Sony Ericsson PC Suite Media Manager software and USB cable supplied, or by simply dragging and dropping to the memory card in mass storage mode.

The phone has only 32MB of internal memory, but this is boosted by Memory Stick Micro (M2) card expansion (there’s a convenient slot on the side of the phone), and a 512MB M2 card is boxed with the phone.

The Z770i’s multimedia playback is a real plus point. Sony Ericsson has developed a nicely integrated, fluid interface that’s running on many of its higher tier phones. The music player is very similar to the type you get on mid-range Walkman phones, with familiar music playlist categories and straightforward controls.

High quality audio

While the earphones supplied don’t match the ones boxed with equivalent level Walkmans, they present an acceptably pleasant performance. Shame about the bulky headphone connector’s side positioning, which makes it slightly awkward in the pocket.

Unlike Walkman headsets, the Z770i’s earphones don’t include standard headphone 3.5mm jack adapters - but if you were to get hold of a Walkman set or adapter and plug in better quality headphones (as we did), you’d hear a top-drawer audio performance. Alternatively, you could add stereo Bluetooth wireless headphones and skip the adapter.

Or, for a less pleasing audio performance, you could try the unimpressive loudspeaker option.

A decent FM radio and Sony Ericsson’s clever TrackID name-that-tune application add to the phone’s well-rounded musical capabilities.

Basic camera features

Despite having photo-optimised Cyber-shot cameraphones in its range, Sony Ericsson tends to keep it simpler across its other devices, and imaging is not its priority here either.

The average quality 2-megapixel snapper can produce reasonably good pictures in decent lighting conditions, but struggles when pitched into murkier conditions, indoors shooting or in general low-light situations. There’s no flash to boost illumination. Nor is there an autofocus system.

The camera doesn’t deal particularly well with high contrast images and subtle tonal changes in certain situations, and detail is limited. Anyone looking for high quality photography should look elsewhere, though its acceptable for snaps.

Video capture playback is better than average, running smoothly at 30 frames per second, though image quality is restricted to so-so QVGA resolution. In now-regular Sony Ericsson style, you can upload video and images straight to online Blogger accounts as one of the standard ‘send’ options.

GPS and Google Maps

The pre-loaded Google Maps application is a very useful extra, particularly if you find yourself in an unfamiliar area and are in need of a map or local information.

It uses cellular network triangulation rather GPS satellite-based location finding, so the accuracy level is within a few hundred metres radius rather than spot-on.

Nonetheless, once a map of your approximate location has been loaded via your data connection (it takes moments), you can easily zoom in to your exact position and navigate your way around. And you can get satellite imaging in a similar way to Google Maps regular online service, with data sent over the air via high-speed mobile connection.

Access to location-based services are also part of the package; you can get turn-by-turn navigation instructions or search for details and directions to nearby businesses and services.

You can add GPS accuracy with an optional GPS receiver accessory, but even without that, Google Maps is a handy addition to your in-pocket application arsenal.

Extensive features and tools

Sony Ericsson again includes its commendable suite of organiser and productivity tools, including calendar, tasks, notes, convertor, voice memo, calculator, code memo, timer and various clock functions.

In addition, it slips in audio book reader, and a web-based weather forecast application, AccuWeather.com Light. Some basic video and photo editing apps are included too, alongside a trio of entertaining games (Brain Juice, Investigators and Tennis Multiplay).

When it comes to the basic bread-and-butter of voice call, the Z770i produced a fine performance. No issues to worry about – as reliable as you’d hope for, with good quality audio, and comfortable to use.

According to Sony Ericsson, users may be able to eke out up to 8.5 hours of talktime on GSM networks or 4.5 hours if you’re running a 3G connection – an impressive figure that will appeal to heavy phone users. Standby time is estimated at up to 350 hours.

In our real usage tests, using a variety of features and apps, the Z770i took us comfortably to three days between charges. Obviously, how much you use power-hungry features will determine exact charging patterns, but we thought it a decent performance.

Sony Ericsson puts in a fine performance

The Sony Ericsson Z770i is a fine flip phone alternative to Sony Ericsson’s candybar and slider mid-range 3G models - although once again the imaging capabilities, with an average 2-megapixel camera and no video call option, are less than impressive. A shame for an otherwise well-equipped mobile.

The phone handles well and has a slim enough profile to make it an attractive, pocketable design. The understated classic look on the outside contrasts with a more eye-grabbing interior, but it still has some charm.

Fine quality multimedia playback and HSDPA-powered web-based functionality add to a well-rounded package of features that, with a higher quality camera performance, would have really wowed us.

Looks: 4/5
Ease of use: 4/5
Features: 4/5
Call quality: 4.5/5
Value: 3.5/5

Palm Centro

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Palm’s latest in its long line of smart phones is also its smallest, and probably its best looking.

It’s also returned to the Palm operating system that the company seemed to temporarily abandon with its recent run of Windows-based handsets (that would be the Treo 750v and 500v, in case you’re wondering).

Slim phone, streamlined features

It’s about time the company updated the Treo look, but while this comparatively sleek model has the good looks and petite proportions to look like a proper smart phone (as opposed to a PDA workhorse with a few phone apps tacked on), many of the features leave a lot to be desired.

There’s no 3G or Wi-Fi, for example, the 1.3-megapixel camera is below the standard you’d expect on a mid-range phone in 2008 and the music player could be kindly described as basic.

The screen is noticeably smaller than previous Palms but it’s plenty big enough for web browsing or viewing documents. A shame then that with 64,000 colours it’s not a bit sharper, though it’s certainly bright enough.

It’s touch-sensitive too, which gives a greater amount of options when scrolling through the menus, but it can be a nuisance switching between the hard keys and the virtual ones.

A closer look at the Centro's design

The Centro doesn’t feel as sturdily built as Treos of yore, the plastic battery cover on the back of our sample being creaky and feeling a bit loose. It can handle up to 4GB of MicroSD memory card, although you won’t find one of any stripe in the box.

The slot is on the side, fairly well camouflaged (we couldn’t find it until we took the back off) and quite fiddly to get into – but at least you don’t have to remove the battery. The too-flexible plastic stylus, meanwhile, which slips into a pocket on the top, is certainly practical but feels inexcusably cheap.

In typical Treo fashion, the snug QWERTY keypad includes the numerical keys and though the keys are crammed very close together, their protruding bulbous shape made from a sort of spongey plastic makes them distinctive enough to be easy to use.

They feel quite good too, and the D-ring with its central ‘Palm’ button and surrounding four soft keys are equally easy to use, with a minimum of slippage.

A switch on top switches off the ringer for meetings or other times when you don’t want to be disturbed.

Pressing the call end button brings on the key lock, which also comes on automatically if you leave the phone for 30 seconds, and there’s instant access to voice memos via the dedicated button on the side, below the volume buttons.

Camera and music player

The 1.3-megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom feels shabby and underpowered next to even the 2-megapixel models which already feel like minimum spec on a midprice phone.

There’s no flash and no quick access button to the camera either, which makes quick snaps more awkward than they should be, though at least there are various Palm picture-editing apps available if you’re prepared to go looking for them.

The pTunes music player will handle MP3 music files and allow you to sort them by artist, album, genre and playlist, but other than that it’s a very basic player.

The built-in loudspeaker on the back is actually pretty good – louder than most with a reasonable amount of bass, though it does come with a warning about its internal magnet, which could conceivably affect credit cards.

The supplied mono headphone however seems to have been hardly worth the effort – if you go to the trouble of including a music player on a phone, stereo headphones are a must, though you can always add a pair since the Centro uses a standard 3.5mm jack plug.

It also has A2DP Bluetooth for wireless listening.

Palm's excellent OS

Browsing the internet using the Blazer browser was surprisingly quick, although it took a little bit of getting used to – pressing the bottom rim of the D-ring for instance allows you to scroll down the page, but you’ll need to press the sides to move the cursor.

Finding the browser was a bit awkward too, since you have to scroll to the bottom of the menu page to find it.

Palm’s distinctive OS still has some things going for it. It is still awesomely easy to use and to find your way around, and of course there are masses of additional apps that you can add.

The provided software includes all four flavours of Office documents and Google Maps, which works perfectly well, though it’s with applications like this that the lack of a 3G or Wi-Fi connection becomes noticeable and irksome.

As with the Treos, Palm’s Versamail system is present and correct and a joy to use.

Will it win over the Treo users?

Battery power has been an occasional problem on various Palms, but the Centro’s seems decent enough, getting within spitting distance of the claimed four hours of talktime and 12-day standby.

The Centro could provide a better looking and more lightweight alternative to Palm Treo users with distorted pockets, but its underpowered spec is unlikely to win over new converts.

Looks: 3.5/5
Ease of use: 3.5/5
Features: 3.5/5
Call quality: 4/5
Value: 3.5/5

Sony Ericsson K660i

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The latest in Sony Ericsson’s K-series, the K660i, certainly won’t qualify as the company’s most advanced to date, with no Cyber-shot camera or Walkman music player.

It does however have HSDPA-enabled 3G capability, pretty much the fastest mobile internet access you can get at present, which comes in very handy for showing off its internet browser innovations.

Basic approach from Sony Ericsson

The handset itself is a stylishly curved candybar shape, fairly light at 96g and with a large, bright screen above its neatly compact keypad. The keys are small but adequately spaced, so there’s no complaint about usability.

Ours came in a slick gloss black with a wine-coloured strip across it, finished off chrome trim, though you can also get it in cyan on black, sliver on black and lime on white.

On the sides there’s a Memory Stick Micro slot (the phone comes with a 256MB version on top of the built-in 32MB of memory), volume/zoom controls and a camera button.

Focus on the internet browser

At the right of the keypad are four cryptic illuminated symbols which turn out to be shortcuts which become active while browsing, activated by pressing the number buttons next to them.

And it’s the internet browser that’s at the heart of this phone. It defaults to landscape mode (though you can also set it to portrait) offering a widescreen view of the web that’s much more reminiscent of the standard browsing experience on a PC.

Those shortcut keys are Address, which also allows you to search, Bookmarks, Homepage link, and a Zoom key, which shrinks the resolution of the page, allowing room to move a viewing pane to the desired section, which can then be blown up to full viewing size.

It’s a nifty trick that makes browsing standard web pages much easier than on most mobiles.

Browser features

The launch page, as seen on other recent Sony Ericsson phones, is designed to be helpful rather than merely push SE features. It has a Google search bar, address bar, RSS feeds, browsing history and a link to additional SE download and info sites.

Incidentally, the screen automatically flips into portrait mode when you’re entering text – disorientating at first, but actually a useful innovation, since it allows you to use the keypad in the standard way, rather than trying to re-educate your fingers to use the keypad on its side.

Google Maps is a preloaded option and while it doesn’t enjoy GPS-style accuracy (it uses cell triangulation to establish your position to within a few hundred metres) it can be useful for finding your way around a new town.

The HSDPA 3G connection is pretty fast, of course, but for an internet-centred phone it’s a shame it doesn’t include Wi-Fi – the ability to connect via broadband would certainly be useful, especially for downloads.

The browser may not offer anything new, as such, but at least it’s well presented with a couple of good usability innovations.

Competent camera

The camera, by comparison, is bog standard. With 2 megapixels it’s pretty much the least you’d expect from a midrange phone like this and it lacks the luxuries of the Cyber-shot range, such as flash, autofocus, red eye reduction and SE’s terrific BestPic feature (though there is a basic multi-shot function) – there isn’t even a photo light.

You can however instantly blog your pics (including videos) thanks to SE’s deal with Blogger, or send them direct to a PictBridge-compatible printer via USB or Bluetooth.

You can also edit your pics on the handset with Sony Ericsson’s now pretty much standard Photofix, PhotoDJ and VideoDJ functions.

It’s an okay camera, but easily shown up by the better-specced rivals we’re increasingly seeing these days, especially in low light or with moving objects, when the results are likely to dip below acceptable.

This being a 3G camera, there is an additional VGA-standard camera on the front for video calling.

Multimedia options

The music player may not be Walkman standard, but it’s perfectly fine if you see music as a fun addition rather than the essence of your phone.

The supplied 256MB Memory Stick Micro card will hold up to around 120 tracks, though you can expand this to a 2GB card if you feel you need it (the slot on the side means you can switch cards without removing the battery).

You can sync your music with your PC using the Media Manager software or simply plug in via USB and drag and drop individual tracks onto the phone. There’s also an FM radio, TrackID, which allows you to identify mystery tracks and a menu link to SE’s PlayNow service.

The quietly stylish K660i

You might want to upgrade the earphones however, which are cheap and nasty, and not on a par with the Walkman versions, which, in the absence of a 3.5mm mini-jack plug, is the first upgrade you’ll need (Walkman earphones have an SE connector as well as an additional 3.5mm plug), unless you go the Bluetooth route.

The organisation features are as you’d expect, with intuitive and practical contacts and calendar functions, plus support for email messaging, including attachments and push email.

The K660i isn’t a show-off ‘look at me’ phone. Its browsing innovations aren’t that innovative and its other features are pretty much standard for a phone at this price.

As a quietly stylish web-centred workhorse though, it could end up being very popular.

Nokia 3110 Evolve

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If you’re looking for a new mobile that’s environmentally sound then Nokia is hoping the 3110 Evolve will be up your street.

The Nokia 3110 Evolve is essentially last year’s 3110 Classic with an eco-friendly makeover that includes covers made partially from renewable materials, an energy-efficient charger and greener packaging.

An eco-friendly phone

While this currently puts the 3110 Evolve above other handsets in the green mobile stakes, potential buyers should be aware that while this is a welcome development, this phone is still some way short of a fully carbon-neutral, environmentally friendly handset.

Still, Nokia’s efforts at improving the environmental sustainability of its mobile line-up are better than most. This involves here the introduction here of ‘bio-covers’ made from over 50 per cent renewable organic sources.

Using unpainted materials for these means less fossil fuel consumption in the manufacturing process. Nokia has greened-up the packaging, too, using 60 per cent recycled materials.

Also cutting down on wasted energy is the charger that comes with the phone. This new high-efficiency AC-8 charger reduces no load energy consumption, which means it minimises the amount of energy used if it’s accidentally left plugged in after your phone’s been charged.

The usual Nokia features

We anticipate Nokia expanding its latest environmental initiative across its range soon, but for the time being anyone looking for a gadget-heavy greener mobile may have to compromise or hold fire.

The 3110 Evolve is built on Nokia’s popular and widespread Series 40 user interface rather than the S60 Symbian operating system used by Nokia’s higher end Nseries models. It lacks the latest 3G connectivity too, so high speed multimedia content processing is limited too.

As such, the 3110 Evolve includes some typical Nokia Series 40 phone features, including a multi-format music player, FM radio, swappable MicroSD card memory, a mobile web browser and various web-based applications, plus standard email and organiser apps.

Disappointingly though, it sports an entry-level 1.3-megapixel camera on the back panel that offers lower quality imaging than you might expect. Similarly limited is the screen Nokia uses here, a modest 1.8-inch 262,000-colour display with a low 128x160 pixels resolution.

These aren’t compromises required for environmental integrity – they’re the same types used on the earlier 3110 Classic version.

Does green have to mean dull?

The look and feel of the phone is little different to the 3110 Classic too, apart from those bio-covers we mentioned. The natural grey look is, frankly, dull and doesn’t do the rather plain design any favours visually.

It’s a shame that Nokia didn’t adapt this eco-worthy technology to a smarter-looking phone than the ordinary 3110, just to show that eco-friendliness doesn’t have to mean drab.

The no-nonsense glossy black front has a large and very manageable numberpad and navigation pad-centred control layout. It’s straightforward to use, and responsive enough for efficient texting.

The phone itself weighs a lightish 87g and measures an average 108.5(h) x 45.7(w) x 15.6(d) mm, so is reasonable to hold and use.

The screen isn’t as good as Nokia’s standard mid-range QVGA (240x320 pixels) displays, and the Series 40 menu system and fonts used look a little more ungainly on it than, say, on 6500-series or 5310 XpressMusic models.

It still offers a similarly structured kind of menu experience, with the option of Active Standby shortcuts and information onscreen to help negotiate menus.

Basic camera

The display provides a full-screen view for camera shooting, so you don’t have to squint as you’re composing shots. However, the results you can achieve with the 1.3-megapixel camera are limited.

It’s fine for taking snaps, but its maximum 1280x1024 pixels resolution is amongst the lowest you now get on all but the most basic of mobiles.

There’s no place for an autofocus system to get sharply focused compositions or macro mode for close-ups, and no flash for illuminating dark shooting conditions.

On the plus side, you can get reasonably good colour rendition in natural light and its images aren’t bad for a 1.3-megapixel shooter. But available detail is limited, and in low-light or at night, the camera struggles, with images poor and plenty of picture noise evident.

Decent music player

Nokia also includes basic picture and video editing software in the phone, plus a selection of pre-shooting settings options for tweaking shots. But as a better option, we’d have like to have seen Nokia upgrade to a higher quality camera on the Evolve.

Video shooting is possible too, at a low quality 176x144 pixels size at 15 frames per second.

Tune playing is a stronger suit for the 3110 Evolve – once you get a MicroSD card sorted and load up some tracks. There’s no USB cable supplied and no MicroSD card either.

With only 9MB of user memory onboard, you’ll definitely need to buy a card to enjoy the rather decent music player. It supports cards up to 2GB, and you can now pick up one of these for under a tenner.

Connectivity options

The lack of a USB cable (the phone has a miniUSB connector on its base), means you’ll have to source one yourself or use a card reader or Bluetooth to transfer tunes over to the phone. Infrared connectivity is another connectivity option for PC or laptop users.

Once you’ve got some tunes sorted on to your card, the multi-format music player delivers a decent quality audio performance through the supplied set of stereo earphones.

The player app uses a typical Nokia music player interface, with a bunch of regular categories in the music library under which tracks are organised (artists, albums, genres, composers and track lists).

The earphones are reasonable quality though nothing special; you could upgrade them if you spend again on a cheap 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter and plug in better quality standard headphones.

The FM radio inside does a good job at providing another hassle-free route to entertainment. You need to plug in the headset for reception, but like the music player it can also be listened through the earphones or through the loudspeaker.

Don’t expect good sound quality through the speaker though – it’s the sort of typical poor quality you get with most mobiles.

Nokia's browser settings

The main Nokia XHTML browser suffers from the low resolution display too, which doesn’t offer enough real estate for a good mobile internet experience. It feels a bit basic, and without 3G you’re relying on slower GPRS and EDGE data speeds.

Interestingly, Nokia displays its eco-friendly credentials again here with bookmarked links to WWF sites in the browser…

Nokia does offer the option of using an alternative mobile-optimised Opera Mini browser, which comes pre-loaded on several Nokia models and is again present here. This renders pages in a way that looks presentable onscreen and offers a more flexible way to negotiate webpages than the native browser.

In addition, Nokia has loaded up the 3110 Evolve with its WidSets application and Yahoo! Go mobile software. Each enables you to set widgets onscreen, allowing you to get regular updates from web-based services, including blogs, social networking sites and other online services.

They’re worth exploring as a low-effort alternative to regular browsing.

Plenty to keep you entertained

The Nokia 3110 Evolve naturally handles email as well as MMS and texting, and supports instant messaging too.

Nokia has provided a familiar spread of organiser functions and timer applications (calendar, to-do lists, notes, world clock and so on) and has slipped in a couple of games – Snake III and Sudoku2.

More can be downloaded, with a link for Nokia’s download catalogue in the Applications folder. Nokia’s Sensor short-range Bluetooth-based mini social networking app is another Series 40 regular that appears here too.

Impressive battery life

While Nokia has upgraded the battery charger that comes with the 3110 Evolve, the battery pack and typical power consumption is the same as that of the 3110 Classic.

Nokia quotes a maximum 4 hours of talktime or up to 370 hours in standby, which should give users a respectable real-usage running time. Our sample kept going for just over three days with moderate usage, including a small amount of tune playing.

The call performance of the phone was consistent and reliable too.

The environmentally friendly option

Some phone buyers will certainly be attracted by the more environmentally friendly aspects of the 3110 Evolve, even though its green credentials are less than perfect. It’s a welcome move from Nokia, however, and it will be interesting to see how far Nokia takes its environmental concern in future models.

Currently the 3110 Evolve, with its plain looks, disappointing camera and display, suggests some feature compromise is required if you want a more eco-friendly mobile.

That of course isn’t the full picture, and this is unlikely to be the case with future greener Nokias. We expect to see some of the policies debuted here being carried over to more of its range soon, and we’d hope to see some better-specified choices for the environmentally aware mobile buyer.

Looks: 3/5
Ease of use: 4/5
Features: 2.5/5
Call quality: 4.5/5
Value: 3/5

Sony Ericsson W380i Walkman

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Sony Ericsson seems determined to cover all bases with its Walkman phone range, with the budget Sony Ericsson W380i its latest attempt to corner the low-cost music mobile market.

Hot on the heels of the up-market ultra-slim W890i and multi-gigabyte packing W960i, the clamshell W380i delivers a more modest line-up of features at a considerably more wallet-friendly price – initially around £80 on pre-pay or free on contracts.

Even at this price, you get the familiar Walkman phone basics of a good quality music player, decent earphones, and a respectable 512MB Memory Stick Micro card to store your tunes. There are compromises on the cameraphone front though, with a basic 1.3-megapixel snapper included that doesn’t do video shooting – a feature some target younger users may miss.

Eye-catching new designs

Sony Ericsson has added a dash of individuality to its looks without going all garish; it’s stylishly eye-catching, coming in a range of colours - electric purple, magnetic grey and champagne black.

It’s quite compact, at 92(h) x 49(w) x 16(d) mm and light in the hand at 100g. A few design twists and novel gadgetry make it stand out from the budget crowd too.

Music controls are subtly moulded on the front of the shell, made from a Braille-like pattern of raised dots on the outside of the phone.

These are lined up under a concealed external display that glows out of the shell with track details in landscape orientation when the music player’s active, or with caller ID info when calls come in. A smart looking extra, it’s something we’ve seen before but it’s nicely implemented here.

A mobile phone with plenty of gadgets

Another new bit of gadgetry is Gesture Control - an option you can switch on to mute incoming calls or switch alarm ringers to snooze by swiping your hand back and forth above the phone’s camera. While far from essential (apart from first thing in the morning, perhaps), it’s one more gimmick other budget phones don’t have.

The shell of the phone is attractive, with a Walkman-family look to the angled bottom of the phone, and pimpled detailing next to the camera and the prominent loudspeaker, plus some contrasting colour detailing on a couple of buttons. These include a sliding key lock on the back to disable the music keys when the phone’s playing tunes in your pocket.

The keypad inside is unexcitingly straightforward – large keys that are reasonably responsive and a set of D-pad based navigation and control keys. The button arrangement isn’t the improved version used on some recent Sony Ericsson handsets (such as the W890i), but it’s easy to use none the less.

In addition to the D-pad, flanking softkeys, back and clear keys, there are quick access buttons for the web browser and the Activty Menu – Sony Ericsson’s useful speedy way to get to most used and useful functions.

Walkman takes centre stage

The display is an average 1.9-inch 176x220 pixel 262k-colour screen – not as detailed as some Walkmans, and graphics aren’t presented as slickly as some models higher up the range.

The external display is a rather small 36x128 pixels OLED panel, with enough room to present caller ID, standby status info, or music information from the Walkman player or RDS-equipped FM radio.

Naturally, the Walkman player is the main act here. One of the pre-loaded D-pad shortcuts is Walkman-logoed, providing a quick route to switching on and tuning in. The user interface has a familiar white-and-orange-on-black Walkman look.

Music categories and options are more limited than on the pricier Walkmans, as you’d expect, but you still get an impressive user experience and all the essentials are well executed. It’s intuitive and well signposted as you move through the options, so you know where you are.

Intuitive interface

Tracks are arranged in regular MP3 player categories – artists, albums, tracks and playlists - and you can display album cover art (if available) as well as track details when playing. Tunes keep playing when the clamshell is shut; you can employ the gently glowing music keys to skip through tracks, play or pause.

They do require a firm press rather than gentle dabbing, but there is a bit of haptic vibrating feedback to let you know the command button’s been pressed. The mini front display appears to let you know what’s playing then fades back behind the plastic until you touch buttons again.

The phone’s musical performance is excellent, and particularly impressive at this price point. The supplied earphones are better than the music phone norm, and you get clear precise sound with a pleasing dynamic range including a well-balanced amount of bass. You can adjust equaliser settings too, or bump up bass with Sony’s Mega Bass software in the settings.

Mixed sound quality

The classy sound can be enhanced further by adding your own higher quality headphones. Sony Ericsson has chosen again to put an all-purpose charger/data/headphone socket on the side with no additional standard 3.5mm headphone socket.

While this is an awkward and socket positioning when you have the phone in-pocket, at least Sony includes a 3.5mm jack adapter in its two-piece earphone set, so you can plug in your own Sennheisers etc. should you choose to.

Plugging in the supplied headphones also allow you to listen to the FM radio – frequency info is listed on the external display, and you can scroll through frequencies or stored stations with the external controls.

That loudspeaker on the front of the shell a bit of a let-down; it’s sound quality is tinny and poor, so unless you absolutely must share your tunes (without discernible bass), keep the headphones in.

Synch with your PC

The 512MB Memory Stick Micro card supplied can be loaded up with tracks in-phone in the regular Walkman way, using the supplied Sony Walkman Media Manager software and USB cable connected to a PC. Alternatively, you can drag and drop tracks onto the card’s memory in file transfer mode.

You can also search for details of tracks your around you or on the radio quickly and easily using Sony Ericsson’s neat TrackID user-friendly song identification application.

While music gets a big thumbs-up, the same can’t be said of the W380i’s disappointing camera. With an entry-level1.3-megapixel resolution, you’re limited with picture capture quality, and as you’d expect, there’s no autofocus system or flash to improve matters. Results aren’t great, though you can take reasonable snaps if you’re not intending to print them out.

Disappointing camera

Low light performance, however, is very poor. You do need good light to get the best out of the lens. The user interface is basic too – you have to hold the phone in portrait mode and frame shots in a central strip of the display.

Sony Ericsson does include a selection of settings tweaks and effects you can use, plus a zoom option. And you can upload images straight to a Blogger blog account. But this isn’t a phone for someone who has imaging as a buying priority.

An attractive feature set

For a budget phone, the W380i offers an attractive set of stock features. Although it doesn’t capture video, you can play back video clips you’ve downloaded or received as messages.

Stereo Bluetooth is included, there’s email support, plus an xHTML browser, with support too for RSS feeds, so you can get web-based info updates from your favourite sites and blogs without having to spend time browsing using the GPRS-speed browser.

There’s a voice recorder here, plus a standard set of Sony Ericsson organiser apps (calendar, tasks, notes, timer, stopwatch, calculator and a code memo app to store PINs and passwords).

Strong battery life

The music playing ability extends too to a Music Mate 2 app – a chord guide for guitar and piano. Three playable games are included too, Extreme Air Snowboarding, QuadraPop and SIMs 2.

As a non-3G phone with limited power-sapping multimedia applications –the music player excepted – the W380i delivers a decent power performance. Sony Ericsson quotes best-scenario figures of up to 300 hours in standby or 7 hours of talktime.

Our average usage trials gave us around three days of calls and moderate feature play between charges, though users playing the Walkman regularly will certainly have to power-up more frequently. Call quality was reliable too with a no-nonsense performance.

Sony Ericsson does good on a budget

This budget Walkman phone package offers plenty for someone looking for a decent music mobile on a very tight budget – provided they’re not too concerned with fine imaging quality.

Despite the low cost, Sony Ericsson has managed to come up with a fresh and distinctive design that also includes a few talking-point features to grab its target younger audience.

The camera here is disappointing for a mobile maker that also boasts Cyber-shot branded camera-centric phones, and some users may recoil at the lack of video capture and other missing frills. Elsewhere, however, standard features are reasonably well represented.

It may not have it all – you’d expect compromises at this sort of price - but the W380i still manages to deliver where it counts as a Walkman music mobile, with a fine quality audio performance that’s astonishingly good for such an affordable handset.

Nokia 8800 Arte

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Nokia has never shied away from cramming in stacks of features and cutting edge functionality into its high-end mobiles, as its N95 8GB and forthcoming N96 testify.

With its luxury line of handsets though, such the 8800 Arte, it takes a more refined approach. The emphasis here is not primarily on feature count, but on build quality, design – and, of course, desirability.

A classy mobile phone

The premium Nokia 8800 Arte exudes classy, minimalist style, coming in an understatedly elegant black metal and glass casing with chrome trim. Its numberpad is hidden away by a smooth slider mechanism and the feel of the handset is reassuringly substantial.

But naturally there’s more to the 8800 Arte than simply fashion accessory cachet. It’s a 3G-enabled handset, featuring a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus on the back panel, and has a video and music player inside too, with 1GB of internal storage.

It has a spread of familiar Nokia features inside– email, web browser and organiser functionality among them – plus a few exclusive extras. These include a tap-to-view analogue clock face that appears onscreen when you double-tap the bottom of the front panel, and a turn-to-mute feature that switches off the call alert simply by putting the phone face down.

The 8800 Arte though doesn’t go for the kitchen sink approach to high-end functionality, however. Its feature set is built on Nokia’s popular Series 40 user interface, used on mid-tier phones, rather than the more flexible Symbian S60 smartphone operating system used in Nokia’s multimedia-rich Nseries handsets. And Nokia doesn’t include cutting edge, headline-grabbing mobile phone technology – such as built in GPS, Wi-Fi or HSDPA high-speed data connectivity, or touchscreen activation.

High price = flashy features?

Although Nokia is evidently tailoring the 8800 Arte’s features for a particular type of cash-splashing audience, there are a few surprising omissions.

There’s no MicroSD card memory expansion, relying instead on the fixed 1GB inside for tracks and picture storage. While 1GB is OK for phone memory, swappable cards offer flexibility for boosting capacity relatively inexpensively.

Video calling others for face-to-face chats isn’t on the spec list, either, even though it’s a 3G phone – there’s no extra front facing camera on this model. And oddly, there isn’t a set of stereo earphones included in the luxury box the phone comes in, which contains a high quality Bluetooth earpiece, a heavy Nokia desk stand and a suave leather pouch.

A well-built handset

In the hand, you feel the weight of the 8800 Arte’s solid glass and metal build – a full 150g of it. In a normal sized handset, that’s heavy. Build quality is impressive though, even down to the smooth slider mechanism that reveals the numberpad.

The numberpad enclosure isn’t the largest space to dabble around in, but the buttons are rounded and separated well enough to feel responsive and comfortable to use.

The display is a not particularly large 2-inch OLED screen, a 16-million colour QVGA (320x240 pixels) array. Size-wise, it’s more akin to mid-tier phones like the 6500 classic than Nseries models. Under this is the control panel, with backlit buttons that blend subtly into the black body when not is use.

Simple to use

Operation and menu navigation is straightforward Nokia Series 40. You can use the D-pad and softkeys for shortcuts (pre-set ones or program your own), and have the option to set the standby screen for Nokia’s Active Standby layout. This presents more icon-based shortcuts plus info updates on the screen, but looks distinctly un-minimalist.

Nokia has chosen to leave this as a menu option rather than the default setting. This leaves space for you to appreciate the themes Nokia’s created for the phone.

Similarly, to add to that exclusive feel, Nokia has commissioned sounds and ringtones for the phone from producers Kruder & Dorfmeister, plus visuals too by Fritz Fitzke.

A basic camera

Beyond the pretty fascia, its 3.2-megapixel camera is a key feature. Despite it’s price tag Nokia hasn’t given the 8800 Arte the snapper spec of its more higher-end cameraphones. There’s no Carl Zeiss optics, for instance, but more significantly, no flash or photo light illumination.

The camera does have an autofocus system onboard. There’s no dedicated camera capture button on the side, like many other phones, but you use the central D-pad as the shoot button; pressing this and holding it enables you to focus the camera on a particular subject when composing an image before releasing it to take a snap.

You can switch to landscape mode for shooting, but it’s not the default mode.

The camera is capable of taking well-detailed images, with decent colour presentation in reasonable lighting situations. The auto exposure and white balance metering system seems to adjust efficiently too.

Standard image effects

When light levels fall, however, the camera’s results aren’t so impressive. Without a flash, shots in low-light environments are poor, with images dark and suffering picture noise. Even under artificial indoors light, quality is low – and far from impressive for a phone with a high-end price.

There are a series of settings adjustments – all standard fare stuff like brightness, white balance, picture quality, night mode, multi-shot, self timer and colour effects. But the impression is of an average camera rather than Nokia adding special to its premium phone.

Shooting video, quality is a better than average for a mobile phone, capturing images at VGA (640x480 pixels) resolution at 15 frames per second.

Not much of a multimedia phone

Watching downloaded video clips or side-loaded content is better quality, naturally. But the music and video player on the 8800 Arte is hampered by an inexplicable absence of stereo earphones with the handset. It has got a snazzy Bluetooth mono headset, but that’s not what you’re after when it comes to tune-playing.

This omission is compounded by Nokia equipping the 8800 Arte with an all-purpose microUSB connection that’s designated for the earphones (as well as data transfer and charger duties), rather than a standard 3.5mm headphone socket.

This makes adding your own headphones – whether spare iPod cheapies or better quality cans – difficult, as you’ll need an adapter. Alternatively, you could splash out more on stereo Bluetooth headphones, but that’s not the point. You want a smooth experience when you spend this sort of money on a phone.

An attractive music player

With a set of spare Nokia microUSB-connected headphones, the sound from the music was reasonably good. The loudspeaker on the phone is powerful too and not overly tinny, though it is still lacking in bass frequencies to fully round out the sound.

The music player interface is again typical Series 40, with a tidy look and tied in theme, and tunes are lined up in a variety of regular MP3 player categories (including a video option).

You can sync the phone’s tune player with a PC using the supplied Nokia PC Suite software and USB cable, or drag and drop tracks, videos and other files to the phone’s memory in data storage mode.

Onboard 3G means any over the air downloading or streaming of music and video is swift and easy from mobile networks’ online stores. There’s no FM radio on this particular model, however.

Dual web browers

Two web browsers are pre-loaded, a Nokia own-brand one and the well-regarded Opera Mini application, providing access to full web pages optimised for a mobile phone display. Nokia has preloaded its widgets application, WidSets, too, providing another option for getting web-based information from your favourite sites and blogs updated regularly.

As you’d expect, email is supported on the 8800 Arte, with applications handled too. There’s also a typical spread of Nokia organiser apps, including calendar, to-do list, notes convertor, world clock, translator, text-to-voice reader and speech independent voice control.

We’re happy to report excellent quality from voice calls, and reassuring tenacity with signals. On the power front, we found battery life on the Nokia 8800 Arte to be adequate rather than exceptional. Nokia claims a standby time of up to 300 hours or talktime of up to 3 hours 20 minutes on GSM networks and 2 hours 45 minutes on 3G services.

With average usage, we managed between two and three days between charges, and that’s with minimal tune-playing and limited browsing.

Nokia goes for the desirability factor

While the features list would be fine for a mid-tier Nokia handset, such as the 6500-series, there’s an inevitable feeling that for such a highly polished design and build as the 8800 Arte, the functionality and applications are rather ordinary.

A decent but limited camera, a respectable music player but no expandable card memory, 3G but no smartphone nous or Wi-Fi. And that socketry issue too.

Build quality and design apart, there is little under the bonnet that would seriously justify forking out so much cash for this phone when cheaper Nokia models can do similar stuff just as well. Nokia’s latest Nseries models offer far more features, flexibility and functionality.

Judging the Nokia 8800 Arte on a pound-for-pound, features-for-your-money basis though misses a key issue though; this is a phone that’s been built to impress a certain type of buyer primarily with its premium construction quality, materials and classy design. That desirability factor is the crucial selling point for the 8800 Arte - even if the features don’t match up to its high-end billing.

Looks: 4/5
Ease of use: 4/5
Features: 3.5/5
Call quality: 4.5/5
Value: 2/5

Networks: O2, Orange

Visparts Backup Battery

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Your iPhone battery life can drain away alarmingly quickly, especially if you use your iPhone for watching video.

The Visparts Backup Battery for iPhone plugs into the dock connector to recharge your battery for when you're almost out of juice. It's styled just like the iPhone on the front, complete with glass panel, metallic edge and black plastic on the rear.

Not very secure

You need to charge the Backup Battery for one hour using the standard iPhone docking cable, then, with the Backup Battery attached to your iPhone, you can start making calls almost immediately, so you don't have to wait for the charging process to finish.

We found that it charged an empty iPhone battery to about half.

But there's one fundamental flaw: you'd expect the Backup Battery to feel secure once attached to your iPhone, but it wobbled alarmingly when connected and, because of this, we didn't feel confident handling our iPhone with the Backup Battery attached.

LG KF600

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Every major mobile phone maker may be trying their hand at touchscreens in the wake of the iPhone, but with the KF600 LG has managed to come up with a touch-controlled phone offering something distinctly different.

To start with, LG hasn't opted for full, large screen touch operation, like Apple's iconic handset, and LG's own successful Viewty. Instead, it has introduced a novel twin screen hybrid arrangement on a sliderphone chassis.

LG's touchscreen masterpiece

Only one of the displays is touch-controlled - the lower of the two on the front panel - with the touchpad buttons changing context to suit whichever operation or function you're using at the time.

If you're in camera mode, the buttons on the lower 'InteractPad' touchpad assume camera button roles; in the music player, you get track control keys; and in normal menu navigation, you get navigation up/down, left/right arrows and select key options. Slip into media viewer mode or messaging choices, and the virtual buttons switch again to optimise usability.

The upper display on the LG KF600 is resolutely non-touch operated, and presents menus and options in a way that will be familiar to most conventional phone users.

Effectively, it feels like the LG KF600 is a kind of hybrid, combining touchpad operation with regular mobile navigation conventions. It certainly is an unusual and interesting design.

Beneath the idiosyncratic user interface, the KF600 has a fairly standard roster of mid-tier mobile features. It doesn't support 3G connectivity, let alone Wi-Fi, and isn't built on a smartphone operating system.

Its key features, besides the InteractPad system, are a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus and photo light, an MP3 player, an FM radio, video player and a range of organiser functionality.

An attractive and intuitive mobile phone

There is a familiarity about much of the InteractPad's changing buttonry that gives it a surprisingly intuitive feel soon after turning it on for the first time.

That's because the InteractPad, in many respects, replicates with its touchpad controls a conventional phone navigation pad's functionality. At least, enough to make it straightforward to operate for most mobile users coming at touch control fresh.

The dual-screen design sits the non-touch main 2-inch screen above the smaller 1.5-inch touch-sensitive screen. Both are QVGA (240x320 pixels) 262K-colour arrays. This gives theimpression of one large split front panel display, though in reality the important content viewing action happens only on the 2-inch display. That's not a huge amount of screen viewing space for a sliderphone measuring 101.2(h) x 50.7(w) x 14.1(d) mm.

It's quite an attractive design, with a smooth all black look and chrome trim. The slider numberpad is as smoothie too, slipping into place with a solid slide mechanism. Keys are large, although individual numbers aren't separated as well as we'd prefer on the glossy flush surface.

InteractPad action

The lower InteractPad touchsceen is the essential part of the KF600's control system. It offers haptic feedback - a slight vibrating buzz to let you know keys have been pressed - which eliminates much of the mis-pressing or have-you-haven't-you frustration you get on some non-haptic touchscreens.

The InteractPad approach can take a little getting used to, particularly if you've been recently exposed to other touchscreen devices.

To start with, our instinctive reaction was to tap the upper screen options as well as the lower InteractPad. This may be different for people who haven't 'touched' lately, and it's a response that soon wears off.

The InteractPad interface initially offers you a set of six quick access buttons to work from. You get messaging, phonebook, alarms and sound profiles, a main menu access button, and a button to switch off the quick access panel and lock the keypad.

If you do switch off the quick access keys on the InteractPad, both the KF600's displays interact, with animated wallpapers appearing to move across them. Interestingly, LG has included some striking themes based on Keith Haring's distinctive artwork, which provides a stunningly colourful set of screensavers that use the double screen to eye-catching effect.

Tapping the menu button opens up the InteractPad functionality properly. You initially see four directional arrow keys, an OK button and back option. This brings to mind the LG Chocolate phone's touch navigation pad, and the options mirror what you'd have on standard navigation pad.

User-friendly interface

The menu system on the main screen won't shock anyone - it's conventional stuff, with a menu grid (or list if you prefer), that you scroll around and press OK to select. Sub menus are listed by number, so you can scroll up or down, or simply press the corresponding number on the slider numberpad. All very straightforward.

As you progress through menu options, the InteractPad adapts to what you're doing, with buttons altering function depending on what options are available - much like how softkeys on regular phones alter as you go along, but in a graphically richer way.

Touchpad responsiveness isn't as quick as a standard navigation D-pad manual control, however, the InteractPad taking a moment after tapping to respond to your command. It's not horribly slow, but not as slickly responsive as the best (iPhone) touchscreen systems.

You can use your finger to swipe down lists such as phonebook entries, images or track lists, but with not much finger space you have to be careful what you're doing and it doesn't feel breezily easy.

A look at the music player

So what else does the InteractPad do other than replace the navigation pad? Fire up the camera or MP3 player and you get a better idea of what LG is up to. There's a fast access key for the MP3 player on the side, taking you in quickly to the system.

The music player is initially quite underwhelming. You're presented with a regular dull sub-menu with three options - songs, playlists and settings. It's only when you select a track to play that the interface transforms into something a bit more dynamic.

The main display has track details and album artwork, while the InteractPad changes its look with a large set of player control buttons, and a track progress bar you can slide back or forward to skip through a track.

It looks good, admittedly, for a mid tier phone. You can of course get these control functions on many regular phone navigation pads, without the slick graphics, but there is a user-friendly, quite stylish feel to it. Similarly, the FM radio interface has been well designed and is simple to operate.

Plays plenty of formats

The performance of the music player can be good, although the supplied headphones are distinctly average and don't play to the music player's strengths.

They are connected to the phone with an LG connector, but are a two-piece set, with a 3.5mm jack socket mid-line so you can plug in other headphones. This is strongly recommended to make the most of the music player's sound quality.

The KF600's multimedia player supports a variety of audio and video file formats including MP3, MPEG4, WAV, 3GP, AMR-NB, WMA, MIDI, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+.

There's a limited 25MB of onboard storage capacity, though MicroSD card expansion is supported. Cards up to 2GB can be used with the phone, with a slot tucked away under the battery (you can't hot-swap cards).

An impressive camera

The camera similarly demonstrates the thinking behind the InteractPad context-changing interface. Press the dedicated camera button on the side and both displays swing into landscape mode, and the InteractPad buttons reconfigure for camera action.

You can use the side/top mounted camera button as a viewfinder or the InteractPad capture buttons. The pad also takes cares of adjusting the variety of settings you can tweak.

This appears to be practical and uncluttered, but can get fiddly in lighting conditions where you can't properly make out the InteractPad screen options. Real buttons could carry out the option select and scroll button functions just as effectively - if not better.

With a 3-megapixel camera onboard and autofocus, you can take some decent quality pictures with the LG KF600. A macro mode means you can get in close while shooting too. Images can be rich, colourful and detailed, particularly in well-lit situations and exposure is usually well handled.

The autofocus system does require a few extra moments to set the image before you capture it, and while this enables you to get better images, some users taking spontaneous snaps may find this frustrating.

And it's not the quickest camera around either - it takes a few moments after you've hit the capture button to take the picture, so you need to keep it steady while it's processing.

Some great image features

There is an anti-shake option alongside other tweaking features too. Rather than a flash though, the LG KF600 has an LED photo light that has to be switched on, offering some extra illumination but not the more powerful and effective extra lighting you'd get from Xenon flash.

The InteractPad has another trick up its sleeve when viewing captured images. You can zoom in to view part of the picture on the main screen, with a thumbnail of the whole picture shown on the InteractPad, allowing you to target the zoomed area and easily pan across the picture. You can also rotate and expand you own images to fill both screens as wallapapers.

The LG KF600 has a video recording capability, delivering a fairly average mobile shooting performance at maximum QVGA resolution.

Handwriting recognition

Although text messaging utilises the sliderphone's numberpad, LG does throw in a bit of extra touchscreen gadgetry. Handwriting recognition is an option for text and email, with the InteractPad allowing you to scrawl letters with your fingers.

Although you can write letters easily, the extra buttons surrounding the writing area are so tiny, it becomes fiddly to use it fully. Nice idea, but the 1.5-inch screen isn't really big enough to make it practical, we reckon - the numberpad is far easier for texts and emails.

A document viewer inside enables you to view email attachments, or standard format document files copied or loaded on to the phone. Other standard organiser features- such as voice memo recorder, calendar, memo notes, convertor and various chronology options - are included.

The browser on the LG KF600 is unexceptional, the sort you'd expect on a mid-level mobile, and you can access full web pages. But with no 3G to speed things along it can take time to render some pages.

LG has also preloaded the Yahoo! Go 2.0 mobile application, providing a widgets style base for getting regular information updates, news, web feeds, Yahoo! email, search, mapping information, and so on, all in one place.

Impressive battery life

As for voice calls, the LG KF600 put in a consistently strong performance - we got a pleasantly reliable quality level, with good all round sound quality.

Battery life is estimated by LG to be unexceptional for a non-3G phone- up to 300 hours in standby or up to 3 hours talktime. The twin-screen activity when operating functions probably doesn't help battery life.

In our tests, with average usage including a modest amount of music playing and camera snapping, we managed between two and three days between recharging. As usual, more intense use- or switching off the screensaver timer - will drop battery life accordingly, but it didn't demonstrate any notably power-hungry tendencies.

A match for the Viewty or iPhone?

Behind the interesting InteractPad user interface, LG KF600 offers an OK mid-range set of features, with a 3-megapixel camera that's capable of some good quality shots, and a decent MP3 player for tune playing.

But the InteractPad dual-screen control system is the real draw for anyone looking at pocketing the LG KF600. At the heart of the LG KF600's control system, it's a novel way to do something different with a twist on the conventional navigation D-pad.

It does offer something more graphically interesting - and certainly it's more eye-catching. Anyone thinking about this in terms of a full touchscreen, iPhone-style device, though, shouldn't - this dual-screen phone is a hybrid that is more like a standard handset in functionality than one of the new generation of large touchscreen devices like Apple's phone or LG's Viewty. Touch functionality is limited, as is the screen size for viewing content.

The InteractPad itself doesn't respond as quickly as a standard navigation pad for tapping around menus, so you may wonder what real benefits it brings - and is it a compelling reason to buy the LG KF600?

Apart from the head-turning, look-at-me gadgetry factor, the context-changing touchpad controls do make some of the functions more visually enticing, and we can see that with a bit more responsiveness the dual-screen approach could be a user-friendly option. But it's not yet a must-have technology.

With a similar sort of touchpad mobile phone device, the Samsung Soul, coming soon, the LG KF600 could be something of a trend setter. But how long-running that trend will be remains to be seen.

Network availability: Orange, T-Mobile

Looks: 8/10
Ease of use: 8/10
Features: 7/10
Call quality: 9/10
Value: 7/10

Sony Ericsson W890i

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Slipping the stylishly slim W890i music mobile phone into its Walkman phone line-up, Sony Ericsson is aiming to repeat the W880i’s feat of combining classy minimalist design with crowd-pleasing functionality.

And with this successor boasting an upgraded feature set, enhanced 3G HSDPA high-speed data connectivity, and a smattering of well-judged design refinements, the Sony Ericsson W890i is a refresh that could well have even broader appeal than the super-slim original.

The latest and greatest Walkman

Naturally, with any Walkman phone, the music player takes centre stage. Sony Ericsson has loaded up the Sony Ericsson W890i with the latest Walkman 3.0 software, and supplies the phone with a 2GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) card in-box. An FM radio is included in the spec too. But the W890i isn’t just about tune-playing.

Camera quality has been boosted, with a 3.2-megapixel shooter squeezed into the back panel (albeit still without a flash).

The Sony Ericsson W890i’s 3G HSDPA data speeds promise faster downloading of content and an improved web browsing experience, while video calling is possible using its secondary front camera.

Interestingly too, Sony Ericsson has pre-loaded a Google Maps mobile application which delivers a handy location mapping, satellite imaging and navigation service without onboard GPS.

Slim but sturdy

Sony Ericsson hasn’t tinkered too much with the fine-looking W880i’s design, although it has toned down some of the bolder elements. Its dimensions are comparable to the W880i – 104(h) x 47(w) x 10(d) mm and weighing a satisfyingly slight 78g.

Despite its thinness, the Sony Ericsson W890i’s casing is all classy brushed metal, which gives both a luxury-crafted air and a robust feel to the phone.

There’s been a subtle smoothing of the design, with more curves where there was previously sharp angles, and the colour scheme is more restrained – it’s available in espresso black, sparkling silver or mocha brown - without the vibrant orange that’s something of a Walkman phone trademark.

A more practical mobile phone

Pleasingly, Sony Ericsson has reworked the Sony Ericsson W890i’s numberpad, replacing the W880i’s ultra-thin and admittedly funky keys with a set of larger, less cutting-edge - but more user-practical - number buttons.

These make button tapping much easier, and the keys are nice and responsive to press.

This general smoothing off, toning down and refinement of the W880i’s more radical design touches gives the impression that the Sony Ericsson W890i is being targeted at a more mainstream consumer.

A simple layout

Similarly, the control key set-up below the 2-inch 262K-colour QVGA display has been given a functional makeover too. The round central navigation D-pad still doubles up for menu control and music player operation (there are music controls etched on to them).

The keys surrounding them, though, have been simplified, giving a more conventional and intuitive feel to the buttonry, with regular Call and End buttons added.

As well as softkeys flanking the D-pad, there’s an Active menu shortcut key (taking you into a handy menu of shortcuts to most-used or useful functions and applications), plus a standard clear key. It’s a small but tidy change that again will make the user experience for a newcomer to Sony Ericssons that little bit better

The D-pad can be used for additional shortcuts, or you can simply hit the menu button to enter the straightforward icon-led grid-style main menu.

Negotiating the apps and functionality onboard is straightforward. There is also an onboard wizard for initially setting up email, and help to find your way around apps easily.

Bundles of memory

On the side of the phone, there’s a fast-access camera button and a dedicated Walkman key to initiate the music player.

The phone’s M2 memory card slot has been hidden away for safe keeping under the rear panel rather than behind a plastic bung on the side (as used on the W880i).

It may be a hassle if you’re constantly switching cards, but realistically for most users it’ll be no big deal; you don’t have to take out the battery to swap cards, and the 2GB card supplied in-box will carry up to 1800 tracks before you have to start swapping for more tunes.

Great earphones supplied

One not-so-good design element remains the same though - the side connector slot for the charger, data lead and headphones. Using Sony Ericsson’s relatively chunky connector, it makes for a pocket-unfriendly arrangement for listening to tunes when the headphones are in place. A top or bottom of the phone socket would be far more practical.

As usual with Sony Ericsson Walkman mobiles, the stereo headset supplied with the Sony Ericsson W890i is of much higher quality than most bundled music mobile earphones., coming with a selection of rubber earbuds for a snug sound-isolating fit.

They’re also a two-part set, with an adapter for a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the cable that plugs into the phone. This means you can improve your music listening experience simply by plugging in better ‘phones.

This though isn’t as essential as on some lesser-equipped mobiles. The Walkman player on the Sony Ericsson W890i delivers a top class music performance, and the supplied earphones support it pretty well too.

Excellent music player

The player is capable of producing a very detailed performance, and you can adjust equaliser settings – and add Mega Bass, if you want to boost lower frequencies. Naturally, plugging in quality headphones will add much more to the quality level, but the in-box ear-gear is certainly well above average.

The loudspeaker, on the other hand, is not so good – it’s particularly tinny.

The impressive overall music player performance is complemented by a polished user interface that’s efficient, easy to use and graphically attractive.

You can sync your music from a PC using supplied Sony Ericsson’s PC Suite Media Manager software and the supplied USB cable, or copy files by dragging and dropping tracks with the phone in mass storage mode, or send files via Bluetooth.

Download music with ease

With HSDPA, getting tracks downloaded over the air is quick and easy – just a matter of a few seconds – either from a mobile network’s music service or via Sony Ericsson’s (currently quite limited) PlayNow and m-buzz music portals.

The Walkman Player 3.0 software lists tracks under artists, albums, playlists, genre, year, audiobooks, podcasts and SensMe – Sony Ericsson’s mood-and-tempo categorisation option.

SensMe allows you to select tracks for a playlist by choosing songs with a similar mood and tempo, defined by the user in Media Manager.

Simple interface

Album art is supported on the Sony Ericsson W890i, and the functional music controls on the D-pad are a breeze to work. The addition of the FM radio here is welcome too, as is Sony Ericsson’s excellent TrackID song identification application that samples tracks and gets detailed info back in seconds.

The general look and feel of the media folder is similar to the Walkman interface, so accessing videos, images albums as well as music seems similarly slick.

The 3.2-megapixel camera is an improvement on the W880i’s 2-megapixel snapper, but it’s far from Sony Ericsson’s best effort, lacking a flash and autofocus system. Sony Ericsson still reserves its best cameras for its Cyber-shot-branded phones.

You can still get some impressive shots with the camera, despite its limitations, with colour rendition particularly good and a responsive automatic metering system.

Plenty of image editing options

Darker lighting conditions though affect picture quality significantly; without any extra onboard illumination picture quality deteriorates in low light, and images taken in moodily dark environments, such as bars are full of picture noise.

There are some settings adjustments to override the auto system, and a few picture and colourisations effects, plus a multi-shot mode. And Sony Ericsson has included auto image correction software, plus its PhotoDJ image tweakery app.

For more serious photo editing, it has included Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition PC software on the packaged software CD.

In addition, shots can be uploaded directly to a Blogger online account from the handset.

Web browsing on your mobile

The video capture performance of the Sony Ericsson W890i is a step up from its predecessor, shooting footage at QVGA (320x240 pixels) resolution at 30 frames per second.

It looks fine on the phone’s display, but is limited in quality for playback on a PC- fairly average for a mid-market mobile, in fact.

With high speed 3G, the browsing experience is pretty good. The Sony Ericsson W890i’s Access NetFront browser is smartly configured to make web browsing a straightforward experience; a Google search bar tops the list of browser options, under which is an address bar for typing in URLs.

This is a familiar and user -riendly implementation that should encourage people to use it. You can view pages landscape as well as portrait, and select a mobile optimised page view option as well as regular full web pages.

You can select RSS feeds and view bookmarked or recently visited sites quickly and easily too. RSS web feeds can be accessed within the messaging folder too, and displayed as a ticker on the standby screen, if you want.

Find yourself with Google Maps

Adding Google Maps as a pre-loaded application is a smart move. It can be accessed quickly from the Activity menu, using the control button shortcut, or is hidden away as an app within a Location services sub-section of the Entertainment folder.

There’s no built in GPS receiver inside the Sony Ericsson W890i, but Google Maps can use information from your mobile network to triangulate your approximate location from cellsite positions.

You can view maps or satellite images, zoom in or out, do local or general searches and get directions too.

Not as accurate as GPS

Accuracy is, of course, limited compared to a GPS system. Nonetheless, you can get a rough location within a few hundred metres with a map of the area, which you can zoom in on and scroll around.

This can be very useful if you’re somewhere you don’t know and need to get your bearings or directions. You can use it with an optional Bluetooth GPS receiver module too, if you want to get precise location finding with your Sony Ericsson W890i.

Good array of features

The Sony Ericsson W890i possesses the usual rundown of Sony Ericsson organiser and tool applications – calendar, tasks, notes, alarm, stopwatch, timer and calculator – and voice memo recorder.

A PIN code memory app, Music Mate 4 software for musicians, and Bluetooth remote control functions are included too.

Sony Ericsson ha pre-loaded three decent games for mobile gamers too – Lumines Block Challenge, The SIMs 2 and Tennis Multiplay.

Great battery life

The variety of features to engage you on the Sony Ericsson W890i would normally mean keeping an eye on battery power consumption. As a 3G phone with a Walkman music player as a key feature, the Sony Ericsson W890i puts in a creditable power performance.

Sony Ericsson quotes standby time on 3G networks as 310 hours, or 360 hours on regular GSM networks. Optimum talktime is 4.5 hours on 3G or 9.5 hours using GSM. The music player itself will keep on for up to 20 hours.

The Sony Ericsson W890i’s best-scenario figures pan out in real life as delivering two to three days on standby with average use, without heavy use of the Walkman player – which would increase charging frequency.

A pleasing user experience

Using the Sony Ericsson W890i for its primary calling purposes is a pleasing experience, with consistently crisp, natural audio and dependable network connections making for a top class performance.

Which is in line with our overall impressions of the W890i. Sony Ericsson has managed to refine what was already an attractive and well-regarded phone with some smart and subtle changes that add to both its feature run down and user-friendly appeal.

It’s not got all the high-end gadgetry some users may desire from a multimedia mobile – Wi-Fi, GPS and smartphone functionality are absent, for instance.

A star is born for Sony Ericsson

But Sony Ericsson has refreshed this mid-tier Walkman phone with some highly attractive upgraded features – such as more in-box memory, an improved (if not perfect) 3.2-megapixel camera and a fabulous music player - while online capabilities have been boosted by 3G HSDPA connectivity.

Crucially, the Sony Ericsson W890i has also maintained the essence of the W880i’s slim, stylish design, high quality finishing and overall desirability.

There’s no doubt that Sony Ericsson has created a cracking handset that’s sure to be a star performer in its Walkman range.

Network availability: Orange, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2

Looks: 4.5/5
Ease of use: 4.5/5
Features: 4/5
Call quality: 4.5/5
Value: 4/5