The first New Chocolate handset was a high-end multimedia beauty packed full of tempting features. The New LG Chocolate Mini, on the other hand, shares its sleek good looks but none of its highly specced prowess. There's no Wi-Fi, GPS or touch-screen – but when it comes to calls and texting, the Mini actually outstrips its glamorous sibling.

 

Style and handling for the New Chocolate Mini BL20

The red and black finish proves the family relationship, but the LG Chocolate Mini is a shorter slide phone with a glossy black all-over finish and a read keypad. The keys are heavy and comfortable and the proper old-school predictive text is quick and accurate, beating the slow touch-screen keyboard on the New Chocolate into a cocked hat.

There's no touch-screen on the LG Chocolate Mini, just a 2.4-inch QVGA screen that isn't the sharpest. Below the screen sits a touch-sensitive navigation pad, which proved to be confusing. It's just not intuitive to alternate between pressing heavy keys and swiping a touch-pad.

The user interface is familiar and easy to use. Four customisable shortcuts sit on the navigation pad, there's a multitasking button for switching between apps and a widget launcher that's a shortcut to favourite contacts, your calendar and weather.

 

Internet on the New Chocolate Mini BL20

Where the New Chocolate was a real media phone, the LG Chocolate Mini is not. It has the same shortcuts to media files and browser, on the left and right keys respectively, but the similarities end there. The Mini's camera and maps features are well below those of its predecessor, and the internet is the biggest disappointment of all.

A lack of Wi-Fi means you have to rely of O2's famously dodgy 3G coverage. The HTML browser isn't helped by its low memory, and content-rich websites load either slowly or not at all. You get a better experience with mobile-optimised sites, though. Browsing using the navigation bar is easy, and there are good shortcuts on the keypad for entering URL addresses. Zooming is a heavy handed process: you can zoom to 100% or full page, but anything in between requires a lot of clicking in the options menu. Try and run more than four apps and the New LG Chocolate Mini slows down substantially, leading websites to freeze completely.

 

Camera on the New Chocolate Mini BL20

The five-megapixel camera has a Schneider-Kreuznack lens, autofocus and an LED flash, and offers night, white balance and ISO modes. And that's it. Features that worked so well on the original model like panorama mode are nowhere to be seen, and video records at half the quality.

As with so many other handsets, there's no 3.5mm headset port, but there is an adaptor so you can at least use your own headphones. More of a letdown is the lack of GPS and maps software.

 

The downloads page consists of just games and ringtones, and the social networking shortcut is just links to to the sites.

 

The verdict on New Chocolate Mini BL20

It's perhaps unfair to compare the LG Chocolate Mini with its higher-end big brother, as it's a much cheaper phone, but as a mini version of the New Chocolate, all it shares is the sleek looks. Nearly everything that made the New Chocolate such a good phone has been stripped out of the LG Chocolate Mini. Saying that, though, texting and calls are easier here, and the camera is good for a phone at this price. The patchy browser and lack or Wi-Fi make internet frustrating, and there's no GPS either.