The Snap GM360 is the latest in LG's camera-centred Viewty range: a budget handset with a five-megapixel snapper that looks elegant too.

Style and handling on the LG Viewty Snap GM360

LG has a knack of making even its lowest price phones look classy, and the GM360 is no exception. It feesl light in the hand, but looks stylish, with a glossy black finish and chrome edging at the top and bottom. Below the three-inch touch-screen sit three discreet keys for call, call end and launching apps.

As a low-priced handset, the Snap does leave out features including 3G and Wi-Fi. This obviously slows down the internet but does keep the handset a svelte size.

Camera on the LG Viewty Snap GM360

Despite the low cost of the GM360, the camera is a good as you would expect from a Viewty handset. It's a five-megapixel model with a Schneider-Kreuznack lens, an LED flash and autofocus. Extras include continuous shot mode for three, six or nine consecutive shots, macro for close-up pics and night mode. Pictures look great on the screen both for taking and viewing your photos.

Because the camera's so good, it makes the omission of 3G and Wi-Fi more glaringly obvious. Even sending a picture message involves resizing your photos, and sending them via email takes a while with those GPRS speeds. You can use Bluetooth, but it's inconvenient and dated in the light of current technology. It's a real shame that you can't move your photos about at a decent speed.

Internet and touch-screen on the LG Viewty Snap GM360

Being confined to GPRS speeds also makes internet browsing slow, which is double frustrating because the three-inch screen makes web browsing a constant temptation. You'' need to be patient, and it's unlikely you'll be want to be online for anything more than finding quick bites of information.

The touch-screen is the resistive type as you would expect from a budget handset, so responds to pressure rather than gentle swipes. It generally works well, although to wake the phone from sleep mode requires swiping your finger up the screen and can take a couple of tries.

One nice touch is that you can assign gesture shapes to particular programs. For example, you can draw a triangle to go straight to your text messages. This works well and saves time - provided you can remember which gesture you have assigned to which program. If you do forget, simply tracing the shape of a question mark on the screen will take you to another screen with all the details on.

Home screen on the LG Viewty Snap GM360

The GM360 has three home screens including Live Square, a handy screen that brings together all your calls, texts and instant messages on to one screen. Your little avatar sits in the centre, and cartoon versions of your friends appear around it, building a cute social hub.

One screen concentrates on your contacts and lets you post shortcuts to favourites on screen. The third has shortcuts to your favourite applications such as Facebook. We would have liked to have seen the capability to upload photos to Facebook directly from the camera but instead you have to launch the app and use the upload feature there.

When the phone's in portrait mode you get a 1-9 number keypad with T9. In landscape you get a full QWERTY keypad but it's too small to make for comfortable messaging.

The verdict on the LG Viewty Snap GM360

The Viewty Snap is a good-looking, light handset that's a lot of fun to use but doesn't cut it when it comes to moving data around or using the net thanks to its lack of fast internet access. The camera is good, and the 3.5mm audio port and expandable storage mean you get a decent music player too, but that slow speed makes for a disappointing result.