Hey, Another Choc !
It
won a few Phone of The Year awards, but the LG Chocolate phone franchise has
only just begun. Its latest confectionary delight, the KG810, hopes for similar
success
Before the appearance of the Chocolate phone it’s fair to say that LG wasn’t at the forefront of the public’s mobile consciousness. With moderate success coming from its prosaic 3G clamshells on the 3 network, the Korean outfit was hardly associated with sexy, desirable handsets here in the UK. But then this spring, out of nowhere, it dropped the sweetest bomb on our unsuspecting heads.
The LG KG800 Chocolate phone was the ‘hero’ product the manufacturer had been searching for: a minimalist, touch-sensitive slider with red-hot illuminating buttons that was as decadent as feeding dark chocolate to the she-devil. It captured the public’s imagination and has so far sold three million worldwide. If the last two years were dominated by the RAZR, then this year belonged to the Chocolate phone. And just like the ubiquitous RAZR, it’s poised to spawn a litter of sweet-tasting offshoots.
We’ve seen the KG800 painted pink and white but the first real spin-off is the KG810 clamshell. Strangely enough, LG has chosen not to classify the phone specifically a ‘Chocolate’, instead branding it as part of its premium Black Label series. We say strange because it is basically its slider stable-mate remoulded into a folder design, and why would you want to disassociate the phone from a phenomenally successful brand? Still, it’s LG’s beef and one we shouldn’t worry ourselves too much over.
So is it as desirable as our Fashion Phone of the Year? Sadly this ‘Chocolate’ can’t emulate the KG800’s tantalising design but then that’s a very big ask. Lying dormant it still commands a hint of the minimalist mystery but the spell is broken by silver trim around the phone and on the lip. Unlike the slider form, there are limitations with the clamshell, the signature front LED touch keys are confined to three music player controls, and it definitely loses impact compared to its more illuminating comrade.
The phone itself is very svelte and trim, and its glossy fascia deserves a certain amount of attention and touching. But overdo it and the phone will become smeared with your mucky finger marks.
Flip it open and a rather appealing chequered keypad introduces itself. Like the KG800, it’s not touch-sensitive but nicely bevelled, and fantastic to use with the keys and navigation pad generously sized and responsive. LG likes to offer clearly defined shortcuts galore on its keypads and the KG810 is no exception. Access to contacts, messaging, favourites, camera, phone profiles and the built-in MP3 player are all but one click away.
Anyone already familiar with LG will find nothing new on the user interface and icon-driven menu, and newcomers won’t take long to master its ways. The UI is pretty intuitive and straightforward. Also, for a 220x176-pixel resolution display, it’s remarkably sharp and vibrant.
As
we mentioned earlier, the KG810’s feature line-up hasn’t moved
on from the KG800. You still get the 1.3-megapixel camera, digital music player
and 128MB of memory. This is substantial for internal memory but when there’s
no card slot for expansion, the built-in music player becomes a little superfluous.
We forgave the original Chocolate phone for this discrepancy because its alluring
style outweighed the need for cutting edge mobile features. But with the KG810
falling short in the desirability stakes, the memory now feels a little limiting.
You can still fit on a few good-quality tracks (encoded at 128Kbps in AAC
format) but it won’t become your
primary portable music player.
The music player itself isn’t half bad. You get equalizer options to enhance the sound and we found Bass or Rock to adeptly handle most genres of music. The supplied earphones made our tunes sound harsh with too much treble while the bass was very distorted, but once we plugged our quality Sennheiser PX200 headphones into the supplied 3.5mm remote control jack adapter, the audio became more meaty and dynamic. The music player will also let you create playlists on the move but as we mentioned before, you’ll be lucky to store any more than 30 good-quality tracks, providing you don’t save any of your photos. Talking of which…
The 1.3-megapixel camera can be fired up from the dedicated camera keys on the navigation pad or on side of the handset. The KG810 shoots in a 1280x960 resolution and its pop-up on-screen menu system clearly shows the settings, making it very easy to operate and modify while in capture mode. It will also let you change the brightness, white balance, picture effects and shot sequence if you’re really into your photography but unlike the KG800, there is no LED flash. Otherwise the photo quality is pretty adequate at this level, despite being prone to over-exposure. Similarly, the QCIF-quality video recordings are negligible.
The KG800 Chocolate slider phone is a hard act to follow and we’re afraid this clamshell version doesn’t convey the virtues of the Chocolate phone at all well. What made the original so successful was the touch-sensitive keys that were central to the phone’s operation. On the KG810, the clamshell design limits its tactile quality with the front touch keys used for a marginal activity: controlling the redundant music player. But please remember that the KG810 is not a ‘Chocolate’ phone, so look at it this way: compared to other mid-range clamshells on the market, it’s still a very elegant phone.
This review covers the above mobile phone only and does not address the performance of any 3G Network. The score is based on a 3G mobile phone checklist.
Copyright : You are advised that this material is the copyright of www.3G.co.uk and is our own personal view only. (C) All rights reserved 2005. Whist every care has been taken in the preparation of this review, the author nor 3G.co.uk cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or authenticity of the information it contains, or consequence arising from it.
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