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LG KT610 |
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KT610 is LG's way of saying the communicator class isn't reserved for insanely expensive high end devices. Packing a large full-QWERTY keyboard and neat and simple looks, the S60 Symbian handset spells business. It might have a few features missing but a frown at the spec sheet may as well melt into a smile at the price tag. Economy class is good enough as long as it gets you there. One particularly exciting thing about LG KT610 is the stark contrast between the touchingly old-school front and the serious stuff inside. Key features:
Main disadvantages:
LG KT610 is a blessing for heavy texters who do appreciate the Symbian way of handling messaging. The dream texting skills however come at a price - the multimedia handling has suffered. In addition, cutting corners on cost has affected the preloaded content, which is rather scarce. As this stage it should have becom e obvious that the KT610 is a niche model. It still makes a nice alternative in the full QWERTY Symbian segment, where supply isn't exactly profuse. LG KT610 is rubbing shoulders with a few Eseries handsets and Communicators, and a couple of Sony Ericsson P-line phones. All right, a fact's a fact: the Nokia E90 secondary display is almost the size of the KT610 main screen and the difference in price is hard to swallow. But still, plunging head first in the shark pond sure takes some cojones. Another tough question is how the lack of Wi-Fi would affect a communicator, no matter how affordable. Well, we are to see about that when the phone spends some more time on the market. As for now let's cut to the chase and start inspecting the LG KT610 exterior. The LG KT610 dimensions of 108.9 x 53.9 x 17.2mm are desperately short of compact in regular phone terms. However, it's the most pocketable communicator-style handset around. The same holds true for the weight of 125.5 grams - a good achievement for the class but far from spectacular in common mobile terms. Design and construction The LG KT610 was never meant to be a hot looke r, so don't count on the exquisite finish of the LG KF750 Secret. The form factor isn't exactly the kind to expect design miracles but the LG approach is interesting enough. The KT610 is simply not a foldable eye-sore: the neat and simple exterior, the smaller dimensions and, above all, that vintage look give it a charm of its own. When closed, LG KT610 looks so 1998 with its tiny screen and giant keypad and controls. Looks on the inside are way more conventional, simplicity and ease prevailing again. One still can't help but wish the screen was bigger. The 4:3 aspect ratio is probably just as important for compatibility but it looks like a lot of space was simply wasted. The folding top of LG KT610 locks in two positions. The first is at about 120 degrees, which is very comfortable for desktop use. In this position the KT610 is best used sitting on your desk. The other position is full flat and it's more convenient for holding the phone in your hands. The earpiece of LG KT610 is located at the top of t he folding front, the mouthpiece is at the very bottom, while the stereo speakers are on either side of the internal display. The microSD card slot is on the right side of the handset. LG KT610 will ship with a 1GB card included but if that seems insufficient you can go for a bigger one. The handset had no trouble handling an 8GB memory card, which is the largest capacity currently available on the market. The volume rocker is on its left side, right between the hinges, and the LG proprietary USB slot is at the top. A standard miniUSB or microUSB slot might have been more welcome but it's not that much of a bother. The backside hosts the 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera lens and the self-portrait mirror. Communicator or else, the KT610 sure ain't a cameraphone, but we'll discuss that later on in the dedicated camera chapter. Sliding down the latch at the base of the battery cover makes the 960 mAh Li-Ion Polymer battery pop out. Its capacity isn't spectacular by any means but you can still count on up to 2 days of rather extensive usage. The build quality of LG KT610 is very good, and that's one aspect where it comes close to communicators. There are no special or rare materials used, but the plastic casing is quite solid and there are no creaks or other disturbing noises during operation. The metallic framing of the folding top is a nice accent, and the rubbery texture at the rear ensures a nice grip. Even though you only get full access to all phone features in QWERTY desktop use, single-handed operation of the KT610 is still quite sensible. Display - improvement all over LG KT610 packs a 1.45" external and a 2.4" internal screen, both handling 262K colors. The external display has very poor picture quality but still does a decent job for answering calls and checking the device status. It does give access to some more basic features, including texting and music player. Keypad fantastic: external and QWERTY alike All the keys and controls on LG KT610 are simply great. The keypad on the outside has superb large keys on terraced rows The inside full QWERTY keyboard is just as good with the well-sized and spaced knobs. The only minor problem is the D-pad confirmation center, which might feel too small to first-time users. However getting used to it is rather quick and you'll be speeding through menus and selections in no time. If you open any of these applications through the small external display and then flip the KT610 open, they get opened on the main screen too, which is rather handy. Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way around, as closing the flip always minimizes all open applications. Now let's open up the main screen. For starters, LG KT610 features an active standby mode. You have a bar of shortcut icons for instant access to pre-selected functions at the top of the display, while scheduled events from the calendar, along with the currently playing track or radio station (if any), get displayed underneath. When assigning Active Standby shortcuts, you can choose any application or even a website. The functionality of the two soft keys is configurable too. Another standby screen feature that we really like is the Google search bar giving instant access to the search engine. The phone has 5 profiles plus an offline mode that switches off all transceivers. If the phone gets started without a SIM card the offline mode get activated automatically allowing full access to the functions of the phone that do not require cellular network coverage. All the profiles can easily be edited to best suit the user needs. As with any other S60 smartphone, the task manager of LG KT610 pops up upon a press-and-hold on the Menu key. It allows switching between applications or turning off any running application by pressing the backspace key. There are only two menu views for the KT610 but they are basically all you need. The options are a 4 x 3 grid of icons, and a standard list. Music player does the job Except for the landscape screen orientation, the LG KT610 music player looks exactly like on any other S60 3rd edition device. It is surely not the most attractive of applications but its functionality is more than OK offering most of the features you can think of. All the essentials are duly covered - LG KT610 supports a huge number of audio formats including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. Files are automatically added to the mu sic library once you choose the refresh option in the music player. Track-sorting based on artist, album, genre and composer is also available. The external display has a very basic interface for the music player but it also does the job. This means that you can listen to your music without even having to open the phone. The supported A2DP profile for Bluetooth makes sure you can enjoy your favorite tracks on a stereo Bluetooth headset. Even though the KT610 was never meant to be a music phone, its audio quality easily makes some dedicated music handsets blush with embarrassment. Video player LG KT610 comes with Real player preinstalled for watching video. The videos can be displayed in fullscreen to make better use of the display. In fullscreen, the s oftkey labels are hidden, so they don't stand in the way, and only pop up when a key is pressed. The great picture quality is also a boost to video watching experience. The fact that the phone can easily be used in desktop mode makes it even more suitable for watching video. Picture gallery is OK The LG KT610 image gallery is accessed from the My Stuff icon in the main menu. It doesn't look as good as the 3D rotating gallery on the Nokia N-series devices but functionality is good enough. The gallery allows viewing pictures in both normal and full screen mode. Once you pick a picture you can zoom on it for greater detail. The actual zooming is very fast for the first step and somewhat slower, but still acceptable, for the next steps. Panning is quite fast and isn't going to bother anyone. The LG KT610 gallery also offers adequate file-management allowing selection and sending of multiple files. In addition to that, the smartphone has the usual file manager that does a very good job itself. It allows filtering files according to the memory used as well as marking, moving, copying single or multiple files at a time. The camera of the LG KT610 is one of things indicating that it is supposed to be a business device before anything else. The camera on KT610 however is really hard to operate. The outside screen is comfortable to use when shooting like you would with a regular bar phone. However the small external display shows only a part of the frame to be captured. It cuts about 2/3 of the frame and only displays its central area. Also worth pointing out is that you can't capture videos using the external display as a viewfinder. When using the inside screen as a viewfinder you're facing other problems. For one, your finger tends to cover the lens when you hold the phone. You have to risk dropping it or hold it vertically and shoot in a really unnatural and awkward way. On the positive side, the camera interface is rather nice and easy to work with. In fact it is the same as the one on Nokia 5320 and Nokia 6210 Navigator. It doesn't offer too many features but with a snapper like this they are more than enough. The sequence and scene modes are all there and there is a really nice panorama mode where the handset can easily make panos with excellent stitching. However, this panorama mode produces photos of too low resolution, which are suitable for viewing on the phone screen only. Unfortunately, much like on the Nokia 6210 Navigator, despite the built-in GPS receiver, the camera of the KT610 is not able to geotag your shapshots. Pity, indeed! The picture quality is about average for a two megapixel camera. Color rendering is rarely on the spot but the amount of captured detail is decent. Noise level s are acceptable for the class. The image processing algorithm is good enough and there isn't much detail loss due to noise reduction or oversharpening. Web browser is worth the praise Browsing the internet with LG KT610 is a pleasure. No matter how elaborate the web page, it fits perfectly on the screen and is very easy to read and navigate. The virtual mouse cursor earns the handset another point. It is easy to control and generally works great. A mini-map can be activated to help finding your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The zoom level and font size are also adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses. This is where the landscape 2.4" screen gets much appreciated, as it makes the font readable even when downsized to only a few pixels height. Thumbs up for the GPS The final noteworthy feature of Samsung LG KT610 is the built-in GPS receiver. Even though A-GPS is nowhere in sight, the KT610 just nailed down that satellite lock in less than two minutes in cold start. The hot start time is only a few seconds. The handset ships with Google Maps preinstalled which sadly doesn't offer turn-by-turn voice guided navigation. This means that a third party navigation software is your only option for using the KT610 as a GPS navigation system. Luckily there are plenty of those available on the market. Of course, you will have to give it some serious thought of how you are going to position the phone on your dashboard to use as an in-car navigation unit. Games The LG KT610 comes with two game trials - the official Shrek III game and Bubble Breaker. The demos run for a minute and a half and then automatically exit. The availability of demo versions only is quite in line with the business orientation of the device. Anyway, you are free to download more games to your LG KT610 or go on and purchase the full versions of those already available. As a whole LG KT610 is a no-nonsense, neat performer. It has its shortfalls here and there but, having in mind the price gap to the next best thing in the class, those are understandable. Still the handset is simply ticking quick and neat, plus ergonomics are commendable.
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