LG KF700 Review

Camera:

We were quite reserved towards this element of the phone, since it can snap pictures with a resolution of “only”3-megapixels. In addition, LG has never been known for the great camera quality of their phones.

We were pleasantly surprised from the way the interface started. By pressing the button on the right, the picture snapping is activated and by pressing and holding it, the camcorder. It starts for about 2 second, which is quite fast. The autofocus is also quick (about 3 seconds), and saving the image takes approximately 4 seconds.

The landscape-oriented viewfinder occupies the whole 3-inch display, with small indicators over the top and icons in the left and right side. They provide fast access to flash options, scene modes, compensation, shooting mode, exposure and settings. The last ones are visualized in a large grid of icons, with list with options. Thanks to the touch navigation, it is relatively easy to adjust any of them. Here unlike in Viewty, you don’t have to save after each change, which enables you to adjust all the settings simultaneously and then go back to the main interface.


The various options and the user-friendly interface are not necessarily equal to good quality. Most of the extras the camera has will be rarely used, and what actually matters is how the pictures look, especially full-sized.

The photos are average for a 3-megapixel phone. Outdoors during the day, you’ll have a relatively good detail, but the colors will not be well saturated and pale. As with most mobile devices, the indoor results are much worse. Even in a well-lighted place, the picture is blurry and with a lot of noise. The flash manages to just slightly improve the results and using it is mandatory if you want to use the autofocus, since it will act as assisting light source.



The only thing worth praise in the camcorder is the interface, similar to the one of the top cameraphone Viewty. Unfortunately, that’s the only similarity between the two. The videos can be recorded with a resolution up to 320x240 pixels with just 15 fps. The quality is below the average for the current standards.



Multimedia:

In both camera modes (photo/video) there is a shortcut to the gallery, which includes both types of files. It is very well designed and fully optimized for work with the touchscreen. After opening a picture, you can slide to the previous/next, by running your finger across the screen as if to push it out of the display. Unfortunately, the videos cannot be controlled in this way. You can zoom in through the screen or the wheel.


Of course, a phone cannot go without a proper music player either. Although this one is not the best we’ve seen, it still does a decent job. The filtering menu doesn’t have a modern look, but it offers the set of options you'd expect: recently played, artists, albums, genres, shuffle tracks. Once you start the player, the interface offers a lot of space for track related information, but not enough for the album cover. You can minimize it and still play, enabling you to use the other functions of the device.

The main obstacle for using KF700 as a portable jukebox is the extremely weak speaker. A separate one for music is not present and the regular phone speaker is used. Luckily, the sound quality is good, without any noises. Another good news is the presence in the box of a converter to 3.5 mm jack. So, if you don’t like the factory headphones, you can easily plug in a different set.


Since the handsfree acts as an antenna, using it is mandatory if you want to take advantage of the FM radio. You can automatically search for the stations available and save up to 24 separate ones.

The video player interface is the same as the music one. The file formats which it supports are MPEG-4 (H.263 and H.264) and 3gp. Unfortunately, the DivX support, which was Viewty’s big advantage before the competition, is not present here. Besides, you are not able to watch videos with a resolution higher than 320х240, which is kind of strange. The display is widely advertised as very suitable for full screen video watching, but in reality, the picture (of a video with such a resolution) is positioned in its centre only. However, the player would satisfy the needs of the mass consumer since it reproduces with no problem even 30fps videos.



Software:

KF700 is equipped with a document viewer as well. Using it, you‘ll be able to view (not to edit) Office 2003 files. The only trouble we had, was with the large excel tables, which led to insufficient memory notification. Except loading the massive PDF documents, which is somewhat slow, we were able to view them easily. There is only one element that we feel is annoying; if you zoom in on a page and go to the next one, you’ll have to zoom again since it goes back to whole page view. Unfortunately, Office 2007 is not supported.


Our KF700 (O2 variant) came preloaded with two games – a Bejewеled demo and Thomsons & Touch we know from KF600. The last one requires fully the use of the touch screen and since it is much fun, we wasted a lot of time with it. It is possible to install various JAVA applications, which are not especially made for a touch display phone. When you load them, you will see a navigation pad (same as with Bejeweled).