LG KG800 European Chocolate Review

Messaging is similar to any other phone. You can compose SMS and MMS, T9 is used for entering the text and writing with it is quite quick. There is a capability for Templates, but there are no such saved by default – you have to create them by yourself. The size of files attached to a MMS can be a maximum of 100KB.

During the test we connected the Chocolate with a Logitech Mobile Traveller headset via Bluetooth without any trouble. Access the menu Settings – Connectivity – Bluetooth, where name and visibility of the phone are chosen.

Transferring pictures via Bluetooth is an issue. First, you cannot send more than one at a time; second, on each transfer the phone searches for Bluetooth device, instead of automatically detecting the previously used. This is really inconvenient if you want to exchange more photos via Bluetooth. 

The sales package includes a cable for connection with a PC; for Windows XP it is initiated without the need of installing any software. The phone is recognized as a Mass Storage device and transferring to it is done right away. We transferred 83MB for 3 minutes and 15 seconds, which is approximately 430 KB/s – neither too fast, nor too slow. 
The package also contains a CD with software for synchronizing the phone with a PC. Both the phone book and the organizer can be sent.

Additional software provides a possibility for uploading sounds and pictures to the phone and you have a wide choice provided – melodies in the form of sounds for ringtones, classics and LG melodies; images of various famous places, beautiful sceneries, etc. Overall, a very good collection.

Camera:

There is nothing unusual about the camera. It is situated on the back of the upper slider and can only be used when the phone is opened, which prevents you from causing any damage to it while carrying the phone in your pocket. The resolution is 1.3 megapixels and there is a LED flash, which is not that powerful. 

It can be started from the Multimedia menu or by pressing the button on the right side – it takes about three seconds to launch. The interface is quite inconvenient. All its options are accessed by the left soft key and are displayed as small icons, and it's hard to guess what their exact purpose is; they are arranged in a row and to access any of them you have to scroll horizontally which is very uncomfortable and is done very slowly. The color effects and the night mode can be considered as extras.     

The quality of the pictures is as usual for a 1.3-megapixel camera but it's not amazing, as it should be for such a phone. When there's not enough light the pictures quality is bad, but the ones taken indoors and good light look pretty good, even when they're taken from close range. Picture colors look real enough.  

The images saved on the phone are viewed in full screen, and only the name of the file and the two soft keys are displayed. The pictures can also be viewed with thumbnails.  

Music:

LG Chocolate has a music player – or at least something that pretends to be one.
We placed a folder with music in MP3 format in the Music folder of the phone – we found out that the player of the phone does not detect them. The files must be copied directly into the Music folder, without any subfolders, which is inconvenient and confusing because you cannot sort them. After we did this we started the player – at first we were impressed by the beautiful graphic equalizer, but after we pause the song, we noticed that it is does not reflect music, it's just put there to make player look more “stylish”. There are three different visualizations for the graphic equalizer.
In fact, real equalizers can be run and they reflect the music. But there is point in using them only when you're with earphones and the difference could be heard; we would recommend the Default setting.

The box of the phone also includes headphones with 3.5mm jack and an adaptor from the phone's port to 3.5mm. The adaptor ends with a remote control which allows moving to next/prev sound, pause and volume adjustment. The included headphone are not that bad and could be of use; having in mind the small amount of memory and the limited capabilities of the phone's music player, we see no point in replacing them with more expensive ones.

The MP3 player does not support sorting the files by artist, album or genre. This option was present in phones like Motorola and Sony Ericsson, which we previously tested. It's also standard in iPOD for easier navigation through your music. There is also no capability for Playlist which further highlights that the phone is not planned as a music player, and the one included is only supposed to be rarely used. It can be used with the phone closed but not at background when going through other functions. On an incoming call the player stops (not pauses) and after finishing your conversation the song starts from the beginning.  

The Java applications are located in the My Stuff menu. When you buy the phone, there's only one game, Sudoku, but others can be added too. Loading the Sudoku took a little while. It's logic game, not an arcade one.