LG Viewty Review

Messaging:

When creating a new text message you’ll have four options for text input: on-screen keypad, on-screen QWERTY keyboard, and handwriting recognition in a box or on the whole screen. The QWERTY keyboard is in landscape mode and is similar to the iPhone’s; the letters enlarge once they are pressed, but as they are situated on the whole width, the keyboard is bigger than in the Apple’s phone. Although not as fast as hardware QWERTY, it is convenient to use and was our preferred method for text input. The system tried to predict our words, but we would prefer to trade this feature for spelling-check, once the writing language is chosen. The on-screen keypad is similar to a standard one, but is absolutely flat (still it is on the screen), and its buttons are bigger than the QWERTY’s since they are less. The handwriting recognition is what its name says it is, and it performs pretty well!




If you include multimedia content such as a picture or tone, the message will turn from an ordinary SMS to a MMS.

Email IMAP4/POP3 client is also present, but the phone lacks any mailbox configuration wizard , which is rather mediocre. All settings must be entered manually, being neither fast, nor а pleasant procedure.


Connectivity:

One of the greatest drawbacks of the Viewty is its limited connectivity, which means it is not fully usable in the US. It is tri-band GSM/EDGE with single-band (2100MHz) UMTS/HSDPA 3.6MBps, making it suitable only for the European market.

The full HTML internet browser is definitely among the good ones on the market. Even heavy pages such as phonearena.com are not а problem, it visualizes them correctly. There are options for fullscreen, landscape or portrait orientation and for zooming out (so the whole page is visible) and then zooming in a particular part of the page, similar to the iPhone’s Safari. What we dislike is the way one moves through the page: although we are already used to operating the phone, scrolling in any direction works but is far from the iPhone, which is much more adequate.



Unfortunately, it cannot play embedded Flash objects, unlike the N95 8GB with its latest firmware. Considering the hardware of the Viewty, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Locally the Viewty connects either through Bluetooth (most commonly used for other portable devices and accessories) or through USB (for connection with computer). It lacks Infrared (used in older or low-class phones) or WiFi, which allows connecting to wireless LAN networks. However, we are disappointed that in the end of 2007, LG has implemented a slow Bluetooth module in its high-end model. Instead of Bluetooth 2.0 it has 1.2, and transferring large files to it is pretty slow. For our test we sent 3300kb video file from Nokia N82, and it required 90 seconds (37KBps), which is much slower than other phones we tested: Eten X800, 73 seconds (45KBps) and Nokia E51, 43 seconds (78KBps). At least the phone has the profiles required for Stereo Audio distribution over Bluetooth.

In the small CD from the box, come LG PC Suite and DivX (Player and Converter), to put any video you have in suitable format to the phone. They are separate applications and can be installed on their own. The Suite has an easy to use wizard for connecting the phone (either through Bluetooth or USB) and our only complaint is that in order to “detect” the Viewty, it must be in such USB mode (it is selected in the Settings menu), instead of Mass storage mode, which is used for direct access to the memory card.

The program allows for direct access to the Contacts, Messages and the Content (both the internal and card memory), as well as automatic backup or synchronization with MS Outlook.