LG Crystal GD900 Review

Organizer:

The LG Crystal GD900 delivers pleasing organizer functions that are enough to meet the needs of ordinary customers. Let´s get started with the alarm clock. In its “standard” mode you can set up several different alarms, each of them with its own melody and recurrence pattern. The way you do the setting itself looks impressive – through a digital or analog clock with background indicating whether the time you´ve just entered is AM or PM. Two rollers appear in digital clock mode that you turn separately. You will have to wait for about 3 seconds until they get settled and this is far from the fastest way to set up specific time, but still, it´s looks quite spectacular. Something suchlike is used when setting the correct date (say, in the main menu), but you need to use three different rollers, instead of two. The quick alarm option allows you to set up an alarm reminder about something that´ll happen within the next hour. Our only gripe is that you turn off ringing alarms by tapping a single key and it´s quite possible you get yourself an unplanned late morning, especially when half-awake.



Calendar (named organizer) offers a variety of modes – whole month, week, timetable (showing filled-in timeslots for a specific date and your time allocation) or a list of all entered events. You can add detailed schedule events that are classified in three major categories (meeting, anniversary and birthday), each one with its own subject, location, start and end dates, additional note and recurrence pattern. Unfortunately, they are not assigned alarms to remind you, meaning they can easily go unnoticed unless you keep an eye on the calendar all the time. The last event type (our favorite) is marking a period of time as bank holidays. The mode allows you to color one or more days in red which means you won´t have to work on these dates. Is there any way of marking the remainder of this year in red? Just like your contacts, you can save archive copies of your schedule and task list onto the memory card or send it via Bluetooth to another device.



The list of organizer options of the LG Crystal GD900 is supplemented with simplified notes (limited to 1000 symbols per entry), chronometer that records lap times and incredibly beautiful calculator with scientific mode that managed to get our hairs stand on end (all of us are gifted mathematicians). We did have tons of fun with the unit converter, because the preset value of the dollar against the euro is 2, while at the time of this review the exchange rate was 0.7 EUR. Correct values can be entered manually, although not synchronized over the internet, which is far from convenient. You also have a world clock (appears as a showy Globe) and the option to track local time in six cities around the world (of your choice). Voice notes can be recorded in two formats – one is suited for general use and the other for being sent in an MMS, but either way, voice quality is below par.



Messages:

The messages menu is really comfy and looks much like the one on the iPhone. Starting the function takes you right into incoming messages, grouped by date. A button at the top sends you into the outbox, where you can browse sent messages or follow up conversations in a threaded style. You can directly reply to an incoming message from your inbox and there´s a separate button to get down to typing your response. A nice, well conceived icon located in the bottom right corner allows you attach files in a snap. The largest size of a file we managed to attach was about 1 MB (video with length of 1 min 34 sec and resolution of 176x144 pixels) and pictures get automatically resized to acceptable level (up to 300 KB).



Setting up email accounts is easy, especially if you happen to use a mainstream, web-based email providers like Gmail, Yahoo etc., because all relevant settings are preloaded onto the phone. Unfortunately this doesn´t hold true for personal email servers like ours that is only handled by strictly business oriented BlackBerry devices. The good news is the Crystal supports Microsoft Exchange server to sync emails, contacts and calendar.



As we mentioned already, using the Crystal Touchpad as a normal keyboard feels quite convenient, thanks to its proper sensitivity and allows you to compose short messages literally in seconds when used along with the T9 function. The phone also permits typing away things via the integrated hand writing recognition through both the pad itself or the main screen and as a whole, they are both comfy.

You have two different keyboards at your disposal. They are different of what we saw on Viewty Smart. All keys are round shaped and there is enough space in between. The vertical layout is OK, although typing in this case is a bit slower than using the Crystal Touchpad, not to mention the coolness factor gets severely slashed. We tend to think the landscape QWERTY is a bit better implemented than what we saw on previous S-CLASS 3D models, because the keys are more easily discernible from one another. If you are not in a hurry and type slower, you won´t have any troubles.



Connectivity:

The LG Crystal GD900 is a four-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900), dual band 3G (900/2100) handset that also delivers HSDPA 7.2Mbps functionality. A version that can run on the 3G frequencies used by AT&T (850/2100) in the US is expected later on. Just like all other high-end cell phones, the device sports Wi-Fi and allows you to enter your own IP address.

There are certain changes in the phone browser as compared to the previous two models that utilize S-CLASS 3D interface. The app visualizes web pages well, but can be controlled through not only multitouch. You now have a screen cursor for more accurate navigation. Say, choose a particular hyperlink from a list without having to zoom in a lot. Actually, this is the only positive change in the browser. It does allow single tap zooming, but this can be done just once, meaning you press, the image gets larger depending on how sizeable the webpage is and if you need to take a closer look at something you will have to expand the frame using multitouch, so the whole thing involves a severe browsing delay. Every time you zoom in on a webpage, it will get reloaded, which makes surfing irritating and definitely slower than on the iPhone. Still, we have to admit that thanks to the Crystal Touchpad, using the browser feels better and more pleasing than on the LG ARENA or Viewty Smart. However, we also think the app needs more work if it´s to catch up with the leaders.



Bluetooth 2.1 provides local connectivity and supports the following profiles - HSP, HFP, DUN, FTP, OPP, GAP, SPP, SDAP, SDP, BPP, GAVDP, A2DP, AVRCP, SAP, AVDTP, AVCTP and PBAP. Aside from it, you can simply connect the device to your computer with USB 2.0 cable. When you do so, you will have several options – set the phone as a Mass storage device, for audio synchronization, connect through PC Suite or iSync (used with non-Apple devices on Mac computers). The former two don’t require additional software, while you would need to install LG PC Suite to use the third. It allows you to synchronize phone contacts, calendar and notes, upload music, pictures, videos, programs or download messages, emails etc.