LG GW620 Review

Phonebook, Social functions and Messaging:

The phonebook have had a facelift and you´ve got buttons to search and create new phone book entries quickly. The favourite contacts have been replaced by relevant groups, where people are classified by whether or not the details about their profiles with social networks (Facebook, Twitter) or have been marker with star. Finally, you are allowed to create your own groups.



So, where do you get the details about their social profiles from, then? The SNS application, where you enter the relevant information regarding your Facebook, Twitter and Bebo accounts. Respectively, you add people´s accounts to your contacts manually, one by one and can take a look at status updates and messages on opening any contact entry you have already updated accordingly. The Facebook application allows you to add your online buddies as a new contact to your phonebook, although for some unfathomable reason the function is called “link to a contact”. All told, the manufacturer needs to keep working on the proper integration of social networks into its interface and can certainly use some edifying ideas from the HTC Sense interface, where the whole process is fully automated and people´s pictures and status updates are visible on the main page of the phone book. SNS also gives you the opportunity to browse social networks, but its functionality is rather limited and it certainly cannot replace the proper applications that can be easily downloaded from Android Market.



We have already mentioned the hardware keyboard is good. The thing is people rarely feel like opening their phones to send a short reply like “I´m waiting” and prefer using screen keyboards instead. The one the GW620 comes with sports a fairly standard numeric layout and despite the large size of its buttons and the fact that it provides relatively comfortable text entry, we would have liked it better if featured QWERTY or half-QWERTY layout.




Connectivity:

Hm, the browser. It is usable, because pages load properly (without their flash elements) and scrolling feels smooth. Unfortunately, there is simply no way to zoom in or out on something easily – forget about double taps, spanning etc. The only way to do it is use the two screen buttons and the whole thing is rather clumsy. LG has added a shortcuts menu (bookmarks, options, back etc.) that we cannot define as particularly useful really.



The LG GW620 features proper connectivity options – you´ve got HSDPA 3.6Mbps in case you need to remain online on the go and Wi-Fi to take advantage of nearby hotspots. We have to point out that the handset cannot send files over Bluetooth, since the relevant program available at Android Market is not compatible with the device.