LG New Chocolate BL40 Review

Introduction:

LG has managed to bowl everyone over with the introduction of the extravagant LG New Chocolate BL40 this year – a handset of the stylish Black Label series of the manufacturer. Its most interesting feature is, hands down, the unique 4-inch, touch-sensitive screen sporting non-standard 21:9 aspect ratio, contributing to an overall length of the handset that appears somewhat out of proportion to its width and making the phone slightly surprising to look at. Throw its exceptionally thin profile and pleasingly unobtrusive, non-florid overall design into the deal and what you get is a real eye-catcher. Now, let´s take a closer look.

Design:

The LG New Chocolate BL40 is fairly elongated, but its profile is quite thin, which does make it look like a bar of chocolate. The phone, however, is not exactly compact and you will certainly feel it in your pocket all the time. Using the handset with one hand is not what we would call handy, due to the sheer size of the screen. Frankly, this is something we are willing to put up with, given the stunning beauty of the LG New Chocolate BL40. The phone body is made of jet-black, glossy plastic almost entirely, with deep red lower and upper parts of the body lending some color – a well-tried color solution. There are more than enough metal elements and they give the right finish to the overall design, including the framing on either side of the phone, the nice edging at the top and bottom and 5-megapixel camera on the back.



You can compare the LG New Chocolate BL40 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The 4-inch screen with native resolution of 345x800 pixels delivers amazing image quality. Its colors are saturated and the high pixel count contributes to vivid pictures with sharp details and crisp text, even if you’re reading text with a small font. We wonder if the BL40 will leave us equally impressed by its video playback capabilities. But we´ll get to this later on. The screen utilizes capacitive technology, meaning it responds to your fingers only.



The buttons on either side, including the camera shutter, volume rocker and a key to start the audio player look like integral parts of the metal framing. They are easy to press and feature proper travel. The microUSB port, protected with a cunningly crafted flap is on the left hand side, while the 3.5mm jack is on the top, next to the handy screen lock/unlock.



We are impressed by the overall workmanship quality of the LG New Chocolate BL40. The phone feels solid, reliable and tough enough to survive for a long time, while its all-round design is, as we already mentioned, more than just appealing. Well, because it´s made of plastic the BL40 can get scratched easily, especially in the hands of people who don’t tend to look after their handsets, but a cell phone like this certainly deserves more care and attention than usual. It is a far cry from being your average device and looks irresistibly attractive. This means LG has done a great job and has rolled out an awesome Black Label family member. That´s the ticket, LG!