LG T565 Review

Introduction and Design:

Here is a phone that tweens are going to dig – the LG T565. Known as the LG Cookie Friends in some countries, or as the LG Viper in others, (not to be confused with the LG Viper for Sprint) the T565 is a budget-friendly handset that offers a handful of social network connectivity features. As you might expect, it feels cheap and plasticky, although we find the combination of colors – black and red in our case, to our liking. It has well-exposed, clicky buttons and a relatively slim profile for its class.



You can compare the LG T565 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Given that the T565 is aimed at budget-conscious consumers, we can say that its 2.8-inch QVGA display gets the job done well. Colors look accurate enough and its viewing angles are satisfactory. Moreover, the touchscreen is of the capacitive kind and is sufficiently responsive.

Interface and Software:

The simple, easy to use interface is among the things we like about the LG T565. It offers three customizable home screens, a whole bunch of widgets, and icons that are big enough for any thumb. Sadly, its on-screen keyboard is quite frustrating to use. It is slow, unresponsive, and its keys are way too tiny. Thankfully, switching to a T9 numeric keypad makes typing easier.


As far as software is concerned,  you get both Twitter and Facebook clients out of the box, as well as a Windows Live Messenger client. All off them can work in the background too, which is pretty cool . The email client works great with the popular email service providers and supports push email notifications. Sadly, we couldn't get the YouTube client to work.


Internet and Connectivity:

Yes, the little T565 has an HTML browser too! However, it is barely passable. Pages take a while to load, during which time using them is nearly impossible, and the heavier ones fill up its memory, thus failing to render entirely. Besides, pinching to zoom works well when you zoom in, but glitches up when you zoom out. Nevertheless, simpler pages, such as Wikipedia, work absolutely fine. Hooking up to the web is done either over EDGE 2G or Wi-Fi.



Camera and Multimedia:

Now, we know what you are thinking: this phone probably has a mediocre camera. And you'd be right as the 3-megapixel shooter, with no auto-focus nor flash, takes uninspiring shots that lack detail. Videos look terrible even when viewed on the phone's display.

The built-in music player, on the other hand, works like a charm and even has its own widget for quick access. There is a built-in FM radio as well. The video player can handle MPEG-4 files of resolution up to 320 by 240 pixels.

Performance and Conclusion:

Although it sounds slightly artificial, the earpiece on the LG T565 is surprisingly loud. We could easily pick up everything that the other party was saying without turning its volume higher than half-way. At the same time, the microphone does a pretty good job as well as it delivers loud and distinct voices on the other side of the line.

Out of the phone's 900mAh battery one can expect getting 8 hours of talk time. If left in stand-by mode, the battery will go flat after 550 hours. Both of these numbers are within the average for phones of this class.

In conclusion, the LG T565 is a great choice for the modern teenager. For a price of about $100 off-contract you get a decent phone that allows you to stay connected to your online buddies and will even entertain you with its music player. We only hope that you needn't resort to taking photos or videos with it.

Model Number: LG-T565b
S/W version: V10a-DEC-23-2011

LG T565 Video Review: