LG KU990 Viewty

 

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Max. Line Rental: £0

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Max. Phone Cost: £50

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Monthly Minutes: 50

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Monthly Texts: 50

Include Resellers?

Networks: T-Mobile  Orange  Three  Vodafone  O2  Virgin Mobile 

Free gifts: None Available

Contract length:    12 months    18 months    24 months

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Our Review of the LG KU990 Viewty

The Viewty was a late comer to 2007, making its auspicious entry to the mobile market a few months before Christmas. However the handset has done very well, and has seen LG shift millions of units worldwide thanks to its great design and roster of high-end capabilities.

With its 5.1 Megapixel camera, autofocus and Xenon flash, the LG Viewty is a powerful imaging beast.

The LG KU990's common name alludes to both the high calibre of the built-in camera – 5.1 Megapixels, with autofocus and Xenon flash – and its aesthetic appeal, which it has borrowed heavily from its fashion-centric LG stablemate, the LG Prada. Whilst the Viewty may remind you of the Prada, it is however an entirely different, and altogether more powerful beast.

The Viewty is very easy on the eye, featuring a 3" 240 x 400 LCD touchscreen display on one side, and dedicated space for the camera and flash lenses on the other side, taking its cue from the Sony Ericsson CyberShot range. At a first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Viewty was merely a digital camera, and not a high-powered smartphone. It should probably be called a phone-camera and not a camera phone.

Those of us disappointed by the lack of high end features on the Prada phone are going to be more than happy with the LG Viewty. The same sleek styling that the Prada became known for makes a welcome return. The Viewty is a sleek black monolith which is curved at one end, designed to allow you to easily hold the phone when it is in camera mode.

You have the option of using either a QWERTY or a numerical pad when composing a text or email, whichever you prefer.

Back to that 3" touchscreen - call function buttons are mounted beneath the main display, through which the majority of the phones functions are accessed. The touchscreen comes with a touch feedback feature, which means that you can actually 'feel' the response from the virtual buttons with a subtle vibration. A common problem with all touchscreen devices is that you can easily accidentally select options you didn't intend to; the pseudo-tangibility of the Viewty's screen means that you can confirm menu choices with a slight buzz at the fingertips. You can either use your fingers if you want a more hands-on approach, or use the stylus which comes provided if you don't want to smear your Viewty with greasy fingerprints.

Menus are as bright, clear and legible as they are intuitive and adaptable - for example, when composing a text message or an email, you have the option of using a QWERTY pad or a numerical pad, which ever one you are most accustomed to. So rather than users having to adapt to new technology, you can make your Viewty adapt to the way you like doing things.

Needless to say, images taken on the camera also look super-detailed and lush, as good as anything you re likely to take on Nokia's N95. The camera has some great features including flash, autofocus, camera strobe flash and focus assist beam. The images you can capture with the camera come out crisp and clear and with the added software it is usable even in difficult lighting conditions. It also shoots video as well as it takes pictures (VGA 30fps, QVGA up to 120fps) and as the Viewty is DivX compatible, you can shoot video content and upload it straight to the web.

On mentioning the web, now would be a good time to talk about the browsing capabilities of the LG Viewty - it's an HSDPA compatible smartphone, capable of achieving broadband download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps, so sending and receiving files and is super-fast and vewing web pages is eye-pleasing smooth on the 3" screen. Sensibly, web pages can be viewed in the landscape format, making use of the longest dimension of the display.

What about music? The built-in music player supports MP3 and AAC file formats and playback is good. However we must be honest and say that this isn't the strongest point of the Viewty, which is, again as its name suggests, primarily designed for imaging and web access. The 100MB of on-board memory (microSD expandable up to 2GB) would also be filled up by proper audiophiles in no time at all. We're are however pleased to announce that with the Viewty, LG have revived the long-thought dead tone composer function, and so the dubious joy of composing ones own ringtone makes a very welcome comeback on this 21st Century bad boy.

Make	LG		GPRS
Model	KU990 Viewty		3G
Air Interface	HSDPA / GSM		HSDPA
Coverage (Band)	Quad		Wi-Fi
Handset Type	Standard		Bluetoothv1.2 with A2DP
Dimensions	54 x 104 x 15 mm		IrDA
Weight	112 g		USBv2.0
Talk time	Up to 4 hours		GPS
Standby time	Up to 430 hours		Push e-mail
Camera5.0MP			Predictive Text
Camera FlashXenon			MMS
Video Cameraat 30fps as WMV			E-mail
Audio PlayerAAC, MP3			Memory CardmicroSD
FM Radio			Java
RingtonesPolyphonic, MP3			BrowserWAP 2.0/XHTML
Headphone Jack			Organiser
GamesDownloadable			Touchscreen
Internal Memory100 MB			Vibrate
Video Calling

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