LG KU990 Viewty cameraphone Touchscreen mobiles are destined to be a hot ticket for the foreseeable future, but with the touch-controlled KU990 Viewty from LG there’s far more than screen-fingering novelty to tap your attention. The Viewty - daft name, it has to be said - adopts the stylish look and feel of LG's Prada phone released earlier this year but …
I played with one of these the other day, and was not that impressed. Despite a feature list as long as your arm, the implementation struck me as a bit poor.
As well as the UI inconsistencies noted above (the cardinal sin of UIs, in my view), the whole phone just felt so cheap. On picking it up, I had to make sure that I wasn't picking up one of the store-style dummy phones. Honestly, if this thing is going to compete with the iPhone, it needs to feel a lot less like a Christmas cracker toy. I did find that the touch screen had a bit of trouble registering finger presses. I didn't try the camera, so can't comment on that (I only care about having a workable camera on my phone -- not vice versa!) The web browser though was no better than Opera Mini 4 (and in some ways a bit worse!)
Sooo, it's difficult to see where this phone is trying to compete. Despite the touchscreen, it's not an iPhone competitor as it feels so cheap. Similarly, it's no N95 competitor as it feels cheaper, and is shorter on features. It's a more middle of the road phone -- more SE W910 or K890 (or whatever it is), than anything else. Personally, I wouldn't bother...
Was thinking about getting one of these instead of a W960 (when it eventually comes out). However, the no WiFi is a bit of a let down, the no place for a stylus seems kinda stupid, but the biggest concern will be applications. Lots of applications for Nokia, Symbian, PPC, but a propriatery OS (yeah I know, java, but it's still limiting and slow), nah, maybe not....pity, looks nice and 120FPS video sounds like fun 2 play with.
Hey... I'm stateside, where we are always last to get the newest gadgets (except the whyPhone).. I've had my AT& T Tilt for 2 weeks noe. (its's a reBranded HTC Kaiser II) ... Touchscreen and I only use the stylus when I forget I don't need it. Having been a Palm VX, M, and E2 owner I'm a habitual sylist...
Greg
A phone is still a phone but it is of cos much better than many with numerous built in features of a camera.
It would be a pain for those who need to access wifi daily
I try to convince myself it looks good but I'm only happy when I dont look direct at the front only at the side. It looks cheap sigh...
UI is simple and easy to access but scroll thru the touch screen with your fingers take some experiment and patience. I finally found how to use it, press on it with some pressure, dont let go and at the same time slowly slide it will do the trick. Alternatively, just use the not so user friendly jog dial behind around the lens if u still cannot get it.
The Calendar is basic and quite a few features are missing like for example there is no options for you to key in when you want the alarm to sound for an appointment entry, the only choice you have are all listed for you to choose.
Sucessful syncing to the pc is not consistant, sometimes it fails to connect and worst, it doesnt gel with outlook.
Let me explain, most contacts do have multiple phone numbers like office, mobile or home. But when it is sync, it doesnt register all the different numbers into one contact but you will see the same name many times cos it splits up the different phone numbers of one single contact.
It also doesnt captures Email address during syncing.
Called LG support apparently they need to investigate and come back to me.
BTW, cant sync it on Vista OS yet only WinXP.
Image quality is nothing fantastic so dont expect alot from it. I'm more confident using my P990i camera even though it is a 2mp phone. At least I dont have to worry about blur image if there are some slight shake.
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