LG Arena touchphone As they say, it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. The LG's KM900 - aka Arena - may pack in an impressive quantity of functionality, but the real question is whether LG’s new S-Class touchscreen UI, making its finger-dabbing debut on this device, has the touch. LG Arena LG's Arena: smooth and stylish The Arena …
And two come along at once. The camera sounds better than the Touch Diamond 2 (I'm actually tempted by the high speed mode), but the keyboard might be worse - hard to tell, because the Touch Diamond 2 review didn't talk about it. The screen sounds nice, though.
Is there a sensible stylus?
I just had a play with one in a friendly T-mobile store.
Firstly, silly me, it's (I'm told) proprietary not a skinned Windows Mobile - so no competition for the HTC phones from the perspective of third party apps.
Secondly, the screen is nice - but there's no stylus. The flippy gui works a bit better than in the emulator, but still goes chug a little. I'm not sure that the cube effect actually adds anything, and they miss out on some touches (why doesn't the menu button do something useful in the menu screen, like switch to the next one, for example?) A shame, because the pinch multi-touch thing is something I'd like.
I don't get on with the on-screen keyboard either (it's *very* Apple, including the pop-up keys and correction suggestions). This might have put me off a Touch Diamond 2 - I can imagine that the larger screen on the Touch HD might help.
Otherwise, it's quite slick, but does seem to trip over here and there in the functionality. The half-press focus on the camera is nice, but it's not very slick at doing things with the result, for example (first impression only, of course).
Now, if someone would produce a decent WVGA Android phone...
Whilst I understand that LG, HTC et al can't simply admit defeat of a sort, this is just pathetic. The advert for this particular phone goes all out to convince people that the guy is walking around using an iPhone even swiping the answer call button when he actually should just press it. Truly a poor man's iPhone with a dramatically short shelf life before LG forget it in the race for the next glossy advert. Buying an iPhone 3G would have actually saved you money as LG Samsung, Nokia etc. have released about 5-6 "competing" models during its release. What a joke.
This only comes off as desperate as most potential purchasers must have used an iPhone by now and will just be really disappointed once they realise that they've been duped into buying something which isn't an iPhone and can't even touch it. No apps store, ugly poorly photoshopped icons and interface. Looks like it was designed by students on a gap year.
Please nobody buy this effort or the HTC diamond touch etc. you're just encouraging more mediocre rip-off touch screen mobiles. Which is really odd as I'm often told that HTC were working on the original touch model "years before the iPhone came to market." It looked more like it should have *come out* several years before the iPhone came to market along with the rest. Several years since the first iPhone and still the rest of the industry is still flapping about. Get it together you lot!
Pull your head out of your butt my friend, I quite like my Omnia and might have considered an iPhone if it would work with my Rokr S9 headphones, iGo8 or TomTom Mobile software or I could use it to access the internet when tethered to my laptop. Until Apple wake up and allow people like myself and lot of other techies to use our phones (yes we paid for them so we own them) in the way we want to (without resorting to hacking and voiding of warranties) there will be a market for the competition. If we also want a nice big screen for watching videos on too there will always be lookalikes. So these lookalikes may be compromised in UI some ways but the iPhone is compromised in it's own right.
This LG seems quite snappy in the UI department to me (a friend demo'd his to me last week) If it had compatibility with 3rd party apps and decent support it may be a go'er. However one of the main selling points of a smartphone is expandability and the ability to taylor it to your requirements with a closed OS and not apps this misses the point massively IMO, LG need to get on board with Android,
I suggest you remove you head from your arse mate. iPhone OS 3. Rokr S9 headphones, check., and your iGo 8 and TomTom mobile software are made redundant. Tethering is available with iPhone OS 3 as well - it wasn't available before at the behest of the operators. Did you pay outright for your phone? Really? Didn't think so. In caps so you understand. - YOUR PHONE SOULD HAVE COST YOU AT LEAST £300 BUT IT HAS BEEN SUBSIDISED BY YOUR OPERATOR. YOU WILL NOT "OWN" IT UNTIL YOU CONTRACT IS UP. There. Quite simple to understand. Besides the Omnia and this LG is just another cheap Korean iPhone rip-off. When are you people going to accept that the iPhone is a success and that these guy's are merely trying to produce cheap knock-offs?
And so *this* is what the future of mobile telephony is going to be: Nothing but attempts to copy whatever Apple do.
It already happened on the desktop. Windows, Gnome, KDE -- they are all trying to be like the Mac. Nobody dares to do anything innovative anymore because then, they might be less Mac-like. The DEs that borrowed their inspiration straight from BeOS or NeXTSTeP are more-or-less dead, used only by hardcore fans.
Maybe Ted Kaczynski was right after all.
The iphone is so dated compared to new phones.. crappy camera, no flash, no video, poor battery... its saving grace was its UI, but that's been replicated - and in many places bettered - by other phones now.
iphone OS 3 still has poor bluetooth (no DUN, so most devices still can't use it to tether, no OBEX, so you can't print your photos like you can with other phones, or transfer photos to other people).. and AC has a point it won't run TomTom mobile because apple won't let it - and it won't connect to in-car satnavs due to it's deficient tethering.
I love the UI on the new LG.. seems way more intuitive than the iphone, plus of course proper bluetooth, decent camera and way better battery life. The only thing that lets it down is the lack of 3rd party apps, which I've got used to over the years. Have to agree with the other posters though.. why bother with your own OS when you can use android?
> iPhone OS 3.
Which isn't out of beta yet.
> Rokr S9 headphones, check.,
IIRC (the iphone I have hasn't left my desk in a while...) the iPhone has a stupid "barrel" infront of the actual jack so unless your headphones are apple ones or have a connector that'll fit through the barrel you need a little adaptor. Thankfully I can just plug my AudioTechnica headphones that have a fairly standard 90 degree jack straight into my n95. Apparently someone at Nokia realised that all these proprietary connectors for headphones are a real head ache for consumers that just want to plug in a decent set of headphones that doesn't make their ears ring...
> and your iGo 8 and TomTom mobile software are made redundant.
Redundant actually meaning "because apple don't want those applications on their platform they must be bad."
>Tethering is available with iPhone OS 3 as well
Not out of beta yet. It's good that it should finally appear but ... drum roll .. other *cheaper* phones have done it for ages.
> it wasn't available before at the behest of the operators.
Even if that's true, the bluetooth hardware and software on the iPhone are fairly awful. I seem to remember the GPS also not being so hot in the 3G version when it was initially released. Yes, apple products are plagued by the same faults that all other vendors have, shock horror!
> Did you pay outright for your phone? Really?
Maybe he did? How can you be sure either way?
> Didn't think so. In caps so you understand.
For future reference; Writing in caps doesn't make what you write any more correct.
> - YOUR PHONE SOULD HAVE COST YOU AT LEAST £300 BUT IT HAS BEEN
>SUBSIDISED BY YOUR OPERATOR. YOU WILL NOT "OWN" IT UNTIL
>YOU CONTRACT IS UP. There. Quite simple to understand.
Only Apple knows what it should have cost. Chances are it costs around the same to actually produce as most other phones,... I have a feeling the price of SIM-Free phones is magically inflated well above production cost + sensible profit margin to stop people buying high-end handsets and sticking PAYG sims in them. Hint; You can buy high-end-not-bootleg-sim-free handsets cheaply in Asia.
Also, with O2 at least, you can change your contract from an expensive ~50 quid/month contract (you initially need an expensive contract to get one of the better handsets) to a cheaper ~20 quid/month one halfway through the term of the contract. Which would sort of suggest to me that O2 have recouped the money for SUBSIDISED handsets long before the contract ends. Could it be that providing telephony services is actually very cheap and providers dangle shiny things that cost very little to them but seem expensive to you because inflated market prices to sucker you into dropping 50 quid a month for services that cost the provider pennies?
> Besides the Omnia and this LG is just another cheap Korean iPhone rip-off.
Yes, because things made in Korea are bad. Full stop. I hope the iPhone doesn't have any cheap Korean technology inside like a Samsung produced ARM processor, Samsung flash memory ... doh!
>When are you people going to accept that the iPhone is a success
>and that these guy's are merely trying to produce cheap knock-offs?
Well by that logic Innocenzo Manzetti's idea was a success and Apple is producing cheap knock-offs of his idea. Those cheeky barstewards!
I've got the Arena and have had it for the past 2 months or so. Personally I don't care that it's not a smart phone - i decided a decent battery life and pocketability were more important than being able to download apps (my choice of upgrade was this or the G1).
I try not to use the keyboard very much in landscape mode as the keys do tend to be a bit small but in portrait mode they're fine and once you get used to adding new words to the T9 dictionary, the suggestions come out ok (not quite as good as SE but not horribly bad either).
The camera is excellent for any point and shoot needs. Not tried the video yet so can't comment on that.
The one gripe I have is that it's quite easy to press number buttons with your face when talking on the phone but if you set the keypad lock to a suitably short time, this becomes less annoying.
In summary, I'm really pleased with this phone. I don't care if it has been styled to look like an iphone to be honest - it's almost inevitable these days and if it bothers you that much then i think you're going to be disappointed for the forseable future. The UI is great - even some of my iphone owning friends have been impressed.
Ric Jones.
> - YOUR PHONE SOULD HAVE COST YOU AT LEAST £300 BUT IT HAS BEEN
>SUBSIDISED BY YOUR OPERATOR. YOU WILL NOT "OWN" IT UNTIL
>YOU CONTRACT IS UP. There. Quite simple to understand.
HEY PHREAK, does that mean I cannot renovate my house because my mortgage is not paid in full? Does that mean I cannot change the wheels, tires and radio on my car if my loan is not finished? When I buy a phone, IT"S MINE. I should be able to do what I want. Not what Apple says I can or cannot do.
This is why Apple will (AGAIN) EVENTUALLY lose out and play second fiddle to a platform like Google's Android or Nokia's Open Source Symbian. They don't have companies like Apple acting like a nagging parent placing curfews and restrictions telling you what you can or cannot do. People do not like to be controlled or told what to do. Apple's overbearing, restrictive, control-obsessed mind set will be it's undoing (like circa mid 80's). It will fade away and become and niche player with just 10 to 15% market share like the desktop market. Just give it time and you'll see. In the mean time, keep sipping the Cupertino Kool-Aid and keep your head in the sand.
Wrenchy
Lots of things wrong here, on both sides of the argument. For example -
1. When you "buy" a subsidised phone, whether it's an iPhone or an Arena, it's yours. Legally and in every other sense it belongs to you, 100%. Of course you're committed to paying the x month minimum contract, but that's a separate matter, and not contingent on the phone.
2. The headphone jack on the iPhone 3G isn't recessed. Any 'phones will fit.
3. OS3.0 lifts Apple's SDK restriction on turn by turn directions. So there's now nothing to stop TomTom (or any other satnav co) from developing maps and software for the iPhone. Remember, OS3.0 is coming to the (GPS-equipped) iPhone 3G as well as any new hardware.
4. Yes, this is indeed yet another cheap iPhone clone that fails horribly. The UI is actually quite a poor impersonation, with too much eye-candy in place of the logical stuff that actually makes the iPhone nice to use. The browser is slooow and laggy, and of course once you scratch the surface you find this is no smartphone and no comparison to the iPhone at all, with no apps, little email smarts, and none of the expandability that makes the iPhone more than just a pretty face.
<chuckle>
Fanybois make me smile.
Regular Person: "I don't want an iPhone because it can't ...."
Apple Fanboi: "SILENCE! THE iPHONE IS THE BEST! IF IT CAN'T DO SOMETHING THEN IT ISN'T WORTH DOING! YOU ARE A MORON IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING THAT THE iPHONE CAN'T DO! EVERY DEVICE EVER CREATED WITH A TOUCH SCREEN IS JUST COPYING THE iPHONE! ANY PHONE RELEASED FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF TIME WILL BE A CHEAP KNOCK-OFF! I WANT TO SUCK OFF STEVE JOBS AND SWALLOW HIS STICKY MESS!"
Seriously - that's how you come across.
See - that would be for the most part true, except usually it's the other way around, with the "regular person" spouting untruths about a phone they've never actually used, then the majority of "Apple Fanboi"'s holding their tongues or just ignoring them.... occasionally you get the occasional apple-tard who can't help themselves and spouts another pile of crap back the other way... and then it becomes entertainment! :)
Still... interesting observation... go back through the messages above and count the number of lines of "regulars" to "appletards", then scale them based on amount of crap dealt... I dare ya! ;)
Mines the one with the future ZunePhone clone in the pocket.
Why would you buy a Macintosh? It's simply a rip-off of a Xerox Alto gui interface. Why would you buy a Chevrolet or Volkswagen? It's a rip-off of a Karl Benz auto. I wish all the iTards out there would get their heads out of their arses and realize that Apple and every other manufacturer out there will copy and/or modify existing designs to advance whatever product they make better or at least different. Every design or concept Apple comes up with is submitted as a patent so no one 'steals' their precious ideas. And the stupid US Patent Office grants most of them. The Patent system is broken and does nothing but stifle innovation. If every designer and manufacturer in the world did this, we would all still be living in caves.
This 'Apple is the best' attitude is making me throw up.
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