LG KU990 Viewty cameraphone
Give a phone a touchscreen and suddenly everyone's interested
Review 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 ups the feature count. HSDPA 3G connectivity is included here, as well as a highly-specified five-megapixel camera, equipped with Schneider-Kreuznach optics, and offering manual focus and high-quality video capture at up to 120 frames per second.
LG's KU990 Viewty: dominated by the 3in display
As you’d expect with any self-respecting high-end mobile, a music player and video player are included, and the 3G connectivity provides video calling - there’s a secondary camera up front, above the display - support for high-speed downloading and a decent web browsing experience.
The KU990 is one of the first touchscreen phones that isn’t powered by a smartphone operating system. LG’s touch-operated user interface debuted on the Prada, and it’s no surprise the design here echoes that device’s classy minimalism.
This phone has larger dimensions than the compact Prada, measuring 103.5 x 54.4 x 14.8mm and weighing 112g. The front is dominated by the display – a 3in, 240 x 400, 262,144-colour LCD screen. There are three discreet keys lined up at the bottom - Call, Clear and End - blending in with the black casing.
There’s some subtle chrome edging on the side of the Viewty. On one side is a sliding cover-protected charger and headphone socket. The other has a camera activation key that doubles up as the shutter control. There's also a touchscreen lock button – essential for such a device – and a three-way slider to flip the camera between still and video photography, and between recording and playback modes.
This digital camera styling is echoed by other details. The lens on the back of the phone looks the part, with a manual focus and zoom control jog ring around it, and a xenon flash. Surprisingly, there’s no lens cover protection - we'd have expected one on a phone so clearly wanting to show off its camera credentials.
Still, LG has equipped the KU990 Viewty with some heavyweight camera functionality. It has a wide selection of settings and a camera-style user interface that utilises the touchscreen capabilities of the phone to view images, manipulate them and add effects after shooting.
COMMENTS
Just my 5 cents worth
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.
it's amazing...
120fps video recording... it's amazing!
does it use sony's image senser?
Phone with no Stylus ??
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
Shame no voice dialling
With current legislation, any hi-end phone in my view needs voice dialling, so you can use it with a bluetooth headset in the car. My N73 does this, and I use it every day.
I suppose my next phone will have to be an N95....
Was thinking about it
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.
