The Renoir’s upmarket imaging capabilities extend to video capture. The phone can shoot at up to 640 x 480 (VGA) at 30f/s for smooth-playing, good quality mobile footage. Like the Viewty, it can shoot in slow-mo, capturing at 120f/s, but only at 320 x 240.
Time-lapse video can be taken too, with a 5f/s setting for capturing slow-moving subjects or scenes - like sunsets. You can edit videos or upload them straight to YouTube from the handset.
Serious snappers will appreciate ISO adjustment
With such decent-sized screen, video is very watchable. You can transfer video content from a PC or memory card, or download content over the air using HSDPA or Wi-Fi.
The music player is well set up for good quality tune playing. Its user interface is intuitive and easy to operate. Tracks are listed in familiar music player categories, and cover art is supported – though not in any way as slickly as it is on the iPhone. Using Dolby Mobile audio processing technology for the first time – you tap onscreen to engage it – the music player sounds top class. You get a decent hefty bass presence and a rich depth of sound that’s very satisfying to the ears.
LG hasn’t quite sealed the deal - the supplied earphones are fine, if not exceptional but, although the two-piece set has a standard 3.5mm headphone socket mid-way to fit your own ear-gear, it uses a side-mounted proprietary charger/USB/earphone connector which is just awkward. The connector arrangement also means you can’t listen while charging. You can also use stereo Bluetooth earphones, or the loudspeaker option – though the earphone lead has to be connected if you’re tuning into the nifty FM radio.
The Renoir boasts A-GPS, though our review sample didn’t have any dedicated satnav software on board. The phone does come with Google Maps which provides a way to find your precise location, do local searches for places of interest and other amenities, and plan routes. You can also view satellite images.
The A-GPS on our sample was quick to get a satellite fix, taking less than a minute, and held on well when moving. The A-GPS technology can also be used to geotag your camera shots with location data, so where they were shot can be shown on a map, either on the phone or when uploaded to a suitable online service.
COMMENTS
@Neil Alexander
Facually incorrect.
GPS uses some fancy maths to work out where it is in relation to certain GPS System (RAS Syndrome?) satellites, based on the delay between sending by the satellite and reception by the device. Devices overhead will be closer than those at other angles to the location, so the GPS receiver can work out where it is from comparing the delay from several sources.
A-GPS makes this easier by downloading the appropriate information based on the location of the nearest Cell over a data connection. This makes the guesswork / mathwork of the GPS receiver take far less time, as it already has reference information for where satellites SHOULD be relative to its (approximate) current position. It can also allow the device to approximate what a GPS signal SHOULD be telling it if the signal drops, allowing for better connectivity within buildings and under cover (to a certain extent).
Re: The A-GPS on our sample was quick to get a satellite fix
A-GPS doesn't use satellites. Unlike vanilla GPS, A-GPS uses phone masts to determine it's location. Can we please decide whether we are talking about GPS or A-GPS here?
No ijesus competitor
It's just an 8mp cameraphone (probably with a tiny sensor to it will be horribly compressed and worse than a decent 5mp sensor), not a smartphone.
And I bet..
.. it's got all the same problems as my old Viewty, inconsistent UI, over-compressed imaging, hopeless multi-tasking, poor multimedia player, promises that glitches will be fixed in "an update" etc etc.
The Viewty was the first phone I ever PAID to get out of a contract to get away from... Never another LG phone as long as I live. All they're interested in is being able to boast bigger numbers for each feature, no thought to the end-user experience. And if you find a bug, tough, LG are too busy looking at their next great handset to be bothered going back and fixing the issue...
hmm, 6 pages and I could not find....
a long article, not to badly written, how ever. What about its spec?, how does it compair to other 8MP phones? like the samsung, i found the other comments very intresstig as i am in the market.
The samsung 8510 comes with 8Gb internal and upto 16Gb cards (which are about £40 each atm).
What codecs does the vieaty thingy support?, can it charge off a standard usb port.
So on top of that, 8MP is not really all that awsome that it can not be compaired to 5Mp phones.
/rant
