LG Cookie budget touchscreen phone

The music player can play in the background, while you multi-task, and be controlled via the standby screen widgets, as can the FM radio. This works effectively and is simple to operate.

LG has included a decent set of organiser functions and productivity tools in the Cookie’s Utilities section. All the usual app suspects are in place, including a calendar, to do lists, memo reminder, date calculator, convertor, world time function, stopwatch, voice recorder, alarms. There’s also a drawing panel option, so you can scrawl on the touchscreen to create sketches you can save or send as messages to others, and three basic acceleromter-controlled games.

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Email support is included, and there’s a fine document reader inside that can be used to view regular Microsoft Office documents and PDFs received as attachments or copied over to the phone.

This mobile does the phone business pretty well. The numberpad works well enough for tapping in new numbers, and the contacts list is easily scrollable. Call quality is certainly up to scratch, too - we experienced no irregularities with calls we made or took.

With potentially power withering features like 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS absent, the Cookie can run for up to 350 hours on standby or provide 3.5 hours of talktime, LG claims, but they're not exceptional numbers for a 2.5G handset. In our tests, we managed over two days of standby time with average amounts of calls and feature usage - not as long as we'd hoped for.

Verdict

The Cookie has great off-the-shelf appeal, with its smart-looking design and touchsceen UI real draws at this price point. Compared to higher-end touchscreen handsets, compromises have to have been made on functionality and connectivity. If you’re a fast texter, this phone could take a bit of getting used to, though generally the user interface is finger-friendly.

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