LG GD900 Crystal camphone
See-through styling – a clear winner?
Review The LG GD900 Crystal wouldn't be the first mobile to sell itself on a gimmick. But in today's increasingly competitive market, a gimmick just isn't enough. The new Crystal's schtick is that it has a see-through keypad – as in, transparent.
LG's GD900 Crystal
It's not completely transparent of course, the numbers are displayed as grey etchings, which light up when the keypad is touched. And it's not just a keypad either, since it also doubles as a multi-function trackpad.
Also on board is a 3in touch screen, 8Mp camera, HSDPA 3G (7.2Mbps), quad-band GSM, Wi-Fi, the Symbian S60 operating system and LG's very cool S-Class user interface. So it's clearly more than just a pretty keypad.
The LG GD900 Crystal isn't the slimmest or lightest slider at 105 x 53 x 14mm and 120g but it's perfectly pocketable, nonetheless. The front is dominated by the 3in, 800 x 480 pixel, capacitive touch screen and above it are loudspeaker, VGA camera and light sensor. Below the screen are three touch-sensitive keys: call start and stop, plus a shortcut to the spinning cube version of LG's S-Class interface, which we last saw on the Viewty Smart.
Funky as the cube UI looks, we found it a bit of a pain to navigate around, and generally preferred to use the icon menu with its water drop themed buttons, which can be reached using one of the four onscreen buttons – phone, contacts, messages and menu. Around the sides are a micro USB slot (not LG's proprietary power slot, for once) protected by a plastic cover, volume rocker and camera shutter button, with a power/lock key on top.
The slider reveals the camera at the back
On the back, the camera lens is hidden behind the slide along with LED flash and self-portrait mirror. You'll need to remove the back to get to the microSD card slot. There's no card supplied, but it can handle up to 32GB – which is about as good as it gets – plus the GD900 features a generous 1.5GB of onboard memory.
COMMENTS
@Mike Moyle
""If you prefer you can use your own headphones as there's a 3.5mm adaptor, which plugs into the handset's micro USB slot. "
I'm the type of klutz who always manages to lose/bork those litlle adapter doodads. That's why an actual 3.5mm jack is a must-have and its absence a deal-breaker, no matter how pretty the phone. Especially since getting the sort of sound quality out of Stereo Bluetooth headsets that I get out of my corded set means adding a lot to the total price of the phone. At least up here in Zild, at any rate.
@MeRp
Perhaps they realized that for the average user not only is phone based GPS rarely used, it's also horrible on the battery. I haven't switched the GPS on my Dream on for a good month now because it really just isn't all that useful, and I've yet to own a GPS enabled phone that was actually on par for navigation with a proper GPS unit.
All that.. so awesome
but, why no GPS? EVERY phone has GPS now (just about)... why not this one?
@ Stuart 10, Justabloke
From the bottom of Page 3:
"If you prefer you can use your own headphones as there's a 3.5mm adaptor, which plugs into the handset's micro USB slot. Alternatively, you can use a wireless pair, thanks to A2DP Bluetooth."
@Stuart 19
I imaging that, in common with both the LG Viewty and Renoir, they supply an adaptor that plugs into the mini USB port which has a standard 3.5 mm jack in it.. or you could do the same as I do and use a MM bluetooth headset...
No biggie really if thats your only gripe.
