LG Viewty Smart (GC900f) mobile phone

Is an 8-megapixel camera enough to push the latest Viewty mobile phone over the line?

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Boasting an 8-megapixel camera with an LED flash and Schneider-Kreuznach lens, LG's Viewty Smart is the second mobile phone to feature LG's S-Class 3D user interface. (The interface was first seen on the LG Arena.) Don't be fooled by this handset's name: this isn't a smartphone.

Pros

  • 8-megapixel camera, outstanding display with rich colour, S-Class UI is colourful and engaging, Dolby Mobile and DivX support, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS

Cons

  • S-Class UI is a little sluggish, not compatible with LG's Application Store, keystroke lag during text input, camera interface is slow to navigate, no 3.5mm headphone jack

Bottom Line

LG's Viewty Smart is a good camera phone and the S-Class UI is rich and engaging but there are plenty of faults. The interface is sluggish, there is no 3.5mm headphone jack and the included mobile browser is poor.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 199.00 (AUD)

The Viewty brand has evolved from the original Viewty, launched back in 2007. The design of the LG Viewty Smart mobile phone is comparable to the iPhone 3GS, though it's slightly smaller and the edges are sharp rather than round. The gloss black finish on the front contrasts nicely with the brushed silver finish on the sides and rear. The LG Viewty Smart is much lighter than the iPhone, though it doesn't feel as sturdy. It's solid enough and there are no loose parts or creaking panels, but the iPhone is much more polished. We aren't a fan of the Viewty Smart's volume and shortcut buttons, which aren't raised enough.

The LG Viewty Smart has a capacitive touch screen and it's very responsive. It can be hard to see outdoors in direct sunlight, but fingerprints are easily wiped off and viewing angles are excellent. Colour and sharpness, in particular, are outstanding, making this one of the best screens on a mobile phone we've seen to date.

The LG Viewty Smart mobile phone runs LG's proprietary S-Class 3D user interface. The main component of the system is a 3D cube that provides four customisable home screens for access to shortcuts, widgets, contacts and multimedia. Our review unit was the Next G version of the Viewty Smart and unfortunately the shortcut menu is filled with Telstra shortcuts (such as BigPond, Mobile Foxtel and Yellow Pages) and these can't be edited.

The graphics of the S-Class interface are rich, colourful and engaging. The other menus — widgets, contacts and multimedia — aren't as intuitive as the shortcut menu. The widgets aren’t customisable and, aside from the clock and calendar, aren't very appealing. Both the contacts and multimedia menus are inspired by a Rolodex: contacts are displayed in a half-circle, rotating format (though you can also choose a more traditional row format), and music, images and videos are accessible from the multimedia menu. We liked the fact that simply tapping a song from the list automatically plays it, but we found scrolling through items using this method a little sluggish.

The LG Viewty Smart's regular phonebook offers one-touch access to all contact details, including being able to text message, video call and e-mail contacts from a single screen. Text-input is an issue. The on-screen keyboard looks comfortable at first glance, but there is a slight delay between pressing the keys and the letters appearing on the screen, so trying to type too quickly results in letters being missed. A built-in accelerometer means rotating holding the phone sideways displays a full QWERTY keyboard, but we much prefer typing in portrait orientation using T9 predictive text.

At the heart of the LG Viewty Smart is an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and Schneider-Kreuznach lens. The camera interface is almost identical to that the Arena's, though the settings menu is new: it’s a rotating dial similar to those found on regular digital cameras. Although it certainly looks good, it's slow to navigate.

Using the rest of the camera functions is a simple affair. An on-screen slider on the left switches between photo and video recording and a row of commonly used settings are found on the left of the display, including scene, flash and macro functions. The LED flash is almost useless in dark conditions, though photos in good light are quite impressive for a camera phone.

The LG Viewty Smart has plenty of appeal as a multimedia device, with Dolby Mobile and DivX support, though it's let down by the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack. Instead, LG uses a proprietary headphone and charging jack. According to LG, the reason for this is to distinguish the Viewty Smart as an imaging device to the Arena which is a multimedia device. Our thoughts? Any self-respecting mobile phone should have a standard headphone jack.

The Viewty Smart suffers the same issues as the LG Arena when it comes to the included mobile browser. It's difficult to select links, touches are often a hit and miss affair and it's difficult to position the cursor when trying to select text.

The LG Viewty Smart has 1.5GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot that theoretically supports cards of up to 32GB. The phone also offers Wi-Fi and built-in GPS with geotagging capabilities. It is an HSDPA 7.2Mbps-capable handset. Strangely, LG's newly announced application store isn't compatible with the Viewty Smart.

LG's Viewty Smart is available in Australia through Telstra, Vodafone and 3 Mobile.

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