LG KG270

At a bargain basement price on a pre-paid plan, LG's KG270 is one of the cheapest mobile phones on the market. This light and slim candy-bar handset does a fine job considering the asking price, though some may become quickly disillusioned with the hard to press keypad.

The KG270's design is as simple as they come. It's a straightforward candy bar, constructed entirely of black matte plastic and featuring a small display and straightforward controls. The KG270 doesn't even include a volume control button — instead, you'll need to use the four-way navigational pad to adjust in-call volume.

The controls are straightforward, with the bulk of the work performed by the four-way navigational pad and two selection buttons. There are also answer and end call keys just below. The keypad is a bit hit and miss — on one hand the keys are reasonably large and well laid out, but pressing them requires a firmer touch than we'd have liked. Conveniently, each key press is accompanied by a rather loud clicking noise, meaning tactility is fair.

The KG270's interface is naturally as bare as they come, but it's intuitive and easy to use. Our only complaint is speed, as scrolling through lists of menu items and general browsing is quite sluggish. The main menu features eight icons, while the submenus use a simple list format. Conveniently, if you enter a menu you can move into a completely different menu by simply using the left and right directional arrows, negating the need to go back into the main menu.

The KG270 features SMS messaging with T9 predictive text input, but there is no MMS or email messaging. The standout feature is an FM radio, with a headset included in the sales package. Sound quality isn't outstanding, but this is to be expected considering the asking price. Another nice feature for a handset with such a low price is a lost mobile tracker — an LMT code (default code of 0000) means your phone can be traced in the event that it is stolen.

Surprisingly, the KG270 is well equipped with PIM features — a world clock, unit converter, stopwatch, calculator and calendar are all included, as is a memo function and an alarm. There are no games, Bluetooth, themes or screensavers though, and the headset included in the sales package has only one earpiece.

Virgin Mobile offers the KG270 for $49 on a pre-paid account, or $0 on a Free to V $20 cap. The latter includes $50 worth of credit per month, in addition to free calls and messages to Virgin Mobile numbers.