LG is claiming that this is not an iPhone-killer. It’s not a PDA, they say, it’s a camera phone in a world of PDAs, camera and music phones. LG is also not mentioning the name “Prada”, but anyone who has ever had their hands on LG’s premier fashion phone will be half-expecting the branding to be popping up on the front. It doesn’t, however, all you get is the gorgeous 3” touchscreen and three subtle buttons along the bottom. Classy.
Simple features are a pleasure to use thanks to a responsive, sensibly laid out interface. It’s two clicks to change between a keypad, on-screen keyboard with well spaced out QWERTY layout and handwriting recognition. Choosing between camera, video and playback just requires setting the slider down the side and pressing on the camera button.
The camera features are incredibly good for a camera phone. Normal shots, panoramic shots, incremental ISO of up to 800, low light settings and more are all available. The combination of high ISO and responsive automatic flash means that a murky image on the screen translates to an excellent, crisp snap in playback. It’s a 5.1 megapixel sensor , so you can expect large, clear images. You can’t force the flash, but you can have it off, on automatic or on red-eye reduction mode.
Video playback offers a variety of size options, with 320 x 240 saving automatically as 3gp (Quicktime) and 640 x 480 (normal and widescreen options) saving as AVI, perfect for YouTube. The 3gp files are easily edited on the phone to trim, merge files, add text overlay and soundtracks and other features not usually available on a phone. They’re all very dependent on clear icons and intuitive interfaces and succeed beautifully. For a close-up example of how this can be done, check out my video review for Shiny Shiny below.
Cleverly, video shooting can be up to 120 frames per second. Playback is at 30fps, which means effects like slow motion can be achieved with camera phone footage, which is very impressive. There is a feature for direct one-click YouTube uploading, made even easier by the fact that it’s an HSDPA phone, but this is going to be network-dependent. LG is offering it to all networks, but based on their data requirements they can choose whether or not to enable this feature on the phone, so if you’re thinking about upgrading to a Viewty because of this feature, ask before you sign on the dotted line.
Alternatively, check out the Dial-a-Phone guide to uploading to YouTube.
Would I recommend it? Hell, yes. It’s a good phone and the basic features have not been pushed to one side just to cram in extra camera goodness. The camera is a beautifully thought-out piece of kit with extra features that are actually usable when taking normal shots out and about with friends. It’s not going to replace a digital camera for those who are even semi-serious about taking good photos, but it means that if you are caught short wanting to capture something without a cam, you won’t be disappointed by the results.
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