At this year's Mobile World Congress, LG was keen to promote its latest handset, the LG KF600, which features a split-screen design. We were just as keen to get our hands on this mobile, as interesting as it looked. Would we find its functionality to be as intriguing as its appearance? The LG KF600 is currently available on Orange, free on a monthly contract.
At this year's Mobile World Congress, LG was keen to promote its latest handset, the LG KF600, which features a split-screen design. We were just as keen to get our hands on this mobile, as interesting as it looked. Would we find its functionality to be as intriguing as its appearance? The LG KF600 is currently available on Orange, free on a monthly contract.
Design
At first sight, we thought that the device is the Euro-Asian twin of Venus. They have almost identical dimensions (KF600 is 2 mm slimmer and they both weigh 3.8 oz (107 g)). The display is the standard 2” for a mid class phone, 240 x 320 pixels and 262К colors, offering a very good image quality.
The InteractPad, mentioned above, is located under the screen. It is a 1.5” inch, 240х176 pixels, full color display, divided from the main one by a thin line. The innovation not only fully replaces the navigation buttons, but also adds a new sense when using different applications. In contrast to the phones with touch sensitive buttons, it is much more pleasant to operate. It has excellent sensitivity, can be calibrated and the icons depicted are big and react to touch fast and adequately. You don’t have to, necessarily, use your fingers to operate the InteractPad – any solid object will do, and even if you are wearing gloves, it will respond to your commands. Every time you press it, you will feel a gentle vibration and an unpleasant sound will be heard (fortunately, it can be turned off).
A silver line with a nice mirror-like effect, which unfortunately, makes both displays almost completely unusable in direct sunlight, encircles the entire upper part of the slider. All that is done to strengthen the overall bling-bling effect, but proves to be not a very successful strategy. At first the phone catches the eye, but you’ll get tired of it pretty quick, not to mention that it is a real fingerprint magnet. The only thing that will make you happy for a long time is the InteractPad.
If you push the slider up, a numeric keypad accompanied by the answer/reject and the clear buttons are revealed. All of them are illuminated in white and have no relief. The upper most raw is the hardest to operate; the buttons are hard to reach, due to the limited space surrounding them. Although, catching the eye, the key separation is not convenient in any way. The keyboard is definitely below the average comfort level, which will make you avoid using it.
The camera button and the charger/accessories connector are located on the right and on the other side, we have the volume rocker, and the MP3 player buttons. All side buttons are big enough and quite easy to press. We can only be happy about that, since in this phone, the camera shutter has the function to unlock the display (press and hold).
The back is made of a regular black plastic, which we prefer, instead of the cheap imitation leather seen in Venus. The phone has a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash, positioned on a slightly protruding metal plate. The manufacturer has made a very strange and inconvenient choice for the memory card slot. You will not only have to open the lid, but to also remove the battery, in order to get access to it. The last action is not required for the SIM card removal/replacement, but you will have to reset the device anyways.
The overall appearance of KF600 is pleasant, but not impressive. Compared to the latest fashion phones on the market, Venus’ sister has put on “a few extra pounds”. Luckily, the massive body has allowed for an improved sliding mechanism, making it tight and very high quality. The fact that you have to directly touch/press/push the screen, due to the lack of a designated push bulge is a definite drawback. Moreover, as we mentioned before, it is a fingerprint magnet and your finger(s) can even easily slip off it. On top of that, the phone is absolutely symmetrical and you can get simply confused, which way you have to hold it, therefore cursing “the damned slider”, which doesn’t want to open.
Interface
Like in the higher class LG models, the home screen is animated as well. LG has even gone a little further and has given you eight themes by default. They are pleasant and catch the eye, but unfortunately, the background does not change. Their biggest drawback is the fact that only the colors change and the appearance of the icons in the main menu doesn’t.
The main menu can be viewed as a 3х3 grid or a list. Once you enter it, the InteractPad becomes a 4-way navigation pad with a Back (duplicate of C on the hardware keypad) and a Confirmation (OK) buttons. If up until now you have used a phone with 5-way navigation (D-pad or joystick), you will have to get used to the fact that the OK is not in the center. If there are small marks between the arrows, then you can lightly scroll, by holding your finger down and moving it up/down or left/right.
On incoming call, you can just push the slider up to accept it (the corresponding option has to be activated in the settings menu). You can also use the answer/reject buttons, hidden under the slider, or rely on the touch pad. It offers the same options as the hardware buttons, plus Silence. We can note that the manufacturer has made an effort, to make enough options available to the user when the phone is closed. In such a situation for example, you will be able to unlock the small display, by holding down the camera shutter and tapping on some of the icons.
Phonebook
You can keep up to 1000 contacts, each with several different numbers (mobile, home, office, etc.), picture, е-mail, personal ringtone, and a note. They can be organized in groups with specific picture or melody added. It’s strange though that you can only change the way the contacts appear in the phonebook – indicating the number or showing the picture attached, if any. Searching is done only by the first word of the name. You are not able to select a few contacts and to copy them to the SIM or the other way around, but there are the multi delete, copy all and delete all options. The last two are only accessible if you enter the Phonebook via the main menu.
The designers, who have done such a good job with the themes, have neglected the dialing interface. None of the three variants (music, lawn, patch style) does fit the overall menu appearance. It has a low-level functionality as well – you are not able to search for matching results in the Phonebook or the call history, by directly inputting a number from the keyboard, as seen in Sony Ericsson, Motorola...
You still have the separate lists for missed, dialed, and received numbers.
Organizer
KF600 is not a device rich in organizing functions and the ones available can be found in the Tools menu. The Alarm clock is one of the functions with the most options, where you can set up to five different alert times. The fact that it takes into consideration the profile the phone is in, is a pretty good idea. And the alarm, reminding you to buy flowers for your wife’s birthday, won’t interrupt the intimate moments you are spending with your mistress.
The calendar doesn’t have different view options and you see a full month on the screen at all times. For creating a schedule, you have the standard settings, including time, duration, alarm etc. There is no title field and the entire text has to be input as a subject.
Calendar
You can make short notes in the form of a memo. Because of the inconvenient keyboard, we think you will rarely use this alternative. All of the options mentioned above come in addition to the standard applications – calculator, stopwatch, unit converter, world clock. However, voice commands are not available with the KF600.
Music player
The music player of LG KF600 performs decently. It shows album art, offers creating playlists and has ten equalizers. Unfortunately, new equalizer presets cannot be be created. There is also no way of grouping your tracks by some criteria (like artist or album for example).If you get bored with the preloaded music on you LG KF600 you can always turn the FM radio on. The FM radio interface is rather simplified and generally very easy to work with. There is an auto scan feature that locates every radio station in your area and offers to save it. The only thing we miss here is RDS.The video player is also quite nice. Videos can be played in fullscreen and can easily be fast-forwarded or rewound. Thanks to the InteractPad videos can be enjoyed without irritating captions, as all the controls are labeled on the pad itself.
Camera
Quality photographs are not one of LG’s specialties and even their high-tech models, such as the Viewty, perform far from excellent. That’s why we didn’t expect anything special from the KF600.
First, the good news. Once more, the InteractPad performed very well – the buttons are big and easy to use, giving access to a good number of functions. According to us, the manufacturer can successfully use that feature in its future models. Besides the standard resolution settings, white balance, self-timer etc., some interesting innovations have been included. We were pleasantly impressed, by the many shooting mode options – auto, portrait, scene, sports, night. In addition, the user is given the choice of various color effects (sepia, mono, negative and portrait enhancer), to take a better picture of a loved one. The picture stabilizer would have been very useful, especially if you are a coffee addict or if it actually worked.
3-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash (even a non-Xenon one) sounds pretty promising for a mid-level phone. Actually, what you are getting is a device, capable of digital zooming in video mode only, average picture quality, compared to the competition and a very impractical flash. The latter has only two settings; on, where it is lit constantly (not only when you press the camera button) and off. Every time you want to use the flash, you will have to manually turn it on in the menu.
This feature of the KF600 disappointed us. At present, on the market there are many mid –level devices, which offer much higher quality. Despite the good resolution, the pictures made with the phone can only be used to prove that you have been somewhere, but quality-wise there is a lot more to ask for.
Conclusion
For the time of testing LG KF600 proved a great pleasure to use and we got to really like the user interface of the handset. It's fun to work with but we feel a fair warning is due. The interface is so different that you'd be better off testing it before forking out the cash. The lack of 3G support, the wobbly sliding mechanism and the sometimes unreliable InteractPad response are also drawbacks that need be taken into consideration. The LG KF600 is a recommended purchase for the young and all those who want to have a handset with unique features. After all, one thing you have to give LG KF600 - getting noticed is its line of business.
