It takes a lot to get noticed in the mobile phone industry these days. I mean, really noticed. All new handsets are worth a look at, but if you really want people to sit up and take notice, you’ve got to offer something special, something different. LG have managed to achieve this, with the announcement of the forthcoming LG Crystal GD900. The Crystal is a smart looking, touchscreen phone. The screen itself is quite impressive, measuring 3.0 inches, with a pixel count of 480 x 800, and supporting up to 16 million colours.
A slide design, the impressive feature of the handset is shown once the phone is slid open to reveal a see through, touch sensitive keypad! Pretty amazing, and with a soft glow lighting effect it looks very cool. The keypad has the standard alpha numeric layout, but doubles up as a touchpad. Think of a touchpad that you use to navigate on a laptop, that’s the general idea. There are many options and features you can control from here. Want to launch the music player? Then just trace an ‘M’ on the keypad. To control volume, draw a circular motion on the pad. Even for something like web browsing, the pad comes into play, as you can control the mouse pointer via the touchpad, too.
As with the recent LG Arena, the LG Crystal uses the S-Class Touch User Interface. This looks great, and if the response is as good as on the Arena, then users are in for a treat. The main navigation of the menu is done via a cube design on the main screen. The cube rotates around, offering four different faces, each with its own menu section. So you can have time, date, calendar on one side, another for messaging, another for music, etc, and to change from one to the other just swipe your finger across the screen to rotate the cube. It is an excellent new way of navigating on a touchscreen phone, and LG say that this is to be the new standard for all their forthcoming media handsets.
However, unlike some other popular, touchscreen phones, the Crystal isn’t all flash and no substance. Underneath the instantly intuitive user interface lies a fully featured media powerhouse.
Starting with the camera; the GD900 offers a hi spec 8.0 megapixel camera, with Schneider Kreuznach lens, complete with all the extra options top level camera phones offer these days – Autofocus, face detection, smile and blink detection. Many various picture settings are included, all designed to ensure the very best possible image results. If we were to be critical, it would be that the flash is only and LED flash, and not a superior Xenon flash. High quality video recording capability is also available on the device, and with the TV Out option captured media can be easily viewed on a TV screen.
Video playback itself is also well catered for on this device; the LG can handle DivX and XviD files, as well as standard MPEG4 files. This pretty much covers all video files that can be downloaded from the web. Audio is also well supported. We find the GD900 is compatible with MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA files, and playback is crisp and clear thanks to support for Dolby Mobile sound. If all that is not enough, the handset is equipped with an FM radio and an FM transmitter. The inclusion of the radio is a welcome option, whilst the FM transmitter allows you to listen to music in the car or via another stereo device. Simply tune the transmitter to a free FM radio frequency and you can listen to music wirelessly via the car or home stereo equipment.
With so many media options, you’re going to need a lot of memory; as well as a large internal memory the Crystal will support expansion via Micro SD memory cards, up to 16GB in capacity. We also have high speed mobile broadband data connectivity, up to 7.2Mbps as well as including built in WiFi and offering Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support.
It doesn’t matter whichever way you look at it, the LG Crystal GD900 is a multimedia powerhouse. It has the looks, it has the slick user interface, it has the technological innovation, and it has everything a handset needs to become an icon of its era. Expected release date 1st July 2009, check back for an earlier pre-order date, meanwhile check out this 3 minute video that details the Crystal's unique interface and design.
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