LG New Chocolate BL40 Review

The latest handset in the LG Black Label range is the BL40 New Chocolate. The Black Label range from LG in the past has been responsible for some of the best selling mobile phones of recent times, including the Chocolate, Shine and Secret. So here we take a closer look at the BL40 to see if it has what it takes to live up to the Black Label name. The first thing you are going to notice about this phone is the unusual shape. Not some weird, contorting, multi twisting design, but simply very long, and narrow. At first glance it reminded me of one of those touch screen all in one remote control devices you can buy from an online shopping channel. But despite that immediate first thought, it was instantly expelled, because it soon becomes clear that the BL 40 has a lot of class, and is certainly not a cheap, electronic gizmo.

The BL40 measures in at 128 x 51 x 11mm, so is not only long, but pretty slim too. To give some perspective on these dimensions, you could compare the measurements to a more standard looking bar device, say the Nokia 6300 which is 106.4 x 43.6 x 11.7 mm. LG have made good use of this extra length though, giving the BL40 a huge, unique, 4 inch capacitive touchscreen display, with multi touch support, supporting up to 16 million colours and with a resolution of 345 x 800 pixels. This monster of a screen is glorious to look at, offering rich, clear, crisp images. The BL40 runs on the increasingly popular S-Class interface, similar to that found on the LG Arena and Crystal. The user interface and touchscreen input is very smooth and sensitive, and commands are easily entered with the lightest of touches. As well as the iPhone style multi touch input, which is a real bonus for mobile gaming, the BL40 also has support for gesture controls. This is the ability to load certain applications by tracing a pre-selected shape on the screen with your finger, a nice touch that adds to the quality feel of the user interface.

It would be truly criminal to waste such a large screen as that found on the New Chocolate, but thankfully LG put it to good use, especially with the media player. The video playback capabilities are numerous, with support for multiple digital formats, including the poplar XviD and DivX, as well as MP4 and H.263. The videos look glorious on the screen, and the sound is also of a high quality, with support for Dolby Mobile sound enhancement, which is particularly effective when listened to via headphones. The BL40 includes a 3.5mm audio output jack which gives you the benefit of being able to choose a quality headset with which to listen to media on your device. The music player is also capable of supporting a wide variety of formats, including MP3, AAC and eAAC+.

With such a high spec media player, you will want to store plenty of videos and music to your device, and there is copious amounts of memory available for this, with the BL40 offering an internal memory capacity of 1.1GB, which can be expanded with the addition of a MicroSD memory card, with support available for up to 32GB. LG have also included a quality stereo FM radio, with RDS, as well as an FM transmitter. Still a bit of a rarity these days on mobile phones, the FM transmitter allows you to connect your device to an FM radio, to stream music from the phone directly to a radio, an ideal option when used in car, removing the need for a messy cable setup.

The BL40 New Chocolate also includes a high specification camera, with options for image and video capture. The 5.0 Megapixel camera has support for auto focus, includes options for face, smile and blink detection, and has a useful LED flash, for low level lighting conditions. Additionally, LG have included a Schneider-Kreuznach lens, and the built in GPS receiver allows for images to be Geotagged with location information. Video recording with the built in camera is available up to VGA resolution, at 30 fps, which will look good viewed on the web once uploaded, or even played back on a TV screen, as the BL40 also includes a TV Out facility.

With the New Chocolate, LG have shown that they are not here to supply a handset that just looks good. The media options and imaging are very strong, as is data connectivity. The 3G BL40 is equipped with HSDPA Mobile Broadband for super fast data transfer, downloading data at up to 7.2Mbps. WiFi is also included, with DLNA support, and the usual back up options of GPRS, HSCSD and EDGE are also included. The BL40 supports Bluetooth 2.1 for easy pairing to other Bluetooth devices, and also has A2DP support for stereo wireless audio transmission.

It seems there is little LG have not included on this phone, and it truly merits placing in the exclusive Black Label range of devices. Although the overall look of the phone is strange, it is by no means awful, and carries a certain sort of elegance all of its own. The media rich features, coupled with the enormous touchscreen display and excellent S-Class UI should be enough to earn the BL40 a place on many wish lists. And there isn’t much time to wait until this one hits the shops, either, with the New Chocolate scheduled to hit the market in Q3 2009, perhaps as soon as Mid-September. Now available to pre-order.

Related LG BL40 Chocolate Links

• Compare the latest LG BL40 Chocolate deals
• Compare LG BL40 Chocolate pay as you go prices
• Read user LG BL40 Chocolate reviews