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Mobile Phone Previews :: |
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LG GC900 Viewty Smart Preview: |
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Samsung
i8950 Key features:
- General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, EDGE class 12
- Dimensions: 108.9 x 56.1 x 12.4 mm, 102 g
- Display: 3" 16M-color capacitive touchscreen TFT of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
- Memory: 1.5GB flash storage, microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
- User interface: S-Class Touch UI
- Still camera: 8 megapixel autofocus camera, Schneider-Kreuznach optics, LED flash, manual focus, geo-tagging, image stabilization, multi face detection (up to 3), smile detection
- Video recording: 720x480@30fps, VGA@30fps, QVGA time-lapse and slow-mo video recording
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, Wi-Fi, TV-out, USB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS
- Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate, Multi-touch input, DivX/XviD support, Dolby for Mobile audio enhancement, FM radio, office document viewer
- Battery: Li-Ion 1000 mAh
- Retail price: N/A
Unfortunately, the
Viewty Smart name is a
bit misleading. The
Viewty 2 is a smart
handset indeed but only
design-wise. From the
inside, it's not a
smartphone or anything,
no matter how much we
would have liked that.
Instead it's a regular
full touch feature
phone, but one with a
really polished UI and
top-notch imaging
capabilities.
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Viewty Smart comes with S-Class user interface
LG has got it quite right and the visuals of the new interface are spectacular - everything from homescreen to dropdown menus rolls, sweeps in, unfolds and revolves extra smoothly with a responsiveness that implies some heavy graphics acceleration.
There are four homescreens and they break down the homescreen UI to four easily manageable chunks: widgets, contacts, shortcuts and multimedia.
No matter which homescreen you choose the UI never skimps on eye candy - smooth animations, reflections, 3D spatial effects, motion blurring - it's all there for your viewing pleasure.
Not very practical, but surely eye catching interface feature is the Cube. The Cube is an interactive 3D element that has the four aforementioned homescreens as its sides. Selecting a side, zooms it in nice and smoothly until it fills the screen.
To start the Cube interface, you only need to press on the dedicated left side key.
The Viewty Smart main menu is accessible via the dedicated shortcut on the home screen. It has an unusual layout of four rows of menu items, which are scrollable horizontally. That way almost all menu items are accessible simultaneously without jumping from tab to tab.
Even better, if you turn the phone sideways, the menu items are all visualized with smaller icons fitting the screen perfectly with no need for scrolling (but with no text labels as well).
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Gallery is impressively 3D all the way
LG Viewty Smart offers two gallery modes depending on the handset's orientation. In portrait mode images and videos are displayed in a grid while in landscape mode one image is displayed in the center and two more by its side in an impressive 3D spatial view.
 
The Viewty 2 also supports multi-touch, so you can zoom in images with the pinching gesture well known from Apple's handset. A note is due here though, LG have still not got the fluidity of the pinch zooming as far as Apple.
Dolby enhanced music playback is just fine
The LG Viewty Smart music player is accessible both from the Cube interface as well as from the main menu. The homescreen music player is rather basic but it does the job of quick access to the playing music.
The tracks are displayed on a rotating reel and get visualized with their album artwork "printed" on virtual vinyl records.
There are tons of equalizer presets (all non-customizable, though). Dolby for Mobile sound enhancement is among them. With Dolby Mobile selected the sound gets more spacious and richer - it's best perceived on headphones.
Video player is a letdown
The LG Viewty Smart comes with a relatively large touch screen (especially for a device of that size) measuring good 3". That, along with the DivX/XviD video support turns it into a potentially excellent portable video player - especially considering the good track record. The LG Renoir, for instance, managed to play every desktop XViD/DivX video we threw at it.
Unfortunately, that's not the case with LG Arena or LG Viewty Smart as it turned out. The only DivX videos we managed to play where those converted through the DivX converter on the supplied CD and they have a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA).
8 megapixels still sound exciting on a mobile phone
The Viewty Smart comes with the revamped camera interface seen on the updated LG KC910i Renoir and the LG Arena. Access to all the camera settings is via the left taskbar in the viewfinder. There you get virtual buttons for Scene mode, exposure compensation, flash, focus mode (auto/macro) and advanced settings. This left task bar hides automatically (or manually if you set it up) and is brought back as an overlay when you tap on the screen.
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Overall Conclusion:
The Viewty Smart has a gorgeous display and a best-of-class user interface. But we've already seen that stuff on the LG Arena so our brief experience with the Viewty was hardly a revelation.
Instead of bringing any revolutionary upgrades, the LG Viewty Smart is there to simply expand the LG S-class portfolio in a camera-centric direction. The LG Arena has quite a nice camera as well, but a 5 megapixel sensor is no longer flagship stuff these days.
Since the LG Viewty Smart retains almost the same compact dimensions as the LG Arena, fitting the bigger camera module, called for a certain downgrade of the other features. In this case, it was obviously the 3.5mm audio jack and the FM transmitter that got axed.
Still, the LG GC900 Viewty Smart certainly has the potential of becoming a bestseller and we really hope to see more of it, once it gets to the final production stage.
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