Showing posts with label LG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LG. Show all posts
When we see alluring phone concepts that'll never leave the lab, we end up wishing there was a little more innovation in the handsets out in the wild. There was a wealth of eyebrow-raising examples of that principle when LG Japan exhibited top entries to its Mobile Design Contest last weekend. We're keen on the fbt, a phone designed for braille text messaging, and the Tap, which is shaped like a light switch and functions like one too -- when you tap it, the phone turns off so you can live once again in peace. The winner, though, was the above-pictured Planet Phone, the surface of which is dotted with LEDs representing your friends; if you don't talk to someone for a while, their light gradually moves out to the edge. It's supposed to remind you to keep in touch, but it has darker connotations -- if you become angry with someone, you can revel in the pleasure of watching them slowly tick away into oblivion. That's absolutely a feature we want to see added to the Storm.
[Via Hallyu Tech]
[Via Hallyu Tech]
Priorities do change with the passage of time and our gadgets have been also evolving with a consistent pace to keep us well ahead of the time. Hence, mobile technology has really grown leaps and bounds in the last decade with so many exceptional features are added in the overall profile of a mobile phone – do more than just talking. This is the reason why, the present mobile phone user gets more than he can ever imagine ten years back. With multimedia and music phones are ruling the mobile market, sooner or later they will replace our other sophisticated entertainment gadgets. The LG U400 also belongs to this category of highly specialised mobile phones, which are fully loaded with various remarkable entertainment features.
The LG U400 has been duly modified to add more to our mobile experience. This stylish and comparatively smooth 3G mobile phone is endowed with an intuitive 2 inch coloured screen and a well fitted jog wheel, paving the way for easier and focused navigation. The look of the LG U400 is really breathtaking, which is very well complemented by substantial features – thus, the LG U400 emerges as a balancing act between enticing looks and cool features.
For a music buff, the LG U400 can be the cool mate, who would let you listen to all your favourite music, besides allowing you to go creative with your music fantasies – make the most with its hottest DJ scratching feature. Its in-built digital media player is quite capable to let you enjoy music unlimited, exactly the way you want. Do not feel bad, if you do not have an iPod, as the LG U400 would surely give you all, as it also carries an extra slot for memory card and you can treasure all your music.
After listening to those larger than life tracks, you can change your mood by capturing all those special moments with its 2.0 megapixel camera. However, a 2.0 megapixel camera is quite a common thing these days, but it would surely give you good pictures as it is very well complemented by an integrated flash, a digital zoom and various other assisting features. To treasure all the moving action, you can switch on to its video feature. Surely, you would not miss any other fun device, if you got the LG U400.
The LG U400 has been duly modified to add more to our mobile experience. This stylish and comparatively smooth 3G mobile phone is endowed with an intuitive 2 inch coloured screen and a well fitted jog wheel, paving the way for easier and focused navigation. The look of the LG U400 is really breathtaking, which is very well complemented by substantial features – thus, the LG U400 emerges as a balancing act between enticing looks and cool features.
For a music buff, the LG U400 can be the cool mate, who would let you listen to all your favourite music, besides allowing you to go creative with your music fantasies – make the most with its hottest DJ scratching feature. Its in-built digital media player is quite capable to let you enjoy music unlimited, exactly the way you want. Do not feel bad, if you do not have an iPod, as the LG U400 would surely give you all, as it also carries an extra slot for memory card and you can treasure all your music.
After listening to those larger than life tracks, you can change your mood by capturing all those special moments with its 2.0 megapixel camera. However, a 2.0 megapixel camera is quite a common thing these days, but it would surely give you good pictures as it is very well complemented by an integrated flash, a digital zoom and various other assisting features. To treasure all the moving action, you can switch on to its video feature. Surely, you would not miss any other fun device, if you got the LG U400.
With Dolby Mobile, LG will have that cutting edge audio they were looking for. Dolby Mobile has been optimized for mobile applications and it will certainly play its part really well. It’s up to LG to offer great cell phones to take advantage of all that audio technology.
Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company said:
Being the first company to incorporate Dolby Mobile technology into handsets for the global market reinforces LG’s role as a leader in the mobile industry and in multimedia phones. We believe this technology will raise the bar for audio quality on multimedia phones and expect Dolby Mobile to help us create a new trend in the mobile phone industry. LG is committed to providing our customers with the best features available and our new collaboration with Dolby helps us deliver on this pledge.
Bill Jasper, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dolby Laboratories said:
LG shares our passion for cutting-edge innovation. This agreement combines LG’s vision and resources with Dolby’s pioneering leadership in entertainment technology to deliver the next generation of mobile entertainment. Our broad experience and success working with LG in the past gives us great confidence as we move forward.
Well, sure when people start to make official statements everything sounds neat and pretty. We’re anxious to see the first actual phone to pack Dolby technology. And here’s what LG wants to bring in from Dolby:
- Mobile Surround, which delivers a realistic surround sound experience using headphones
- Sound Space Expander, which creates a wide, rich, and spacious soundstage experience especially suited to music playback
- Natural Bass, which adds powerful boost and bass extension
- High-Frequency Enhancer, which enhances music and other content by restoring high-frequency effects
- Graphic EQ, which helps tune the audio experience for different content types
- Sound Level Control, which helps level out audio for a more consistent playback volume
- Mono-to-Stereo Converter, which improves the playback experience of user-generated content
According to both parties involved, LG will launch high-end multimedia phones in the fourth quarter of this year. That means we’ll have some fun Christmas shopping to do.
It was bound to happen, and lo, word has reached us that LG is the first company to challenge the Sony Ericsson C905 in the 8MP camera phone stakes.
According to a reliable source over at Unwired View, LG has already shot the ad for its new cell, dubbed the KC910. It will rock eight megapixels and a Xenon flash, sticking it right up there with SE’s finest. It’ll also pack 30fps video, recorded at 720×480 pixels, along with face recognition and image stabilsation. Rumour has it we're looking at a full touchscreen blower, with a new UI and measuring a mere 14mm.
Other details, not to mention images, remain scarce, although LG has told us recently they’re planning some major announcements in the coming months.
Our money’s on the cell getting it’s debut at the big ol’ gadget powwow that is IFA, kicking off at the end of August over in Berlin.
So, the battle begins. Can it beat the C905? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
Download mobile games and applications log on Youpark.com
"Dare to be different," the saying goes, but the LG Dare is really Verizon Wireless's attempt to fit in, to offer a phone that's more like the AT&T LG Vu and Sprint Samsung Instinct, not to mention Apple's similarly priced iPhone 3G. The truth is, the Dare may not be as glamorous or well-priced as the Instinct, but it has a better browser, a motion sensor and some cool software tricks that make it a fine phone for people who choose to remain in Verizon's walled garden. And it puts Verizon's previous iClone attempts, the LG Voyager and the Samsung Glyde, to lowdown dirty shame.
As I think we've firmly established, we call these iPhone clones because they are made superficially with the look and feel of the iPhone in mind. They are not direct competitors to the iPhone, as they don't run on a smart, open platform like iPhones--or Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones--do. The Dare, like the Instinct, is closed and proprietary, geared to customers who like much of what the carrier has to offer, and would just like a better way to make use of it. And after spending some time with the Dare, I can safely say that, much like the Instinct, it really does let you do that. 
Easier Access
For starters, Verizon has done away with its dependence on unchangeable, annoyingly deep menus. With the Dare, you can drag any app or function directly to the desktop for one-click access. You can add key people to the Favourites launcher, where you simply drag their face to the phone or message icons to call or launch a new SMS.
Even those cryptic notification icons always seen at tops of phones are clickable on the Dare.
E-mail and Web
Let me get this off my chest first: The Dare browser is WAY better than the Instinct's, both in rendering speed and page layout. You can navigate Gizmodo with very little trouble, especially if you're going read-only. My only complaint was that there was no way I could find to speed-scroll through so many blog posts without giving my thumb a callous.
Verizon's E-mail app is basically the same as it's been for about six or eight months. I do not recommend it for business use, as it's not very full featured, but I was able to get the Dare to notify me whenever any mail from three different accounts came through, and the iPhone-like QWERTY keyboard with pop-up letters really helped when typing. The only trouble I had sending e-mail was due to a funky POP3 account with ambiguous recommended settings. (One negative: You can't edit POP settings once you've configured them, so I had to keep deleting and adding the same account over and over again.)
Premium Unlimited-Use Plans
The good news is, unlimited use of e-mail and web are included in Verizon's new premium price plans, along with unlimited text messaging, unlimited use of basic V Cast clips and ACTUALLY USEFUL stuff like the ESPN MVP sports and WeatherBug web apps. Though it seems at first glance that pricing is a tad higher that Sprint's, the difference is negligible:
US$80/month - 450 primetime talk minutes
US$100/month - 900 primetime talk minutes
US$120/month - 1350 primetime talk minutes
US$140/month - Unlimited talk minutes
And yes, there are family premium plans that give you these perks for multiple (compatible) phones. The phone itself is US$200 after a mail-in rebate.
Lighter Features
In our introductory walkthrough video, we showed you some awesome traits. After a revisit during our review, here's how those features held up:
• Slow-mo video cam - It's a bit grainy, but with decent light, it could make some interesting videos at 120 frames per second. The 3.2 megapixel camera is decent, but nothing to write home about.
• Full photo editing - Speaking of camera, the editing feature is not as "full" as we first thought. There's no red-eye reduction or shadow/highlight or colour adjustment. Most of the options are actually novelty, and even for being silly they are not very useable.
• Music player - Good: Plays MP3s and even iTunes Plus DRM-free AACs that you drag to the "My Music" folder of the MicroSD card (up to 8GB); Bad: Still has issues with tags, and appears to count image metadata as additional song files, so browsing by Artist or Album is fine, but browsing "All Songs" is messy. 
In addition to that the video player reads standard MP4 (but not H.264), and pauses songs when you switch to video playback, only to pick up where it left off once you're done.
Hardware
Like the Sprint Instinct, there's a 3.5mm jack for universal headphone fit, but unlike the Instinct, the Dare has a motion sensor inside that tells whether you're holding the phone horizontally or vertically. Videos, photos and the music browser all automatically adjust, as do keyboards and web pages. It's a nice touch, though I'll be honest, you don't really miss it on the Instinct.
The Dare's touchscreen leaves something to be desired. It's not as snappy as the Instinct's, and even after calibrating the screen, I found myself resorting to fingernail tapping to gain some precision.
The body of the Dare is a tad chunkier, but shorter too, with a slightly stubbier screen.
Dare vs. Instinct
The Instinct is, inside and out, a more elegant device. I preferred Instinct's e-mail app, and its included news, sports and weather web apps were great. Verizon is promising some unlimited-use apps like ESPN MVP and WeatherBug to compete with that, and while they're pretty nice programs, they were not ready to be used on the Dare at the time of this review.
The thing I can't stand about the Dare is VZ Navigator. I have tried to appreciate this, and since unlimited use of it comes with the premium plan, it can be considered a feature of the phone. Still, it's the worst GPS UI I've ever played around with, and Verizon would do much better to kill off their own licensed app and go with Telenav, which Sprint and AT&T both use.
Still, after playing with both, I have to say that the Instinct's aesthetic assets don't fully make up for the Dare's key advantages, one of which happens to be Verizon's network. In the northeast at least, there's no substitute.
Conclusion
Like the web apps, there are a few more wait-and-sees: Visual voicemail isn't in effect yet, and may or may not come via over-the-air update. Rhapsody is just launching today, and for US$15/month extra you will be able to sideload the Dare with Rhapsody-to-Go tracks, though a Windows PC is required for that.
