Mobiles Review

Intro
The LG F7200 marks Cingular’s first foray into push-to-talk (PTT) technology, making it the first phone from a GSM network to feature such a service. Long the domain of Nextel and the CDMA carriers, PTT has increased in popularity among consumers lately, and Cingular has clearly recognized that potential with this user-friendly phone. Unlike a lot of PTT phones that are bulky and unattractive, the LG F7200 has a decent design, thanks to its smooth slider form factor. Even so, the lack of features on the F7200 makes this a rather basic offering, most likely targeted at consumers who just want a good-looking PTT phone without extras. The phone costs $69.99, but Cingular is offering a buy-one-get-one-free deal if you opt for the PTT service.

Design
Compared to most PTT phones, the LG F7200 is downright fashionable. Its smooth rounded corners, curved design, silver and blue-gray hues, and grilled mic on the front add up to a cute yet space-age look. At 4.06 by 1.97 by 1.02 inches and 4.6 ounces, the F7200 is clearly not the smallest phone out there, but it’s compact enough to slip in a small handbag, and its chunky form feels solid in the hand. The LG F7200 has a slide-up form factor, meaning you have to slide the phone’s front face upward to reveal the keypad. A little effort is required, but the slider pops open with a very satisfying springy action. Turn the phone on its left spine and you’ll note the dedicated PTT button and a volume rocker, while its right spine is home to a dedicated speakerphone button and a headset jack.

The large 1.8-inch display is one of the first things you notice on the phone, but we’re disappointed that it supports only a 65,000-color palette with 128?—160-pixel resolution. As expected, it displays signal and battery strength, date, time, caller ID (where available), and your choice of wallpaper. The backlight time is adjustable up to 3 minutes, but you can’t alter the contrast, brightness, and font size on the display.

Underneath the display, the phone’s controls are laid out in a curve; the two soft keys, Talk and End buttons, and the Cancel key are positioned on a silvery curved border, whereas the four-way navigation toggle and middle confirmation key is displayed in an eyelike shape in the center. This results in a very sleek look, but we didn’t find it to be the most functional. The buttons were a little small and narrow, and they might be a problem for larger hands. Also, the two soft keys are located too far to the sides, which led to us to try to press nonexistent buttons underneath the screen. The navigation toggle doubles as shortcuts to text messaging, instant messaging, the address book, and the My Media folder, whereas the middle confirmation key serves as a shortcut for Cingular’s Media Net portal. Slide the phone open and you’ll be presented with a smooth, slightly domed keypad that is textured enough so that you can dial by feel. The asterisk acts as a vibrate-mode toggle, whereas the pound sign doubles as a voice-tag button.

Features
Other than the obvious PTT function, the LG F7200 doesn’t have many other features aside from the basics. The phone comes with a 255-entry address book that stores up to three phone numbers, an e-mail address, and notes for each contact. You can assign contacts to one of seven predefined groups: Family, VIP, Friends, Colleague, Group 1, Group 2, and Others. Each group can be assigned a personalized ring tone and a group icon. Buried in the My Media menu is the Tools submenu that lists all the organizer features: alarm clock, calendar, voice memo, calculator, notepad, world clock, and unit converter. Both text and multimedia messaging are enabled, and the F7200 supports four instant-messaging networks: AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and Cingular’s own IM service. As is common with most Cingular phones, the F7200 provides access to Media Net, Cingular’s mobile Internet portal that provides access to a WAP 2.0 browser as well as various Internet services such as news, weather, and e-mail. There’s a handy speakerphone that is supereasy to use, thanks to the dedicated button on the side, although you can activate it only during a phone call. The F7200 supports numerous other call features: caller ID, conference calls, voice dialing, speed dialing, call waiting, and call forwarding.

The main feature of this phone, of course, is the PTT functionality. There’s a separate list for PTT contacts, but since Cingular uses the same number for both regular phone calls and PTT calls, you can easily copy contacts to and from the address book. Before you can connect to someone using PTT, you have to send out a PTT invitation, which the other person can accept or reject. Cingular also offers Quick Group Calling, allowing you to place a PTT call to a group of people that you can assign on your phone. You can easily tell who on your contacts list is available by the icons next to the name. There are also icons for Do Not Disturb, Invitation In Progress, and Silent/Vibrate mode. You have to hold the PTT key down while you talk, and you should make sure not to speak until after you hear a tone. Any time during a PTT call, the call originator can convert the call to cellular by going to Options and selecting Convert to Cellular; callers need not press the PTT button to talk. Other PTT options include a Call Me Alert, which can be sent to any of your PTT contacts; voice messages; call waiting; and contact alerts, which let you know if one of your contacts is available.

The F7200 has Java 2.0 support for game and application downloads, though the only game that comes with the phone is SpaceBall. Downloadable games cost up to $6.99 per game, which is far too pricey. There are plenty of personalization options with this phone. You can customize the display with four different wallpapers (or none) with an option to buy more and change the menu style to either icon or list view. You can also customize the ring alert types with ring only, ring and vibrate, or vibrate and ring. You can also choose from three message alert tones, two key tones (beep or voice), and three slider tones, or you can turn it off altogether.There are 10 polyphonic and 10 monophonic ring tones included in the phone, as well as an option to buy more. There’s also a vibrate mode and a silent mode.

Performance
The LG F7200 is a dual-band (GSM 850/1900) phone. We tested the phone on Cingular’s network in San Francisco. Even though callers on the other end could tell we were on a cell phone, call quality was satisfactory. Speakerphone calls were loud and clear, while PTT calls sounded good.

In our battery tests, we coaxed a solid nine hours of talk time out of the LGF7200, far surpassing the rated time of up to four hours. The rated standby time is 6 days; we got 5.5 days in our tests. According to FCC radiation tests, the LG F7200 has a digital SAR rating of 0.87 watts per kilogram.

The next level
LG have taken mobile phone style to the next level. The 3G LG u880 Muse on 3 is the World’s Slimmest 3G Music Phone. The new LG 880 is only 18.2mm thick and designed to appeal to the fashion-conscious with its stylish design and a powerful MP3 player function.

Pink mobile phone
The LG u880 Muse is not only available in classic stylish silver but also in the latest fashionable mobile phone hue, namely a very feminine pink! So go on ladies, dare to be different.

256K Colour Screen
The LG u880 on 3 is the latest 3G LG handset that uses a 256K colour screen. This display has amazing quality and clarity to make browsing 3G content and video calling a much more enjoyable experience.

Bluetooth
The LG Muse supports Bluetooth wireless connectivity which allows the phone to communicate with other Bluetooth devices such as headsets, digital cameras and laptops without any wires and up to 10m away.
Third Generation
First there were big, clunky analogue mobile phones, then came 2G digital handsets, eventually followed by the first 3G video phones, big on features but also big on size.

3G LG is a Winner
The first thing that hits you about the 3G LG u880 on 3 is size. Compared to all previous 3G video mobile phones, it’s tiny. Compared to current state-of-the-art 2G and 2.5G GSM phones it’s the same size. Think about that for a moment.

Video Calling
Video Calling from 3 is live, two-way video communication between 3 customers, using your 3G LG u880 mobile phone.

Video Calling makes communication both practical and fun because you can now see people and show objects, surroundings and activities in real time as you talk.

Quick Map
Some of the most useful features of the 3G LG u880 mobile phone are the Locate services from 3, A to B, Quick Map and Find.

On request, your 3 mobile phone can work out where you are in Britain and then display your location on a clear, easy to read map using the LG u880 high resolution screen.

Even better, type in a destination address such as a postcode and A to B will give you a straightforward map and direction on how to walk there! In the future this will be expanded to include car journeys by road as well.
Find me a ??¦
Using the same real-time location technology as A to B, Find has three options - all of which display a clear map of your location and what you want to find.

My Nearest can find your nearest banks, cash machines, shops, restaurants and petrol stations amongst others. Business Finder can find the location of any of 2m businesses from the Thompson Directory and Quick Map allows you to map any address in Britain.

1.3 Mega-pixel
The 3G Muse has a 1.3 megapixel digital camera for the best images and video recording when you need to capture a special moment. You can view all your images on the clear 256K colour screen. You can also record video and send it to another phone or PC anywhere and share your experiences with friends and family.

Huge memory
The LG u880 has expandable memory in the form of a Trans Flash card slot, so you can store a number of pictures and video clips, as well as store all you contact numbers ring tones and screen savers.
Bulletins
Bulletins is a video-only service from 3. It enables you to download news videos directly to your 3G LG u880 Muse mobile phone.

There are three type of Bulletin: Headlines from ITN, in-depth special reports of the day’s biggest events and a Business roundup of the days highs and lows from the City.

Built-in E-mail
You can send text, your pictures or voice clips from your 3G LG u880 by MMS or e-mail to any other e-mail address, to another LG 880 on 3, or to another MMS-capable phone.
Multimedia Messaging
Send your pictures over MMS, the Multimedia Messaging Service. It works like text messaging, except that you can send a picture, text, voice and even video all at once.

Snap a picture, write a short note, record a message, “This view is fantastic. Words fail me. Wish you were here.” And send it as a multimedia message from your 3G LG u880.

Java technology
Thanks to Java technology, you can further enhance your 3G LG u880 mobile phone with interactive, vibrant games, which can be downloaded and stored in the handset. They are easy to delete, so you don’t have to worry about cluttering up your memory.

Almost everyone has downloaded wallpapers and ring tones to their mobile phone at some time, and now with this added Java technology, this should provide hours of fun and entertainment for everyone.

A new sound
The LG u880 Muse uses the new “polyphonic” ring tone technology. This produces a high quality ring tone that sounds incredibly close to CD quality sound.

Triple band
The 3G LG Muse is designed around an internal triple band antenna which allows it to be used all around the world, including Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

LG U880 Specification

Dimensions
99 x 49 x 18mm ~

Weight
98g

Internal Display
256k TFT colour External Display
65k colours Camera
1.3 Mega Pixel External

Memory
80MB internal +
Transflash slot

Features
Calculator
MP3 Player
Built-in cameras
1.3 megapixel
Bluetooth
Polyphonic tones
TransFlash
Video calling
Video recorder
Video playback
Voice recorder
Java games
Tri-band
Email
MMS
T9

The LG C2000 is yet another low end GSM flip phone from LG made public today.

It features camera, MP3 ringtones, speakerphone functionality and two backlit displays (color internally and black and white externally).

LG C2000 Cell Phone is a low end GSM phone. Carrier Cingular or T-Mobile. East-to-use slider QWERTY keyboard Mobile instant messaging, text messaging, and MMS (multimedia messaging service)??¦

This tri-band phone has all the bells and whistles to keep you connected via voice or the wireless Internet. Plus, it’s got a VGA camera for snapping photos on the go, as well as support for voice dialing. Top it all off with dual displays and you have the perfect companion to Cingular wireless service.

Design
The C2000 sports a clamshell design with a large, 128 x 160 color display. The outside cover of the handset features a supplementary monochrome display that can display picture IDs, time, call information, battery and signal strength, and more. The phone’s VGA (640 x 480) camera is placed just above this display, while up and down buttons for volume control are placed on the left side. Most of the phone’s features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button on the handset’s control pad. There’s also a standard jack to accept universal hands-free headsets.

Calling Features
The C2000’s built-in address book can store up to 255 contacts for quick access to all your friends and associates. The phone also supports polyphonic ringtones, as well as ringtones in the MIDI, SMAF, MP3, AAC formats. A number of ringtones come preloaded on the phone and more ringtones can be downloaded from Cingular’s MEdia service. With the picture ID function, you can assign pictures to your most common callers. And for times when you want to be discreet, there’s also a vibrate ringer mode. Lastly, the built-in speakerphone makes it easy to talk hands-free.

Messaging, Internet and Tools
The C2000 has all the bases covered when it comes to messaging and Internet connectivity. In addition to basic text messaging, you can send pictures and sounds via the multimedia messaging service (Cingular messaging charges apply). There’s also an IM chat client for AOL, Yahoo! and ICQ instant messaging, as well as a built-in web browser for MEdia downloads and mobile web browsing. Cingular’s MEdia service lets you receive and send emails, read news headlines, get weather updates, download games and ringtones, and more. T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit??“ a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.

A number of handy software tools are bundled with the C2000 including a voice memo recorder, a calculator with unit converter, a memo pad, a calendar and an alarm/world clock.

Imaging and Entertainment
The C2000’s VGA camera features a zoom mode and a 9-shot multi-shot mode for capturing action scenes. Brightness and white balance adjustments are available, as are image enhancements such as a sepia effect. The phone also lets you set screensavers, themes and wallpapers to your tastes. And because it is Java enabled, the C2000 supports games written on the Java platform. Games are available via the Cingular MEdia service.

Vital Statistics
The LG C2000 weighs 3.40 ounces and measures 3.49 x 1.81 x .96 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 2.5 hours of digital talk time, and up to 240 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the 850/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS frequencies. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.

What’s in the Box
LG C2000 handset, hands-free headset, lithium-ion battery, AC charger, user’s manual.