Calvin’s Hub

After using the LG Arena KM900, I was handed another LG feature phone for review. I was able to use the LG Crystal GD900 for a few weeks now and I want to share to you what I think about it.

The LG Crystal GD900 is somewhat similar to the LG Arena KM900 in terms of features so I’m just going to share what improvements they made with it. First, here are some of its specs:

• 3-inch 16M color capacitive TFT touchscreen (480 x 800 pixels)
• 3G with HSDPA (7.2 Mbps), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
• 8 megapixel autofocus camera, LED flash, manual focus with video recording
• 1.5GB storage memory wotj hot-swappable microSD card slot(up to 32GB)
• microUSB v2.0, mass storage mode
• DivX and XviD support with TV-out port
• FM radio with RDS
• Office document viewer

The build is pretty solid although the metal faceplate looks cheap. I could use some more of the brush aluminum finish of the LG Arena. The weight and size feels just right on your palm or your pocket.

Alphanumeric touch-sensitive glass keypad

The LG Crystal GD900 is a touchscreen and a slider phone combined. Probably its biggest appeal is the tempered glass touch-sensitive keypad. It’s the unique selling point of this phone and LG is the first to have this design.

Although you don’t necessarily have to slide they keypad out when doing basic tasks such as calling or sending messages, you would want to do it to draw attention… or if you want a larger screen real estate.

8-megapixel camera

It has a whopping 8-megapixel camera with a strong LED flash. The Arena only has 5 megapixel and the iPhone has 3.1 megapixel. It also has 4x zoom by the way.

Unfortunately, its 8-megapixel sensor doesn’t translate to good photos. Decent but not good especially indoors even with the use of flash. It is slow to start and focus as well.

It’s still nice though to have an 8-megapixel camera with you always. I forgot to bring my digicam during the Pacquiao-Cotto fight viewing at Whitespace so I used the LG Crystal instead. Check that post for sample photos.

User interface

If you’ve used the LG Arena and other LG phones with the S-class interface, you will feel at home with the LG Crystal. The UI responsiveness is still not that quick as I hoped it would be but it’s still a big improvement from the Arena.

What I like is the change they did with the touch keypad display. It is nicely spaced out and provides much better feedback than old LG phone models with S-class UI.

Handwriting mode

This is a cool feature you won’t probably use. When you slide out the keypad, you have the option to use handwriting gestures to key in text. But the recognition response is pretty slow so it’s still better to use the keypad or the keyboard display.

A couple of gripes

1. Internet browser: The built-in browser is still too clunky although they made it faster. Zoom, scroll and pointing still needs smoothening out.
2. Predictive text: I don’t use the T9 predictive feature while texting and I couldn’t find an option on how to turn it off completely. Every time I write an SMS, I have to press a button just to turn it off.

Conclusion:

Overall, the LG Crystal is a solid feature phone that will surely get you some oohs and aahhs once you slide it out. But it’s the only thing that separates it from other touch screen phones from LG and the sad thing is, you probably won’t slide the keypad out too often other than for taking photos.

The interface is a nice upgrade from previous LG phones having the S-class UI although there’s room for some more improvements. It’s really a decent phone that is less of a fuss to use compared to others.

You might also be interested in:

• LG Arena Review: Almost but not quite
• Lee DeWyze vs. Crystal Bowersox, who will win?
• Michael Phelps’ coach blames loss to the Arena X-Glide suit
• Lee DeWyze wins American Idol, Crystal has been robbed

Filed under: Gadgets n' Games