rkaran
January 2nd, 2009, 06:21 PM
The LG KC910, released at the end of October 2008, is the replacement for the LG Viewty. We loved the Viewty, and we love the KC910 too! The KC910 is nicknamed the "Renoir". Renoir was a famous impressionist painter (you knew that, didn't you?) and so the name gives us a clue that the KC910 is a pioneering imaging device. It's LG's first phone to have an 8 megapixel camera, and it pushes the highly capable photographic capabilities of the Viewty to new heights.
The Renoir looks very similar to the Viewty. It's a flat touchscreen phone that's slightly larger than the Viewty, but more compact than the iPhone 3G. Weighing 110g, it's a fairly weighty phone, but feels about right for its size. Remember that heavier phones are better for taking photos, as you can hold them steadier. The size of the phone also gives space for a large LCD display - an important factor in a camera phone, and a fact that also makes the touchscreen user interface easier to use. The screen is exactly the same size as the Viewty in fact - a monster 3 inches across, with an ultra-high resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. We like the touchscreen user interface very much. It uses haptic (vibration) feedback to confirm that you've pressed a "button" on the virtual screen. New users may take a little while to get up to speed, but after some practice you should be able to text just as quickly as using a numeric keypad. Some things may be slightly trickier, but the sheer pleasure of using a virtual on-screen QWERTY keyboard and buttons more than compensates for this. The phone also supports T9 predictive text via a virtual keypad, and you can use handwriting recognition if you prefer. There are real buttons below the touchscreen, so you should have no problem turning the phone on and answering calls!
The Renoir launches one full year after the Viewty, and LG haven't been lazing about these past 12 months - far from it. There are many improvements and new features in the Renoir. Headlining these is the upgrade of the camera to 8 megapixels. This makes the Renoir into a superb camera phone, with a high quality Schneider-Kreuznach lens, autofocus, xenon flash and new features such as face tracking and beauty shot. The xenon flash is a much more powerful flash than conventional LED flashes, and gives substantially improved after-dark shots, especially when used with the camera sensitivity at its maximum setting of ISO 1600 . Beauty Shot is a very innovative feature that automatically detects faces, brightens them and removes spots and other imperfections. Now all your friends can be as beautiful as you already are! Another camera feature makes imaginative use of the touchscreen UI. Called Touch Shot, it enables you to focus on an object by touching it on screen. The shutter fires when you remove your finger from the screen. The result of all this new technology and gadgets is that the Renoir can easily take pictures that are good enough to print. It may not beat a dedicated digital camera, but with photos this good, will anyone care? The Renoir also features an outstanding video camera too. With the ability to capture video at 120 frames per second, you can then playback in slow motion for fun or special effects. 3G video calling is also supported.
But there's much more to the KC910 than just its camera. This is the first mobile to feature Dolby Mobile. This brand new technology from Dolby processes sound to enhance music, in particular by boosting bass output. The music player can play virtually all popular digital music formats including MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC++ & WMA. It can also play back video in DivX and Xvid formats so that you can watch movies on your phone. An FM radio is built in too, so you have a very wide range of music and video options available.
We're delighted to see that the Renoir has even more memory than the Viewty, which was already pretty well endowed. The Renoir has 100 MB of built-in memory, and comes supplied with an 8GB microSD memory card too. This is capable of storing around 2,000 MP3 tracks, or even more if you use a compressed format such as WMA. The maximum phonebook capacity has been increased too, up to 1,000 entries.
The connectivity options of the Renoir are unbeatable as well. It's one of the few phone to offer full speed HSDPA, giving download speeds up to 7.2 Mbps. In addition to the standard USB and Bluetooth connections, it's also WiFi-enabled, so you can connect wirelessly to a home or office network, or access a WiFi hotspot in your local cafe or pub. The combination of fast internet access and the super-large LCD screen makes the Renoir a formidable platform for mobile internet access. Whether you're web browsing or accessing email, the Renoir is a good device to be using. The email application supports attachments, and you can view TXT, PDF, DOC, PPT & XLS documents on the phone. It may not beat a BlackBerry if you're a corporate emailer, but for many users it will be an excellent choice. The Renoir makes web information available using so-called Widgets. Widgets can be used to display live content such as the local weather forecast.
If all this was not enough, the Renoir also comes with Assisted GPS. This puts it on a par with the very highest spec phones out there - the Nokia N96, The Samsung Omnia and the Sony Ericsson X1. Unlike its competitors, the LG isn't a smartphone, and this is both its strength and a weakness. It means that the user interface is fast and responsive, and that the operating system is a lot more stable. It also means that the number of applications that you can download is limited. But with a phone that already does so much out of the box, we think that most users will be happy. Just one thing: the quoted battery life of the KC910 is significantly shorter than the Viewty, and when you consider how many things the phone does, it isn't really surprising. Just bear this in mind when you choose your phone.
We are super-impressed with the KC910 Renoir. It's definitely a candidate for phone of the year 2008, and we think it'll be one of the biggest sellers in the 2008/2009 winter season.
Features of the LG Renoir KC910 include:
* 8 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens, autofocus and xenon flash
* Video recording (MPEG4, 320 x 240 pixels, 120 frames/second)
* 3G video calling (VGA camera, 30 frames/second)
* Touch sensitive screen: TFT LCD, 262k colours, 240 x 400 pixels (3 inches)
* Music player (MP3/AAC/AAC+/AAC++/WMA formats) with Dolby Mobile
* FM radio
* Assisted GPS with geo-tagging of photos
* Speakerphone
* Voice recording
* Messaging: SMS, EMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
* T9 predictive text
* Document viewer (TXT, PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS)
* Ringtones: 72 voice polyphonic ringtones / MP3 ringtones
* Wallpaper
* Java 2.0 games
* Phonebook (1000 names)
* Memory: 100 Mbytes plus 8 Gbyte microSD memory card
* Connectivity: USB 2.0, Bluetooth 1.2, WiFi
* Internet: WAP 2.0, GPRS Class 12, EDGE, 3G HSDPA (7.2 Mb/s)
* Vibration alert
* Triband (GSM 900/1800/1900) plus 3G HSDPA
* Size: 108 x 55 x 14.5 mm
* Weight: 110g
* Talktime: 3 hours
* Battery standby: 264 hours
The Renoir looks very similar to the Viewty. It's a flat touchscreen phone that's slightly larger than the Viewty, but more compact than the iPhone 3G. Weighing 110g, it's a fairly weighty phone, but feels about right for its size. Remember that heavier phones are better for taking photos, as you can hold them steadier. The size of the phone also gives space for a large LCD display - an important factor in a camera phone, and a fact that also makes the touchscreen user interface easier to use. The screen is exactly the same size as the Viewty in fact - a monster 3 inches across, with an ultra-high resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. We like the touchscreen user interface very much. It uses haptic (vibration) feedback to confirm that you've pressed a "button" on the virtual screen. New users may take a little while to get up to speed, but after some practice you should be able to text just as quickly as using a numeric keypad. Some things may be slightly trickier, but the sheer pleasure of using a virtual on-screen QWERTY keyboard and buttons more than compensates for this. The phone also supports T9 predictive text via a virtual keypad, and you can use handwriting recognition if you prefer. There are real buttons below the touchscreen, so you should have no problem turning the phone on and answering calls!
The Renoir launches one full year after the Viewty, and LG haven't been lazing about these past 12 months - far from it. There are many improvements and new features in the Renoir. Headlining these is the upgrade of the camera to 8 megapixels. This makes the Renoir into a superb camera phone, with a high quality Schneider-Kreuznach lens, autofocus, xenon flash and new features such as face tracking and beauty shot. The xenon flash is a much more powerful flash than conventional LED flashes, and gives substantially improved after-dark shots, especially when used with the camera sensitivity at its maximum setting of ISO 1600 . Beauty Shot is a very innovative feature that automatically detects faces, brightens them and removes spots and other imperfections. Now all your friends can be as beautiful as you already are! Another camera feature makes imaginative use of the touchscreen UI. Called Touch Shot, it enables you to focus on an object by touching it on screen. The shutter fires when you remove your finger from the screen. The result of all this new technology and gadgets is that the Renoir can easily take pictures that are good enough to print. It may not beat a dedicated digital camera, but with photos this good, will anyone care? The Renoir also features an outstanding video camera too. With the ability to capture video at 120 frames per second, you can then playback in slow motion for fun or special effects. 3G video calling is also supported.
But there's much more to the KC910 than just its camera. This is the first mobile to feature Dolby Mobile. This brand new technology from Dolby processes sound to enhance music, in particular by boosting bass output. The music player can play virtually all popular digital music formats including MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC++ & WMA. It can also play back video in DivX and Xvid formats so that you can watch movies on your phone. An FM radio is built in too, so you have a very wide range of music and video options available.
We're delighted to see that the Renoir has even more memory than the Viewty, which was already pretty well endowed. The Renoir has 100 MB of built-in memory, and comes supplied with an 8GB microSD memory card too. This is capable of storing around 2,000 MP3 tracks, or even more if you use a compressed format such as WMA. The maximum phonebook capacity has been increased too, up to 1,000 entries.
The connectivity options of the Renoir are unbeatable as well. It's one of the few phone to offer full speed HSDPA, giving download speeds up to 7.2 Mbps. In addition to the standard USB and Bluetooth connections, it's also WiFi-enabled, so you can connect wirelessly to a home or office network, or access a WiFi hotspot in your local cafe or pub. The combination of fast internet access and the super-large LCD screen makes the Renoir a formidable platform for mobile internet access. Whether you're web browsing or accessing email, the Renoir is a good device to be using. The email application supports attachments, and you can view TXT, PDF, DOC, PPT & XLS documents on the phone. It may not beat a BlackBerry if you're a corporate emailer, but for many users it will be an excellent choice. The Renoir makes web information available using so-called Widgets. Widgets can be used to display live content such as the local weather forecast.
If all this was not enough, the Renoir also comes with Assisted GPS. This puts it on a par with the very highest spec phones out there - the Nokia N96, The Samsung Omnia and the Sony Ericsson X1. Unlike its competitors, the LG isn't a smartphone, and this is both its strength and a weakness. It means that the user interface is fast and responsive, and that the operating system is a lot more stable. It also means that the number of applications that you can download is limited. But with a phone that already does so much out of the box, we think that most users will be happy. Just one thing: the quoted battery life of the KC910 is significantly shorter than the Viewty, and when you consider how many things the phone does, it isn't really surprising. Just bear this in mind when you choose your phone.
We are super-impressed with the KC910 Renoir. It's definitely a candidate for phone of the year 2008, and we think it'll be one of the biggest sellers in the 2008/2009 winter season.
Features of the LG Renoir KC910 include:
* 8 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens, autofocus and xenon flash
* Video recording (MPEG4, 320 x 240 pixels, 120 frames/second)
* 3G video calling (VGA camera, 30 frames/second)
* Touch sensitive screen: TFT LCD, 262k colours, 240 x 400 pixels (3 inches)
* Music player (MP3/AAC/AAC+/AAC++/WMA formats) with Dolby Mobile
* FM radio
* Assisted GPS with geo-tagging of photos
* Speakerphone
* Voice recording
* Messaging: SMS, EMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
* T9 predictive text
* Document viewer (TXT, PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS)
* Ringtones: 72 voice polyphonic ringtones / MP3 ringtones
* Wallpaper
* Java 2.0 games
* Phonebook (1000 names)
* Memory: 100 Mbytes plus 8 Gbyte microSD memory card
* Connectivity: USB 2.0, Bluetooth 1.2, WiFi
* Internet: WAP 2.0, GPRS Class 12, EDGE, 3G HSDPA (7.2 Mb/s)
* Vibration alert
* Triband (GSM 900/1800/1900) plus 3G HSDPA
* Size: 108 x 55 x 14.5 mm
* Weight: 110g
* Talktime: 3 hours
* Battery standby: 264 hours