LG Vu
Maxabout Review
Feature Rich TV Mobile
Monday, June 30, 2008
At first glance, the LG Vu appears to be a grown-up version of the LG Prada. It has the same glossy piano-black finish, silver sides, and minimalist style, but it is definitely larger and a bit more rounded on the edges. Measuring 4.24 inches long by 2.16 inches wide by 0.51 inch thick and weighing 3.16 ounces, the Vu is fairly light for its size thanks to its all-plastic casing. The Vu is slim and lightweight, and it can be easily slipped in a pocket or purse.
The display supports 262,000 colors and 240x400 pixels, which result in amazing-looking graphics and images that are saturated with color and detail. From the home screen, you can view the date, time, battery life, signal strength, and photo caller ID. When the touch screen is locked, you'll still be able to view the date and time. The display also acts as a viewfinder when the camera is activated. You can adjust the backlighting time, brightness, plus the size of the dialing fonts.As you would expect, the entire phone's navigation is to be done via its massive touch screen.
The touch-screen interface on the Vu mimics that of the LG Glimmer and the LG Voyager, right down to the menu structure. There are four shortcut icons along the bottom of the home screen, and from left to right they correspond to the main menu, AT&T Mobile TV, the contacts list. You can also choose to toggle on a Shortcuts Menu, which will bring up eight application shortcuts smack dab in the center of the home screen. The shortcuts correspond to Cellular Video, the music player, a new message, Bluetooth activation, instant messaging, the Web browser, the calendar, and voice command.As with the Apple iPhone, all of the navigation is to be done via the finger and not a stylus. The navigation is definitely intuitive.
It involves finger tapping to select something, and finger swiping to scroll through lists or move across a Web page. A light yet firm touch is required when navigating through the phone, but if you're still having trouble, the Vu comes with Touch Calibration software. There's even a touch-screen tutorial when you first start up the phone, which is very helpful. You won't be able to dial by feel, but the numbers on the screen are large enough to hit without too many mistakes.
Vu provides an option for a full QWERTY keyboard. When the QWERTY keyboard is selected, the orientation of the screen switches to landscape mode, for easier texting. Also, whenever you tap a key on the keyboard, the key will magnify showing you selected it, much like you would see on the Apple iPhone. Similarly, you can type on the virtual QWERTY keyboard when entering URL addresses in the Web browser.LG Vu features a 3" WQVGA 262K color touchscreen, 2MP camera with autofocus, HTML web browser with 3G data speeds, 120MB internal memory, USB mass storage mode, and up to 4GB microSD card support. Dimension are 4.25"H x 2.16"W x 0.51"D and with a weight of 3.16oz. The included 1000mAh battery is rated to give up to 3 hours of talk time.