Below: The LG New Chocolate phone packaging is surprisingly compact, with it's outer slipcase and a nice black box:-P
Below: The accessories are minimal and lightweight which is perfect for those on the move. The ear piece are inner ear headphones for optimal sound quality. The USB cable also doubles as the electrical cable for the charger, clever! What is lacking however is a leather case to keep the phone from scratches...
Below: The phone has an almost hidden and seamless battery and SIM card compartment...well thought out!
Below: Striking red on both ends of the phone...
Below: Flip opening to cover the USB connection when not in used... usually these are left exposed on other phones...
Below: The simple easy to understand menu which gives a good one glance on new msgs, emails etc...
Below: Menu in its portrait format...tilt the phone sideways and you get the full menu...
Below: A feature called 'Lock Screen Gesture' which lets you assign actions to wake up the phone to a function you desire from lock mode...
Below: For me, I choose to assign drawing a 'M' to call up the messaging menu!
Below: Texting screen in portrait format...
Below: Qwerty keypad for landscape format... buttons could be bigger though...
My Experience With LG's New Chocolate Phone
Just a week ago, I had the pleasure of test driving LG's new ultra sleek Chocolate Phone BL40. Thank you LG for this first hand opportunity to trial one of the most noteworthy mobile phone that is launched this year.
On first encounter, the LG New Chocolate Phone spots a sexy black and red finishing, with its scratch resistant tempered glass touch screen on the front and glossy black plastic casing at the back. The top and bottom sides both spot a red colour which is signature of the Chocolate series. Design fanatics will rejoice at the sleek outlook. I was amazed at the curves and almost seamless design with no obvious edges giving away where the battery and SIM card compartments are. After a bit of examination, I finally figure out the entire back cover is to be slide open to unveil the interior. I welcome the thought of hiding the more unsightly technical aspect of the device, to the point of it being almost non-existent. I would expect no less from the Chocolate series, since they are always on the forefront of phone designs. The USB cable port is also hidden with a flip opening which to me is another plus point, unlike in most mobile phones where the port is exposed. Measuring a handy 12.8cm (H) x 4.9cm (W) x 0.9cm (D), the New Chocolate Phone gives a good grip because of the slender shape (although it could be shorter to be more compact).
Being a high end smart phone, the amount of accessories enclosed with the phone do not disappoint. No heavy and cumbersome chargers, batteries or cables... what was included are just lightweight compact versions which is ideal for travelling. I like the fact that the USB cable serves as the electrical cable for the charger as well. 2 in 1 purpose for less components to carry when you are on the move! What was lacking though, is a nice outer leather case to keep the phone from scratches. I was a bit disappointed that LG did not include that, although they do have a special Twenty8Twelve leather case available for purchase.
On the technical side, LG's Chocolate Phone packs a lot of cool features. The wide 4inch screen with its HD LCD screen is a sight to behold when viewing pictures and videos. Colours are vivid and resolution very sharp. The 5 megapixel camera takes exceptional quality pictures for a mobile phone. (My 3.2 megapixel Nokia E71 pales in quality when it comes to the camera pictures). I have to admit I was impressed with the picture quality.
As for the touch screen experience for the phone, I love the option of allowing a slight vibration to give an indication of any buttons being 'pressed' besides sound. This gives you a better gauge on whether you hit any keys, which is especially useful when it comes to text messaging. The text message menu allows for 2 ways of entering your text msg, with landscape format (at a turn of the phone to landscape format) featuring a full qwerty keypad. Texting has always been a real challenge for touchscreen phones, especially for guys, since our fingers tend to be bigger. So I do encounter some problems typing, but overcame the inconvenience after some getting used to. Thankfully, the intuitive touchscreen and T9 predictive text function helped in making texting less frustrating. But if you are a heavy SMS user, do bear in mind that touchscreens still takes a longer response time to react to your typing and more patience is definitely required.
One of the more unique features of this New Chocolate phone is the 'lock screen gesture'. This is basically a gesture-activated wake up function that calls up a desired menu of the phone as you reactivate it from lock mode. You can assign different hand gestures such as drawing circles, squares to call up texting, image gallery, email etc. I thought that was an interesting feature and kinda fun to program. But how practical the function is, will depend on each individual:-P
Other cool features include the finger slide to enlarge and flick thru albums, menus which is not exactly new. But I am still intrigued everytime I flick my fingers to scroll thru the menus or photoalbums. Very fun. Browsing the web is therefore made more easy thru this feature. You can also copy and paste different lines of text with a finger activated highlighting/selection. However, again, this works better for slender fingers as you need to be more precise.
All in all, the user experience of LG's Chocolate phone has been promising. There are lots of cool features which makes this phone an envy for all eyes. But as with all touch screen phones, you do get frustrated at the either the very small 'buttons' or the screen being too intuitive. The lack of a proper leather case bugs me as well since I will want something to protect the cool phone.
Nonetheless, for anyone who is looking for a smart and well designed mobile phone to compliment their tech savvy and stylish personalities, I will strongly recommend this new offering from LG.
Coming soon... an LG giveaway here in the next 2 days! Stay tuned!
All pics by mymanybags