Just before I flew to San Francisco last month, my Nokia N95 died on me again, which was really annoying. The N95 refused to ‘boot’ so I had to send it off for repairs.
Luckily, thanks to the generous folks over at LG, a LG Viewty arrived for me to review and to play with. The Viewty is the latest in LG’s range of cameraphones, and it packs a very impressive 3″ full touchscreen and a 5.1 megapixel camera, putting it on a par with a mid-range digital compact camera. The Viewty is also capable of recording videos at VGA quality (640×480 at 30fps), which I think is unique for a phone, as well as in DivX format. With it’s 3G connection you can actually load videos directly to YouTube.
What the specs don’t tell you is just how sexy and gorgeous the phone is. It’s been so long since I’ve had a compact and sleek phone (my last phones have been a Sony Ericsson P900, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6680, Nokia N80 and now a Nokia N95) that I’d forgotten how nice it is to have a phone that fits snugly in my pockets.
What really makes the LG Viewty stand out though is the great touch screen, which really works, and the amazing camera. Check out the video review below which shows the Viewty in action:
The touch screen is not as complex or as functional as the iPhone’s, but I think it’s more practical. What I like about the Viewty’s interface is that LG haven’t lost track of the fact that the Viewty is first and foremost a phone. Yes, it has the sexy touch interface, but it is still easy to handle calls and to send SMSs.
LG have put a lot of effort into the Viewty’s packaging. As you can see from the shots I took below, the packaging has a very Apple look & feel, and more importantly, quality feel about it:
The LG Viewty sets new standards for cameraphones by including a manual focus function, a first for a cameraphone. It also includes an image stabiliser that helps record clearer images. I shot a few shots with the camera in the States and compared them to my 7 megapixel digital camera and they were comparable.
Where the Viewty does suffer is in the email category, and it just can’t match the performance of my HTC S620/T-mobile Dash that I’ve resurrected for email use now that my Nokia N95 is unavailable.
I think LG have made a smart move putting together a good phone that doubles as an excellent camera, rather than trying to pack the Viewty with lots of gimmicky features such as GPS. I think this is the N95′s failing. Yes, it’s a great showcase for a converged device, because it suffers from being a jack of all trades. The Viewty is a master cameraphone without peers at the moment, and would definitely be a nice present from Santa this year.
