I was looking for a new phone...as long as it worked "as a phone" I'd be happy! Tesco online had an offer one weekend and I could get the LG KG290 with £10 airtime on "Pay as you go" for £16 with free delivery! Seemed a bargain and without going into details I managed to get further discounts which means that in the end I only paid £1 for the phone! A one-off and I was lucky with timing. A cracking start..........
What's the phone like, then? Well, I was upgrading from a bog-standard phone and this was my first mobile with a colour screen! You can tell I was going to be easily impressed!
However, this truly is a great little unit. It has a camera and video function, it plays MP3 music/podcast files, it has a radio! It comes with headphones, a charger and an instruction booklet.
The memory is expandable using a "microSD" card...I bought a 1gig version on eBay for around £2! Twice the cost of the phone, I know.......These cards are minute - about the size of a, er, stamp corner. This means more photos/video/songs can be stored. The phone has a "voice record" function so I imagine with a large memory card you could dictate War and Peace on the train should you wish to! You might get a few odd looks...
I've left the phone recording the uninspiring view from my lounge window while I write this to see how much video you can store on a 1gig card..we're up to 11 minutes so far.
Files can be transferred to and from a PC using the Bluetooth function but I find it easier to remove the card from the phone and use a card adaptor which means you can put music onto the phone using the PCs USB port. We're getting technical...
But I digress, this is a phone..how does it fare? Well, I'm on Tesco's network and signal strength has always been good in England and Southern Ireland. Sound is clear and I haven't had problems being heard. Battery life is excellent with a charge once a week sufficing for my low usage needs. The phone arrived with the battery fully charged, incidentally.
Functions are more than sufficient - it's all there. Address book (with pictures if you wish), Calendar,Alarm Clock,Stopwatch,Memo facility,web browser,texting of every conceivable format.
The unit is a "slide to open" design which means you can answer the phone in one movement and also means when not in use this is a compact item in your pocket. Most functions can be operated without even opening the phone if you just want a quick check to see if you've got messages etc. There's the useful option of adding your most used functions into a short list which is accessed in one press of the cursor joystick on the front which saves you hunting through menus. I like that.
We're up to 20 minutes on video record now...
The design looks modern. Mine's silver and no paint has been lost after 6 months of use. The screen remains remarkably unscratched too. There are three buttons on the side for volume control (call volume and when using the speaker for MP3 playback) and camera operation without needing to go through the menu.
There are games built in if you want to fritter away some time...
Right, we've recorded half an hour of pointlessness now so I'm calling it a day. You get the point.
This is a great little phone which, even at full price (!) of around £20 is a bargain. I don't get excited by mobile phones but I'd have another, no problem..
Reviewed by Mark Woods, 2008. LordBeanpod@GMail.com
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