After all the other big phone makers have joined the Android bandwagon with the notable exception of Nokia, we now have the 2nd largest Korean phone maker LG Electronics releasing its first - the LG InTouch Max GW620. Whew, quite a long name.
Announced sometime back in September last year, the GW620 was launched in November. It is now available in Britain from T-mobile at a mere '20 a month on a 2-year contract with unlimited data as well as from Virgin Media for '22 a month on a shorter 18-month contract with unlimited text and data.
It comes in three color choices - black, gray and blue.
20,000 Apps
This is LG's answer to the increasing popular demand for Google's open source Android OS for mobile phones. It still uses the older Android 1.5 'cupcake' but it could be open for upgrading to the latest version.
LG's Sales and Marketing Director John Barton has intimated that this launch effectively ends its 'expensive and exclusive applications' for mobile phones and opens up an 'impressive 20,000 plus applications which are easy to download, and of which 65% are free - and this selection is growing every day.?
That's mostly the edge of Android phones over other smartphones in other platforms like Windows Mobile or even some Linux-based OS and is following on the example of the iPhone with its popular Apple online application store which never fails to make the iPhone as good as new right out of the box with newer and more exciting apps every time.
Smart Feature Set
In some markets, it is also known as the LG Eve and sports a full QWERTY side slider body measuring a relatively hefty 109 x 54.5 x 15.9mm at 139 grams. It houses an impressive feature pack that while not outstanding, is at par with other upscale Android smartphones having the same full QWERTY slider functionality like the Motorola Droid.
Hardware wise, this is a 3G smartphone with HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA for sensibly high speed internet access that greatly benefits its social networking updating capability. It's also your basic quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 2G. There's WiFi 802.11n/g, Assisted GPS as well as local data connectivity options such as Bluetooth 2,0 for wireless and microUSB 2,0 for wired data synching.
TheLG InTouch Max GW620 carries a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, image stabilization, face detection and Geo-tagging as well as an upscale 30fps frame rate on its D1 (720 x 480) video recording.
A bit disappointing is its smallish 3-inch display that uses a mere resistive touchscreen technology and a low QVGA resolution when other Android handsets sport larger screens with wide-VGA resolution and capacitive touchscreens. But we won't quibble for a very reasonably priced contract. A gravity accelerometer is standard for auto-rotate viewing.
Its multimedia support is par for the course with stereo FM as well as listening options on a 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth A2DP support. Internal memory is relatively modest at a mere 150 MB but you get the usual microSD expansion slot for up to32 GB. Its powerful 1500 mAh lithium-polymer battery powers the handset for up to 8 hours of talk time and up to 600 hours on standby when fully charged.