LG KM900 Arena mobile phone

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The LG KM900 Arena that we are testing today has been one of the sensations of the last Mobile World.

The mobile includes an LCD touch screen 3 inches (7.62 cm) qualified multi-points by the manufacturer. It offers a WVGA resolution of 480x800 pixels and 16 million displayable colors. The image sensor of 5 megapixel autofocus, whose objective is certified Schneider-Kreuznach, also filming in a remarkable resolution of 720 x 480 pixels. Side connections, the Arena has done nothing wrong with compatibility with all technologies of the moment as the 3G + (HSDPA) 7.2 Mbps, WiFi and GPS. Finally, the 8 GB of internal memory are also supported by the presence of a microSD card reader.



The Arena LG KM900 comes with the following accessories:

• A shipper
• A battery
• Headphones in-ear stereo 3.5 mm jack with a microphone
• A USB data cable
• The manual
• A memory card 8 GB microSD and SD Adapter.

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Appearance and Design

LG has succeeded in giving a true identity to his KM900 Arena despite the fact that most of the front panel is occupied by a screen. Rather than yield to the lure of a discreet look, LG dares chrome edges and slightly rounded on his Arena. These features provide the mobile to be easily recognizable and offers in addition a nice hand. Despite the careful data sheet, the KM900 is still quite end with 12 mm thick.



The front is smooth since the 3 buttons at the bottom of the screen is sensitive and not mechanical.



The sides and rear are made gray plastic soft to the touch. The finishes of the device are remarkable and the whole is fully assembled. Only the contour chrome seems a little too sensitive to scratches and could badly aging if you place it in your pants pocket or the bottom of a bag. If you crack the Arena, we advise you to obtain a bag fast enough.



Access to the socket to recharge the mobile for its part is located behind a small sliding cover excellent. A flat still the location of the memory card is placed under the battery cover. Fortunately, no need to switch off the mobile once battery cover removed, the location is accessible without removing the battery.




The sides of the device are fairly counted. The right has 3 buttons very classical, the two buttons for volume and one that triggers the picture. On the left is access to the connector to recharge the mobile mentioned earlier.



Finally, the upper button to switch on and off the phone, the handsfree connector and stereo headphones as well as the release button of the battery.

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OS & Ergonomics

The KM900 features are interesting but not revolutionary. If this phone was as expected, mainly for its new user interface, named S-Class 3D. Unlike most of its touch, the Arena is what is called a feature phone, ie it embeds a proprietary operating system and not a smartphone (Symina, Windows Mobile ... etc). But it does not matter to most users, given the number of functions that this phone offers, both for the media office. On this operating system that is superimposed interface S-Class 3D. LG has already announced that it would be declined on other operating systems, including Windows Mobile.


To return to KM900 interests us here, LG has almost completely revamped his copy to suggest a show that flatters the retina as soon as one turns on the mobile. The manufacturer has resumed its previous and improved interfaces. The user interface 3D S-Class has been specifically designed to provide quick and intuitive access to a set of multimedia features from the words of Korean.



In practice, a host cube, already outlined in previous models, offers 4 customizable home screens allow easy navigation. But to get there, we bother to simplify each side because they contain shortcuts to the functions and content as the most used widgets, songs and favorite photos, contacts and favorites the most used. The 3D animation of the cube is very successful. You navigate between the sides of a lateral movement of a finger. The screen is a capacitive, like that of the iPhone, that does not respond finger. It is at once precise and responsive.

There is also a more traditional menu that includes all the functions and setting options available. The first thing is striking is its similarity with that of the iPhone! In practice, however, it differs sufficiently from that of Apple for not crying plagiarism. Indeed, when the display mode is concerned (ie vertical), you can access the icons that do not appear by scrolling the lines. The accelerometer board allows for the display in landscape mode when you rotate the device. All the icons are visible through the fine resolution of the screen.



This definition is however a double-edged sword on a 3-inch screen as icons and buttons in certain menus and applications are a bit small for those with big fingers. This is even more glaring when you type an SMS or email with the virtual QWERTY keyboard lacks the precision of those that can be found on other models. It leads to some typos in the early stages and does not type very quickly even after several weeks of use. Another flaw: the test version that we sent was an LG model SFR pack. Or, on the face of the cube dedicated shortcuts to applications, the 9 locations available, 6 have been devolved to the SFR. And this is not negotiable! Ie you can not remove them to save others of your choice. It is therefore left with only 3 customizable locations or a cruel disillusionment as the face of the cube is to practice daily for quick access to favorite applications.



After a few days with the S-Class Interface, it appears clear that LG wanted to "put the full view." We do not see no harm in a vacuum. The concern in this case, it is often easier to use shortcuts that ignore all the subtleties of graphic Arena. The most revealing is to look on the side of the cube home superbly animated as you described above. To switch from one to the other side, you have two options. Either you come back each time to display its full pretty strong (for the umpteenth time ...) and you turn up side down on the one you want. Either you turn when you're already in one of these faces. Thus, once we know exactly where the different sides of the cube in relation to each other, no need to return each time to its materialization in 3D. Simply pass your finger from left to right or vice versa for access. It is certainly less dramatic, but it leads to less handling.


There are also the philosophy of swank when LG announced that the screen of his mobile multipoints. It was nice to be very good technically, it is not that rivals that of the iPhone. The implementation of this technology appears to be less well controlled by LG. The movement of zoom / zoom out to 2 fingers is present but there is a small delay between when you do and when it is taken into account. Finally, a technicality that is important: the iPhone can recognize 5 points even when the Arena stands at 2. Therefore we will call screen "bipoints" rather than multipoints so.

Finally, to eliminate the defects, we were surprised to see that problems exist in the Arena. To begin, we arrived several times to see the product restart on its own or altogether, forcing us to remove the battery to reboot. Similarly, when someone calls you, the name is sometimes several seconds to appear while the tone is heard and the phone vibrates! If you are of those who do drop out if they see the name of the caller displayed, this bug may get missed calls. Expect the first returns of users to see if this problem is our only test version or is attributable to all the early models.

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5 megapixel camera

If the new KM900 Arena is certainly a mobile multimedia, however it is not classified in the range of photophone in LG. The photo sensor of the Arena not proposing that 5 megapixels, which is below a mobile as the Renoir, for example. However, this resolution is largely sufficient for the little that is associated optical quality. The one here is of course embedded autofocus. For the rest, it is quite similar to the result of many phones, ie, it allows for shots rather successful in the day or in bright environments and the more disappointing when the light decreases. In the latter case, the presence of a flash LED does not change much to the case as its effectiveness is limited. But Arena is still generally good in terms of picture. Under ideal conditions, it allows for pictures purposes, the natural colors.



The interface of the picture is the same as for the video. It is practical in that it must scroll wheel to reach the virtual setting you want. Even if it takes place over time, there have been faster and more intuitive interface! It still offers several functions directly borrowed from the world of photography as face detection, smile, a 16X digital zoom (use sparingly because it degrades the image), etc ... The presence of a GPS chip in the bowels of the beast lets geo photos.

The findings for the quality of video is captured in the same logic as that for the photo, but more marked. The Arena allows you to capture video in D1, ie a resolution of 720x480 pixels, 30 frames per second. The record is really good in optimal lighting conditions. Quite simply, we almost feel a small camcorder in both hands videos offer little jerks, faithful color and definition of the image sharp. You can safely view them on a computer screen or even on TV. Another advantage: the 8 GB of onboard memory to allow filming for several hours. LG and adds an additional microSD memory card which is also 8 GB So you say that you can shoot almost count.



The Achilles heel just once over the luminosity. Upon falling, the quality suffers clips captured with a digital noise really too pronounced. We find the possibility to record accelerated or slowed. With the same flaws as the previous models: when you save in these modes, the resolution of the video does not exceed the QVGA (320 x 240 pixels).

Note that file transfer occurs over the world simply by connecting your PC to your Arena. Indeed, the LG mobile is recognized as a device by Windows and just copy / paste items. Child's play!

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Other features (MP3, Web, e-mail, GPS ...)

In good mobile multimedia, Arena offers the full panoply of features for recreation. But unfortunately they have not all received the same care. Start with the undeniable strength of the mobile music player. Although not free from flaw, it provides a perfect interface with a lively and colorful very successful. It remains fairly standard as far as the different options available, but there are of course all the most common functions such as creating the playlist, the different play modes and equalizers. These offer the possibility to render a song to your liking. We regret against it is not possible to advance or retreat in a song through the status bar progress of the song played. To do so, the only solution is to hold a change of piece, which is not intuitive for a mobile touch.



Now turn to the most important audio rendering. The KM900 is positioned on the ground more than on the video as we shall see a little lower. He suggested listening to a very high standard, capable of competing with the vast majority of MP3 players in the market. With a special mention for bass. The mobile is set for you to open your ears. Indeed, the titles you rich bass literally explodes in the figure. If that does not suit you, you can change entirely by setting the equalizer. There are more than 20 in all and it must be really difficult not to find happiness. The kit provides hands-free stereo is no stranger to the case. It is excellent for once with his in-ear tips and white design of both simple and trend. But you can also connect your own headphones if you feel like it, LG has finally adopted the mini-jack connector 3.5 mm. For those who want to cut the son, the mobile also offers stereo Bluetooth compatibility. Our tests with 3 different headsets have also been particularly successful.

Too bad that when a song starts from the shortening of one side of the cube, it locks up the phone and we can not do anything else. Multitasking is possible since the main player but the developers have obviously forgotten to implement it in one of the shortcuts. To be forgiven this slight defect, the KM900 board an FM transmitter that provides the opportunity to play his songs, or any audio from your mobile to your car or your stereo. Icing on the cake: the Arena Mobile incorporates Dolby Surround. It is the first mobile to offer this technology which is an evolution of Dolby Mobile in the LG KC910 Renoir. It offers a unique spatialisation and is more suited to listening to a wide range of musical genres with the Renoir. LG has put forward this partnership because you can enable or disable the Dolby Surround Mobile on the control panel of each song. Finally, remember that it is also activated for movies.



Which could be good news ... if the bankruptcy was not the total level of compatibility with different video formats! The pill is all the more bitter that LG has once again promised the earth during the presentation of the product during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. At the time of the verdict, we are left with a product that can only play the mobile formats like MP4 or 3GP. It is very far from the DivX announced by the manufacturer. It is absurd when we know that the LG Renoir was able to read a wide range of formats. Quite simply, it is without flinching on the screen most videos gleaned on the net. If you want to read on the Arena, it will almost always re-encode your videos since the KM900 only reads the DivX mobile profile. Scandalous for such a concentrated multimedia! Especially because the competition is not shy to offer ever more mobile with DivX Player Samsung Ultra head!


For the rest, the Arena offers advanced functions connected enough, though far from best in class as the iPhone or Google Phone. The web browser is passable. You can engage in browsing sessions on the real site, but the experience is quite jerky. We advise you to focus on sites designed for mobile internet. The multi-points in the Arena allows the zoom / zoom out a iPhone, but the reactivity is not really with go mobile and still lagging behind, albeit slight, but eventually irritate if you repeat the process several times in a short time. The phone also supports the Google Mobile, which includes Google search, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Google Blogs.

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Conclusion (More and Less)

In the end, what we Arena leaves a mixed impression. But we will nevertheless recommend ... if you can live with its shortcomings. Its compact design and a clear call for it. It is very nice to have a phone with a 3-inch screen too small footprint. The new S-Class 3D is at the center of attention is not flawless but it is nevertheless very successful speaking and visual qualities far outweigh its shortcomings. Those who have "big paluche" likely to feel really cramped.



Multimedia side, the Arena is full of features with capacities honest capture photo / video and an excellent audio player. The video player is against the penalty in relation to its more limited compatibility with the DivX format. Not to mention the bugs that are disorder for such a product. The phone features the Arena are in the middle of moving large touch screens with a quality conversation very correct, but an autonomy that barely exceed two days in normal use (voice + sms + capture photo / video + music player).

Most:
• The videos made by mobile
• Quality display screen
• Interface S-Class visually very successful
• Pictures taken in bright environments
• The design and finishes
• Dolby Surround Mobile performance
• 8 GB of internal memory + 8GB on a microSD memory card!

Least:
• Multi-point ... of the poor! (only 2 items found)
• The very limited compatibility with DivX
• Screen a little small compared to competitors
• Photos and videos taken in dark environment