I attended an intimate dinner with the guys from LG Mobile and she showed off their latest entry level device, the LG KS360. This device is positioned to be an entry level QWERTY keypad phone priced at P8,9xx.00 (roughly USD $200) making it the cheapest QWERTY enabled phone in the market today. The unit does not come with fast Internet connectivity or a really superb camera. For all intents and purposes, this is a messaging phone for the masses that need to transition to a numerical keypad.

I must note though that the unit comes with a pseudo touch screen which only activates when you turn on the dialer when the unit is closed. Interesting — a sparingly used touch screen feature!

[photo c/o author ]

Here’s a short peek into something that LG will unveil this coming CES 2009. The LG GD910 is a watch that doubles as a phone. The specs show that you can only do 2 hours of talk time, much less than the “proclaimed” industry standard so that means Lg should either be telling the truth, or talk time is really reduced to less than 2 hours. No judgments to be made yet as we haven’t seen the phone up close. But 2 hours on paper? Hmm.

The phone also has Bluetooth, and 3G connectivity. The GD910 relies heavily on voice commands since there are only three hardware menu buttons on the side of the neat little touch screen. Making calls via voice recognition shows off how the watch detects your voice and repeats the numbers you want to “dial” (Did you say 1,2,3,4,5 …. and you reply with “Yes”). You can use the voice commands to activate functions such as the music player. The three menu buttons are used to receive calls, reject or end calls and a center menu which you can hold down to display the main phone menu or the status menu to show off your signal strength, incoming messages, etc.

The built in audio seems to be loud enough, as seen from the video. The watch also supports video calls via 3G with a camera built on the front face of the device. The watch strap is made of leather and I’m assuming like all standard watches, can be interchanged with other straps if you’re allergic to leather.

Verizon announced the availability of the LG Chocolate 3. The new Chocolate bar comes with an outer scroll wheel and is by far the second mobile phone to come with a built in FM tuner (the first was the Nokia N78, which works really kick ass btw).

The new Chocolate 3 comes with the following features:

2.0MP camera with video recorder
1GB internal memory
External scroll wheel
FM Transmitter
microSD expansion

[image courtesy of Mobiledia]

Ever wonder how phones get their names? There are two schools of thought in product marketing. The first is to come up with simple “consumer names” for products such as “Tiger” or “Leopard” or “LG Shine” or “BlackBerry Pearl.” But beneath these names are product codes that all brand managers have to memorize. For huge phone manufacturers that can’t possibly come up with creative names for the dozen or so models they churn out every week, product naming, for convenience sake is limited to an alpha-numerical designation.

Some companies lie in the middle, like Motorola and LG who don’t churn out as many iterations of their phones as Sony Ericsson or Nokia. Which is why both can afford to use names like “ROKR” or “LAZR” or “RAZR” or “Chocolate,” “Shine” and “Viewty.”

We’ve got some network posts on the naming schemes of two of the bigger manufacturers - Sony Ericsson and Nokia:

How Nokia names their mobile phones and categorizes them according to market niche

How Sony Ericsson names their phones and categorizes them according to region and incremental feature upgrades

Nowadays, a touch screen phone like the LG Viewty would necessitate certain features like wireless Internet. Unfortunately the nice big screen of this Viewty KU990 model is laid to waste as it doesn’t support WiFi.
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This is by far the most affordable fashion hack I’ve seen. For only $989.00, you can own an LG Prada that’s dipped in 24 karat gold.

Prada, one of the World’s leading designers, have teamed up with LG to unveil this completely touch screen mobile phone. The Prada Phone by LG (KE850) is a breakthrough in the industry, with its sophisticated design and elegant looks.
Other features of LG include a web browser, email client and MP3 player. This fantastic looking phone is probably the hottest designer phone at the moment.

I like the web copy on this one. It’s a 24 karat coat that just so happens to have other features like email and blah, blah, blah. I really wonder if “feature packed” is directly proportional to uber fashion line. Are these features that the affluent will even appreciate?

Thanks to Angelica from Geek Sugar

Apple is doing it. So is LG. And the tech industry has been abuzz with Google partnerships. Take for instance the LG “Google” phone that upon further inspection, doesn’t really offer much apart from Google-bundled applications. The only reason I would see why I would want this particular model would be because it looks like a slightly better Chocolate.

If phone manufacturers did it right, a Google partnership would offer incentives to making searches on your phone. This in paper does make sense to advertisers, as your phone’s real estate is confined to a 240 x 320 screen that allows for more conversions for text links.

[image source credit]

LG has released one of, if not the cheapest “3G for All” phone. This is supposedly the mass market booster for 3G phones in the worldwide market. The phone retails for about $100.00.

The phone comes with two cameras, a 1.3MP camera behind and a 640 x 480 camera in front for video calls. The phone’s real estate is one of its main attractions, apart from the 3G features. It is tight, robust and boasts huge buttons.

Other features include the following:

• MP3 and video recording
• Full Internet Browsing via WCDMA (384kbps)
• MMS / Email
• WAP 2.0 / JAVA 2.0
• microSD expansion
• Bluetooth and USB connectivity

For what it is, the KU250 is a handy phone for a cheap 3G solution. It offers nothing really spectacular with regards to its feature set, but the $100 price cannot be ignored. It is a bit of a turn off though that the device includes memory expansion — but has no bundled card in its default package.

I would like to say that this phone may make for a cheaper 3G modem alternative which you can pair easily with your computer for wireless surfing.

[photo credit]

The VX9400 from LG boasts a screen that can be tilted horizontally to maximize its built in mobile TV and Web browsing capabilities. The phone comes with a 1.3MP camera and video recording capabilities, Bluetooth, microSD memory and best of all, ultra fast EV-DO network supported surf speed.

The HSDPA equipped phone from LG is set to be launched within the next few weeks worldwide, with Australia and Singapore being first. The Shine is LG’s “lessons learned” phone from the Chocolate, enhancing most of the good stuff into a sleek device with next generation features like HSDPA support.

Here is a review of the LG Shine from CNET.

Here is another more comprehensive review.