LG is carving itself something a burgeoning rep as a conniseuer of style. This newfound confidence has stemmed from its fashion conscious Black Label series that born the delectable Chocolate phone and hi-grade metallic maven, the Shine.
But while these mobiles beguiled us with panache and design flair, their feature line-ups were pretty flaccid. So, this is where the third member of the Black Label dynasty, the seductively named Secret, goes all out to buck the trend.
Not only does this slimline slider pull out all the stops when its comes to design and production values, but its makes its fellow Black Labeller’s feature rap sheets look positively Jurassic. The Secret comes armed with quick-draw HSDPA download speeds, a 5-megapixel snapper and video-capture capabilities that will make the Nokia N95 blush.
Handle the Secret and you instantly appreciate the build quality. LG has expertly married hard-wearing carbon fibre rear paneling with metallic and pseudo leather highlights for a solidly constructed and achingly slender chassis. The slider action is also springy and assured, proving LG’s continuing commitment to the slightest details.
But it’s a crying shame that LG couldn’t take more care over the Secret’s operational duties.
The Korean outfit has combined the mechanised and touch sensitive worlds with mixed success. There’s absolutely no beef with the spacious physical keypad – it’s a joy to thumb. The Secret comes a cropper on the front touch sensitive joypad and just like the Chocolate its response times can be, on occasion, frustratingly skittish.
But the Secret’s touch talents don’t stop there. At the push of a side button the sharp QVGA-quality screen turns ticklish to access selected multimedia features. You can then use the tempered scratch resistant glass screen to tap your way around the photo gallery, accelerometer-driven games, music player, document viewer and FM radio. But yet again it proved occasionally frigid to our pokes and jabs.
Having been bowled over with the LG Viewty’s camera and video prowess we’re chuffed to see the majority of its features pop up in the Secret. Although perhaps lagging behind the Sony Ericsson K850i and Nokia N95 in picture sharpness, the auto-focus equipped five-megapixel camera is still an accomplished shooter, sporting cool photos mods and producing snaps with rich colour.
However, video is where the Secret reigns supreme, capturing footage in Smooth FM VGA resolution at 30fps while also extending its talents to shoot moving images in judderific slow-mo at 120fps or 6x speeded up Benny Hill-esque vids at 5fps. The Viewty’s ability to playback DivX video has also amazingly rubbed off on the Secret.
Verdict
Overlook its sometimes temperamental touch performance and the LG Secret is an elegantly designed slider, packed to the gills with some leading camera and video smarts.
Best features
Stunning design and build quality
Accomplished five-megapixel camera
An array of video recording skillsw
Fast HSDPA download speeds
Not so good
Lack of Xenon flash
Occasionally erratic touch UI
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