LG Arena KM900 review

Rating: 3.5

The LG Arena KM900 is a multimedia handset with a good looking user interface, great screen, Dolby Mobile for good sound output and plenty of other bells and whistles. LG has a host of innovative designs and its ever expanding handset range has to be one of the most compelling around. We took the LG Arena KM900 for a trial spin, see how we got on with our hands-on review…

The LG Arena KM900 has a 3-inch 480 x 800 resolution touchscreen that looks superb and the finger sweeping control that moves you through an array of home screens is smooth and responsive. The slightest vibration confirms that you’ve made contact.

LG’s much talked about ‘3D’ user interface makes its first appearance in the Arena. It boils down to things like presenting four home screens in a cube arrangement. A sweep gets you between application shortcuts, multimedia, contacts and widgets. Smooth and stylish, yes. Sock-knocking-off innovative, er, no.

But there are some gems like the floating image gallery.  With the handset swivelled round longways the accelerometer twists the screen and photo thumbnails sit in relatively large in a carousel you can flick through.

There is Wi-Fi, HSDPA to 7.2Mbps, and GPS. A 3.5mm headset connector accommodates your favourite earphones, or you can send tunes to a radio via the FM transmitter. The camera shoots at 5 megapixels and among its goodies are the ability to geotag your photos. A fancy on-screen dial for getting at settings emulates the hardware dial on a real camera. There is 8GB of on board memory expandable via SDHC compatible microSD card slot and the phone plays DivX and Xvid files.

For all that the Arena is small measuring just 105.9×55.3×11.95mm. It feels comfortable in the hand and it is light too. And that headset slot is on the top edge of the casing for excellent pocket ergonomics.

Verdict
The  LG Arena KM900 is fast and delivers reliable responses to fingertaps. It’s a nice, light phone that we found a genuine pleasure to use. Just don’t get too excited about the novelties of the 3D user interface which is good but not awesome.

Best features
‘3D’ user interface
Good camera
DivX and Xvid playback

Not so good
Screen is easily smudged
Feels slightly lightweight
MicroSD card slot under battery cover

Closest rivals

BlackBerry Storm
BlackBerry’s first tickler serves up a unique clickable touchscreen alongside its renowned easy to use push email service and access to its new app and software download store.

HTC Touch Diamond
This fellow HTC Touch phone shows Windows Mobile devices don’t have to be boring and business-centric with a slinky minimalist design and a barrage of multimedia features.

T-Mobile G1
OK, it doesn’t have the stylish looks of the Touch 3G but this Google inspired touch phone is so easy to use with a customisable open source Android OS and a full QWERTY keyboard.