Viewty is the camera phone from LG Electronics . When the South Korean firm announced this terminal half a year ago , its characteristics seemed to place it halfway between the complete and powerful Nokia N95 and the seductive iPhone . It has in common with the Nokia the powerful resolution of the camera (5 megapixels) . With the Apple terminal , the touch screen and the absence of a conventional keyboard .

After testing an LG Viewty for several days, the first thing we discovered is that the performance of the screen is far from what the iPhone offers (ease of use, speed of response, seduction at first and second sight, etc.) . The LG screen is more limited . Hence, the tactile is not as important a sign of distinction as its equipment. Actually, it is distinguished as a complete photographic phone , with a series of pros and cons that we tell you in this analysis.

Compact camera look

In appearance, the Viewty mimics the design and shapes of a slim, compact still camera . A camera that weighs only 112 grams and measuring 103.4 x 54.4 x 14.8 millimeters . On one side we have the three-inch touch screen , which will be used to display and control the menus. On the other hand, the lens of the camera is surrounded by a wheel that we can turn manually , as happens in many cameras, and with which we will perform a series of functions that we will detail later.

Tactile but with support controls

The screen surface responds with a slight vibration each time we press an icon with our finger, as was the case with the Giorgio Armani-Samsung . However, the sensitivity is somewhat reduced in comparison. You have to press well and that raises some concern about the possible deterioration that the screen may suffer in the medium term. All in all, the three inches in size offer enough room for maneuver to navigate through the menus at the touch of a finger, as long as we press accurately.

A good point is that when writing text , we have the option to deploy a QWERTY keyboard on the screen, as in the iPhone , instead of the nine keys with three letters per button offered by the terminal fashion of Samsung . In some applications, such as photo and video editing, it will be necessary to use the stylus that comes with the terminal, which we will use momentarily as if it were a PDA .

Below the screen are the usual keys for hanging up, off hook and calling . On one side, there is a control with three positions indicating three different modes: camera, video camera and gallery . Once the option has been chosen, it starts when we press a button that will also act as the camera's shutter . Between the two, a smaller button has the mission of locking and unlocking the screen and activating the image stabilizer when we take a photo.

The last external control of this LG Viewty is the aforementioned lens wheel , which performs a different function depending on what we are doing with the terminal. If we are using the camera, we control the zoom ; if we are in the music and video player, it allows us to raise and lower the volume ; In the rest of the applications, we control the scroll to move in pages and menus. We can do all this on the same screen, the wheel is a support control that provides a bit of comfort.

A mobile with a good image

The camera of the LG Viewty not only provides excellent resolution of 5 megapixels , but also opt for a lens of a certain quality , manufactured by Schneider Kreuznach . It is not a Carl Zeiss optics as it happens with the Nokia N95 , and in any case there is still no mobile that can match a good camera in this regard. But it takes a leap over the vast majority of phones , whose cameras leave much to be desired when it comes to capturing shapes and colors.

Another key point that distances it from the compact camera is that it does not have an optical zoom. What we do find is a xenon flash and an image stabilizer that is quite effective in preventing shake and blur in the final photo. These equipment options are increasingly common in high-end phones. But what the camera of this LG Viewty stands out is in the configuration options , which allow it to adapt to lighting conditions as we have not seen so far on a mobile.

It includes some curious options such as the panorama shooting mode . It consists of taking three different photos that the phone merges to expand the lateral margins of the image. After taking the first snapshot, the right part of it appears overprinted when we are going to take the second, and the same happens in the third. These semi-transparent images will serve as a guide to mount the panorama . And the truth is that the phone manages to merge them with surprising precision .

As a video camera the terminal is limited, but include recording at 120 frames per second , which allows us effect "slow motion" quite achieved when playing. The LG Viewty is also a mobile with good autonomy , able to survive for several days away from the charger, even if we use the camera, music player and video connection and Bluetooth with some regularity.

Nor should we forget that we are facing a 3G phone , with video call. A mobile that, for those who can pay the prices of mobile Internet, has access through HSDPA networks , which in practice allow us to surf at a speed of 2 megabytes .

In short, an interesting photographic mobile. Of course, it needs microSD memory cards to offer a decent storage capacity, and it only has a connection port for the charger, the USB of the computer or an optional cable that allows us to watch videos and photos on the TV. It also does not have a minijack input for headphones, since it is not intended as a musical mobile.

Who wants an LG Viewty KU990?

Viewty is a high-end mobile that, both for its features and its price ( 530 euros free ) is aimed at demanding users who are looking for a terminal with a touch screen and a level camera . On the other hand, the HSDPA Internet connection can appeal to a limited group of executives and professionals who travel a lot and need to regularly check e-mail or consult a website. Of course, being very careful with the economic cost of this type of connection .

Strengths

This LG is not a camera phone. But it is a mobile that, in photography, is close to the benefits offered by compact cameras . Is your sign of distinction, we can add other strengths such as battery life and the ability to file record directly onto the memory card . You just have to connect the phone to the computer with the USB cable and do not install any special software , other than the necessary drivers that are automatically downloaded from the Internet.

It can improve

We have already said that the screen has less sensitivity than we would like . But the tactile limitations lose importance before the most notable failure of this LG Viewty : the slowness with which many applications work . Sometimes it happens like the typical computer that has a somewhat "broken" processor or that is short of RAM . User patience is exhausted especially when we have to do something with a file saved on the memory card .

Hopefully LG will solve this for future models, as it is an important blemish within a fairly complete terminal . As for the camera, about which we have already told you its virtues, we would also ask for a couple of improvements . First of all, a lens protector , which never hurts. And lastly, optical zoom (that is, a real zoom instead of a “digital magnifying glass”) . The latter is a feature that some terminals are beginning to incorporate. Among them, the Samsung G800 , which will be the next mobile that we will test and analyze in this blog.

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