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LG Shine KE970 Review

Richard Baguley Published on April 25, 2007 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

The LG Shine KE970 is all about luxury. As part of LG’s premium Black Label line, this new phone is a GSM model designed for those who value style. Unfortunately, it proves to be an example of style over substance; the KE790 was annoying to use, had weak audio performance and a camera that captured lackluster still images and appallingly bad video playback. Even the signature feature of the mirrored front proved to be an Achilles heel; in even moderate daylight, the reflected sunlight made the screen almost impossible to see. The KE790 is not currently carried by any US carrier; our review model was supplied by Dynamism, who sell the imported phone for $450.

[page title="Tour & Design"]

Front Closed
The major feature of the front of the LG Shine KE 970 is the mirrored screen. As you can see in the photo below, the front face of the case is highly reflective, so the phone can double as a pocket mirror. Behind this reflective layer is the 2.2-inch, 240 by 320 resolution screen.

Front Open


Left
There are no major features on the left of the KE970, although you can see the seams; one for where the front of the phone slides up to reveal the keypad, and the other for the metal plate that covers the back of the phone.

Top

There are no features on the bottom of the KE970; there are no sockets for docks.

Right


Back

On the back of the KE970 is the camera lens. Next to this is a small round reflective surface (used for self portraits) and the small LED flash.

 Battery Out
Removing the back cover of the KE970 reveals the battery, a rather thin 800MAh model. Next to this is the SIM socket, and below this is the slot for the MiniSD card. This means that you do have to remove the back cover to swap out the MiniSD card, but you don’t have to turn off the phone when doing this. This is something of a pain, though, but at least you aren’t likely to loose the rather small MicroSD card; there’s no way it is going to fall out by accident if it is under the cover.

In the Box (5.0)

The KE970 comes with the following items out of the box:
- The phone
 - A remote control for music, which also contains a microphone for headset use
- A pair of in-ear headphones with a 3.5-mm plug that plugs into the remote control
- Manual
- Software CD
- USB cable
- Cleaning cloth
- Screen cleaner dongle

Handling (4.5)
The LG Shine KE970 fits comfortably into the hand, but the handling is far from perfect. For one thing, the only way to slide the screen up to get to the keypad is to use your thumb, and this leaves big thumbprints, CSI-style on the shiny surface of the front of the phone. The buttons are also a little awkwardly placed, particularly the volume buttons. You can just about reach these with the thumb if you are in a call, but it’s awkward and you could end up dropping the phone. We would have preferred to see them further up towards the top of the phone where they would be easier to reach.

Portability (8.0)
The KE970 is a very portable phone: at just under 5 ounces and just 0.54 inches thick, it will fit into a small pocket or bag easily.

Aesthetics (9.0)
There’s no doubt that the KE790 is a stylish phone; it is small, sleek and shiny.

Durability (7.0)
It’s hard to draw too many conclusions about the durability of the KE790; the slider mechanism feels robust, but we don’t know how it would stand up to heavy use. The case also feels tough, but we are concerned about the screen getting scratched or otherwise damaged. The plate that covers the back fits snugly, but we are concerned about how the seams would stand up to the constant assault of dust, dirt, moisture and general unpleasantness that phones have to endure; some of them feel a little loose and could let the nasties into the sensitive electronics inside.

[page title="Audio Quality"]

Having the world’s coolest looking handset is no use if the sound quality makes you sound like a chipmunk when you call someone to tell them about it. To examine this aspect of a cell phone’s performance, we do extensive testing on the sound quality of the cell phones we review using a combination of software and hardware: the software is a professional audio analysis package called SoundCheck (from Listen, inc) and the hardware is a Head and Torso Simulator (H.A.T.S) from Brüel & Kjær. Both of these products are used by many of the cell phone manufacturers themselves to test their products. For more on how we test, see here. We test the phones in use as a handset (held to the ear), and we’ll be adding more tests soon to examine the performance of the speakerphone and the headset. For more details on our testing procedure, see here.

Sound Receive Frequency Response (7.37)
The KE790 had a rather curious frequency response for the sound it received; the curve (shown by the blue line in this graph) is mostly within the limits that the standard we use calls for (indicated by the red lines), but it does wander outside at some points. The frequency response for the lower frequencies (on the left side of the graph, where the blue line drops below the red) is somewhat muted, while the higher frequencies around 4000Khz are very high. This isn’t necessarily a huge problem (the standard we use looks for a higher response at these higher frequencies), but the KE790 takes this a little too far; voices will sound overly high-pitched as the higher frequencies overwhelm the lower ones.

Sound Send Frequency Response (5.83)


The frequency response for the sound that the KE790 sends (shown by the blue line on this graph) is also problematic; the standard (indicated by the red lines) calls for a pretty flat response up to 1Khz, but the KE790 is nowhere near this. Instead, it climbs quickly, peaking at just over 1Khz then dropping off rather too quickly. What this means is that your voice will sound overly bassy and won’t have much of the high frequencies.

Handset Side Tone (6.62)

Side tone is how cell phones let you hear your own voice; you can’t hear yourself speak because the cell phone is blocking your ear, so what they do is to play back some of your own voice so you don’t speak too loudly and annoy those around you. The standard we use calls for a phone to have a side tone of around -18 decibels, and the KE790 wasn’t too far off from this: we measured the side tone at -21.38 decibels. That’s a little low; the consequence might be that you talk a little louder than you need to. But it’s only off by a very small amount; you aren’t likely to find yourself yelling into this phone (unless you really feel like it).

[page title="Imaging"]

The LG Shine KE970 comes with a built-in 2 megapixel camera, with the lens on the back side of the camera body. But it’s nothing to write home about; the images lack resolution, have weak color and get rather noisy when the light level falls. It’s better than not having a camera at all, but the KE970’s camera isn’t going to win any prizes for technical excellence.

Resolution (2.09)


Color (3.41)
To test the quality of the colors captured by cell phone cameras, we again use Imatest, with images of an industry standard Gretag Macbeth color chart being the subject this time. This chart has 16 color chips on it that are precisely matched, so the Imatest software can judge exactly how well the camera captures and processes these images. Imatest produces this chart that shows the original colors in the small vertical rectangle, the adjusted colors in the rectangle in the center of each of the color chips, and the original captures colors in the outer square. Further analysis is provided by the color analysis chart that Imatest produces, which is shown below.
On this chart, the circles represent the captured colors and the squares indicate where the images should ideally fall on this color gamut chart. The longer the lines between the circle and the square, the more inaccurate the colors are. As you can see from the length of the lines on the chart, most of the colors are some way off. All of the colors are some way off the ideal, but the yellows are particularly far from ideal, with some yellows closer to white than their true colors. This result is significantly worse than other cameras in simialry sized cell phones: the T-Mobile Dash camera, for instance, had some issues, but colors were generally much more accurate than this.

Noise (1.32)
We measure noise by taking images at a variety of light levels, from 3000 lux (roughly equivalent to a birth, sunny day) to 60 lux (about what you’d get in darkened room with a single light bulb). We then use Imatest to analyze the amount of noise in each image, and produce a score based on the amount of noise. The LG Shine KE970 had a pretty average score in this test; the images quickly succumbed to noise as the light level fell. But we typically expect this; cell phone cameras have small image sensors that are more prone to noise than the larger ones in most digital cameras, and the images from the KE970 are no more prone to noise than the images we’ve seen from other cell phone cameras.

Live Preview (7.0)

The KE970 uses the entire resolution of the screen for previewing the images before they are captured, and this preview is nice and detailed. However, it is rather jerky; if you pan the camera, it quickly breaks down into a blurry mess until the camera is still again. There are a few icons around the edge of the screen that present you with details of the camera settings, such as the autofocus settings, the resolution, how full the memory or storage card is and how much battery power is left.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (2.82)
The KE970 took a disappointing 7.1 seconds to go from the standby state (with the cover closed) to taking a photograph. This is way too long, and part of this is the fact that you have to go into the on-screen menu to start the camera off; you can’t just press the shutter button. This adds a couple of seconds to the process (even with practice), which could mean missing a great candid shot.

Shot to Shot Time (6.9)
The KE790 can take either single shots, a group of three or six shots from every pres of the shutter. In the latter case, it took six shots in 2.6 seconds, a rate of 2.3 frames per second. That’s pretty good for a cell phone camera, but it is worth noting that theis reduces the maximum size of the captured images to 640 by 480 pixels. A burst of 6 images in just over 2 seconds may not be enough to capture a full football pay, but it’s a lot better than most we’ve seen, such as the Krazr K1m, which took an appalling 21.8 seconds to capture 5 images.

Shutter to Shot Time (2.5)
The KE970 wasn’t so speedy when it comes to taking individual shots, though; we measured the time between pressing the shutter and the cell phone capturing the image at a rather tardy 0.8 seconds. Much of this delay seems to be the fault of the auto focus, which seems to take about half a second to focus in. This might seem to contradict the shot to shot time result above, but the KE970 doesn’t focus between shots. So, it focuses once, then takes 6 images at the same focus point.

Interface (5.5)
The camera on the KE970 has a variety of options, so it’s important that the user can easily control these options. It only partly succeeds in this: although the tabbed interface of the options menu doesn’t present you with too many choices, you have to use the extremely small buttons on either side of the scroll wheel to choose the option you want, which is a real pain. This process is also not well described in the manual.

Photo Album Software Internal (4.0)
The internal photo album of the KE 970 is extremely basic; you can scroll through thumbnails of the images and videos, show individual images and se a basic slideshow of the images. And that’s about it; the only other options are to set the image as the menu wallpaper, move or copy the image and print via Bluetooth. There are no options for editing images or creating more complex slideshows.

Manual Control (2.0)
Although the KE970 does provide a good selection of options for the camera, there are no true manual controls; you can’t set the shutter or aperture speed directly. The closest thing to a manual control is the presets for the white balance.

Zoom (1.0)
A 2x digital zoom is the only zoom present, and this should only be used in an emergency; it works by enlarging the center of the image, and has a serious adverse effect on the image qualiy. Given the thin profile of the KE970, the lack of an optical zoom isn’t surprising; only thicker cell phones like the Nokia N95 have optical zooms built in.

Focus (5.0)
The KE970 is unusual in having an auto focus lens: most cell phone cameras rely on a fixed focus lens. This is a good thing in some ways (for one, it provides a macro mode for shooting close ups), but not in others; as we noted above, the autofocus mechanism takes about half a second to focus in (a process that is shown by a red rectangle on the screen), which could lead to lost shots. We were not able to determine the full range of the auto focus, but it was able to focus down to a couple of centimeters away from the lens. We did notice, though, that the KE970 would show that it was in focus (with the green rectangle on the scree) even if an object was too close to focus.

Flash (3.0)
The KE970 uses an LED, not a real flash. If you put the camera into flash mode, this rather bright LED is constantly illuminated, which means that it’s going to be more irritating than useful; you’ll get photos of people squinting at the camera and complaining about how you are blinding them rather than them smiling.

Metering (4.0)
The KE970 is also unusual in offering a couple of metering modes; a centered and combined (overall average) mode. Most cell phone cameras only offer a average mode, so this could be useful if you are trying to photograph someone against the sun.

White Balance (5.0)
As well as the auto white balance mode, 5 presets are available: night mode, florescent, cloudy, incandescent and daylight.

Image Handling (0.0)
For a cell phone with this selection of camera features, the KE790 is very weak when it comes to processing the images; there is no way to resize, crop or otherwise edit the images. LG obviously decided that, if users wanted to edit images, they would do so on a PC or Mac, but it is a pity that there aren’t even basic editing features on offer.

Video

Overall Video Score (2.0)
Don’t expect to throw out your camcorder if you buy a KE970; the video it captures is low in resolution, has jerky motion and has poor color.

Video Resolution (0.58)
The highest resolution that the KE970 can capture video at is 176 by 144, so it’s no surprise that this video is very low in resolution; Imatest produced a lw/ph rating of just 94.5 horizontal and 64.3 vertical. This is low even by the poor standards of cell phone video; other cheaper cell phones can capture much better looking video at higher resolutions and with much more detail.

Video Compression (2.0)
The KE970 has three quality settings (and, believe it or not, our test video was captured at the highest of these), but videos can only be saved in 3GP format; there’s no support for MPEG-4 video.

Interface (7.0)
The camcorder interface of the KE970 looks much like the camera interface, using the full screen for the live preview, with icons around the edge. However, this means that the live preview is of a higher resolution than the captured video, and it has the same problem with the preview becoming a blurry mess when the cell phone is panned. But perhaps that’s just as well, because the captured video is a blurry mess too.

Manual Control (2.0)
The only hint of a manual control here is the white balance mode; all of the other settings are automatic only.

Zoom (1.0)
The same 2x digital zoom that is found on the still imaging side can be used in the video mode, both when previewing and when shooting video.

Editing (0.0)
No options are included for editing videos; the only way to edit the results is to delete them and shoot again.

Modes (2.0) The KE970 has only two video modes; one for shooting MMS video suitable for sending as an MMS message, and one for general video shooting. There are no scene modes or other settings to tweak the way the video is captured


[page title="Making/Receiving Calls"]

Dialing Speed (5.26)
We test the dialing speed by dialing 5 sample numbers and averaging how long it takes. The KE970 had a pretty average score in this test; we found that numbers took an average of 3.8 seconds to dial. The keypad is a good size, but it is a little difficult to navigate by touch; the lack of any raised edges or dimples on the buttons mean that you can’t easily find the buttons with just your fingertips. This means that we did hit the wrong keys every now and then. In particular, we found ourselves sometimes hitting the hang up key instead of 3, which cancels the list of numbers you’ve just entered. That’s kind of annoying if you’ve just entered a long phone number and hit the wrong button and cancel the whole thing by accident.

Talk and End Buttons (5.5)
As mentioned above, the talk and end buttons are located just above the keypad, with no bumps or ridges between them. This makes them too easy to hit by accident.

Call Management (8.0)
The KE970 maintains several call histories, including missed calls, dialed calls and received calls. And it’s easy to take a number from either list and add it as a contact; you just go to the number on the list, hit the options soft button and select save as new contact from the menu. This also allows you to send a text message: a useful trick if someone calls you in the cinema and you want to send them a message without calling them and upsetting the person next to you. The KE970 also maintains a running tab on the length of calls, the cost of calls (determined by a user-defined tariff) and the amount of data that you’ve sent. These are useful if you are on a pre-paid plan and your network doesn’t provide an easy way to check the credit you have left.

Startup to Call (3.23)
In this test, we measure how long it takes to make a call from the phone being turned off; such as if you’ve gone on a trip and turned the phone off to save battery power, but suddenly realize that you left the bathtub running and need to call a neighbor. The KE970 took 31 seconds to go from being completely off to hitting the dial button (we don’t measure how long the call takes to connect, as this depends on the network). That’s pretty speedy, especially compared to Windows Mobile phones which usually take at least a minute to start up.

Ring Volume (8.53)
Using a professional SPL meter, we measured the loudest of the built-in ringtones at an ear-splitting 85.3 decibels. That’s loud enough to be heard inside a coat pocket or bag. Combine that with a unique ringtone and you’ll definitely know when you have an incoming call.

Ringtone Customizability (6.0)
The KE970 allows you to set any MP3 file on the phone as a ringtone, so you can easily make your own musical ringtones. You can’t however, edit the ringtones on the phone itself, so you need to create your own ringtones on a PC or Mac.

Non Audio Alerts (2.0)
The KE970 has a vibrate only profile, but it’s nothing to get excited about; the vibrate isn’t particularly dynamic, and it could be easily missed if it was in a bag.

[page title="Messaging"]

Supported Email Services (3.0)
The KE970 has pretty basic email support: you can send and retrieve messages from email services that use POP3 and IMAP server, but there is no built-in support for services such as AOL or Yahoo! mail. To be fair, most of these services do offer ways to retrieve mail through a POP3 server, but we don’t award points for this; only if the phone supports the service directly.

Push Email (0.0)
No support is offered for push email services such as Exchange or BlackBerry email.

Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
Up to 5 email accounts can be configured on the KE970, but they come with limitations; the device can only hold a maximum of 200 email messages. If you have a lot of accounts or send & receive a lot of mail, this could prove to be a problem.

HTML and Attachments (5.5)
The rather basic email client in the KE970 did work with basic HTML in emails, but it had some issues with attachments; the maximum size of attached file it can download is 300kb, which means it won’t work with larger documents such as spreadsheets, etc. The email client itself can’t view the attachments, but the KE970 does include software that can view (but not edit) Excel, Word, Powerpoint and PDF files. Because of the limitations we only awarded half points.

Email Customizations (0.0)
There is no customization of the email program available: you can’t change the font, the font size or the information that is displayed on the menu.

Time to a New Message (6.45)
Starting from the home screen, it took us just 3.1 seconds to get to the screen where we could start typing a new email message. That’s pretty quick; the new message screen is only a couple of steps away in the menu.

Email Auto Complete on Address (0.0)
The KE970 does not automplete email addresses; instead, you have to type the full address, or go in through the contact application and select your recipients there.

Email Usability (4.0)
The email features of the KE970 are basic, to put it mildly. It can only hold a limited number of emails, and writing emails is a tortuous process. This isn’t a phone that you would want to do any serious emailing on; it’ suitable for casual use only.

Supported IM Services (0.0)
No instant messaging services are supported out of the box on the KE970, and give the proprietary nature of the operating system it runs, we wouldn’t expect to see any downloadable clients. As far as the KE970 goes, instant messaging doesn’t exist.

MMS Support (7.0)
MMS support is integrated into the camera and camcorder applications; it is pretty easy to shoot a photo or video and then send it as an MMS message from within the application itself.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
The KE970 failed out smiley interpretation test; all of the smilies that we sent in text and email messages were treated as test, not as the cute little icons of the electronic age that they are.

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (6.0)
Sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages is a pretty simple process, but frequent users of these servies may find the KE970 a bit confining. There is no way to sort messages into threads, so it’s easy to get confused if you’re sending lots of messages, which could lead to you sending a SWALK to the wrong SO. (Translation; a sealed with a loving kiss to the wrong significant other).

Time to a New SMS Message (3.23)
Because the same messaging application handles both email and SMS messages, it took the same 3.1 seconds to start a new SMS message as it did to start an email message.

[page title="Organizer"]

Synchronization Ease of Use (2.0)
The synchronization software that comes with the KE790 is very basic. So basic that it’s pretty much useless, as it can’t import contacts or calendar items from any common applications. It can only import from CSV (comma separated value) or tab delimited files, so the best you can do is to export your contacts from your PC contact program, and then hope that they import correctly into the KE790.

Synchronization Miscellaneous (5.0)
The Synchronization program can work over USB, Bluetooth or old skool serial port connections. It does not, however, support connections over TCP/IP over the Internet itself.

Synchronization Compatibility (0.0)
As mentioned above, the synchronization program doe not support any common programs directly. Instead, it relies on you exporting the information from your program in one of the text formats that it can understand.

Alerts (6.0)
There is no separate application for setting reminders or alerts: all of these have to be done through the calendar or the alarm clock. Any ring tone or MP3 file cam be used as an alert, so you can use your own music to remind you of upcoming appointments. It is also possible to set an alert to vibrate, but still leave the normal phone ringers turned on.

Over the Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The KE970 has no over the air synchronization features; you have to use the cable or a Bluetooth connection.

Personal information Management Cross Connections (0.0)
There are no cross connections between the applications on the KE790; there is no way to connect a contact with an appointment, for instance, or to link a phone number to a task.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (3.5)
Adding our test contacts to the contacts application of the KE970 took an average of 28.5 seconds. That’s a little bit longer than most, and that’s because of the rather small keypad and the awkwardness of the scroll wheel which you use to move between fields.

Looking/Sorting/Search (4.0)
The easiest way to search for a contact is to (surprisingly enough) use the search feature of the contacts application. With this, you start typing the name of the contact you’re after, and it winnows down the list. You can then scroll down the list to the contact you want, and hit the call button to start dialing. You can also send a text or email message by selecting new message from the options menu. However, because there are no fields for job titles or company names in the contacts application, you can’t search on a company or job name. So, you’d better have a good memory for names; “thingy from that technology, inc” isn’t going to work.

Fields (1.0)
Only a very limited selection of fields are on offer for contacts on the KE970; name, mobile number, home number, office number, fax, email, group, ringtone, photo and memo. There are no fields for company name of job title, but these can be put into the memo field. However, this means (as we noted earlier) that you can’t search on a company or job title.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (0.0)
No voice dialing capabilities are present on the KE970; you have to do it the old fashioned way when you want to call someone.

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (8.0)
We test the calendar features of phones by creating a series of appointments, ranging from a simple one (for lunch tomorrow) to a complex one (a weekly meeting that repeats and has a specific list of attendees). The KE970 was a partial success at this; we were able to create a simeple appointment in an average of 12.5 seconds. We could not create some of our more complex test appointments though, as there was no option to link contacts to an appointment, or to create a preliminary appointment. But the calendar could create repeating appointments (such as a weekly meeting or daily conference call).

Calendar Views (4.0)
Only two views are possible on the KE970; a monthly and a daily view. The monthly view shows the entire month, with the current day highlighted and any days with appointments indicated with a small red triangle next to the date. The daily view is a simple list of the appointments on the day.

Fields (4.0)
Appointments in the calendar have only a small number of fields connected to them; they have a start and end time (or they can be all day appointments), the alarm type (on time or any one of a number of options for alarms before the set time), the subject, how they repeat and the expiration date.

Real World Testing (4.0)
The calendar app on the KE970 has the basics, but it is lacking the features that business users will need. There is no way to link people to appointments, and no way to create categories for appointments. There is a simple memo field, but this won’t be sufficient to help the busy keep track of their time.

ToDo/Tasks

Adding ToDo/Task (0.0)
There is no to-do/task manager on the KE970. If you need to keep track of your tasks, the only option is to put them into the calendar as appointments. So, the KE970 will score 0 points in this cateogory.

ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (0.0)
There is no to-do/task manager on the KE970.

Fields (0.0)
There is no to-do/task manager on the KE970.

Real World Testing (0.0)
There is no to-do/task manager on the KE970.

Notes

Adding Notes (3.6)
A simple memo application is the closest the KE970 comes to a notes application. This basic application allows you to create simple notes, but that’s it; notes cannot be categorized, sorted or otherwise manipulated. We found that creating a simple note took an average of 14 seconds; somewhat slower than some other phones. And the KE970 didn’t have an option to attach a due date to a note; notes are saved with a date, but that’s just the creation date.

Note Interface (2.0)
The notes interface is simplistic; you can’t sort or filter notes; they are presented purley in the order of their creation date.

Note Formatting (0.0)
There are no options to control the formatting of notes; you can’t choose a font, change the font size or otherwise control the layout of the note.

Voice Memo (7.0)
Voice memos can be recorded using the voice recorder application, which is available under the multimedia menu. This is a very simple application; the only options are the storage location of the memo (internal memory or memory card) or the recording mode (general or MMS, which heavily compresses the audio to attach it to an MMS message). The general mode can record memos of unlimited length, but the MMS mode limits the length of the recording to 30 seconds.

[page title="Multimedia"]

Accessing Music Software (7.4)
Thanks to the dedicated MP3 button the side of the KE970, accessing the music player software took just 2.8 seconds; allw e ahd to do was to slide the phone ope, then pres the button and wait for a second or so while the software started up. This can be even quicker if you use the wired remote that comes with the phone; pressing the play button has the same effect as the MP3 button.

Dedicated Music Controls (16.0)
The MP3 button is the only dedicated music control on the phone itself, but the wired remote includes 7 dedicated buttons; a hold silder, fast forward and rewind, plus a play/pause button, a stop button and a small volume control on the bottom. This is a nice touch; it makes controlling the music a lot easier if the phone is in a bag or coat pocket. The wired remote also has a microphone and a standard 3.5-mm headphone socket, so you can use your normal headphones and still make and receive calls.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (1.0)
While the wired remote is well designed and easy to use, the built-in music socftware is not. It is extremely basic and is a pain to use. For one thing, it can’t play music from the memory card; it only detects music in the music folder of the internal memory of the phone. If you want to play music on a MicroSD card, youhave to go into the My Stuff application, then navigate to the memory card and play the music from there. The MP3 software also does not support any of the common playlist formats, and you can’t create playlists on the phone. All it can do is to play every file in the phone memory in order. About the onlu good thing in there is the prescence of an equalizer, but this is a mixed blessing; it has 10 presets, but no way to create your own. This poor music software seems like a curious thing to us; why did LG build a phone with a decent wired remote, then put MP3 software on there that is practically unusable? About the only feature that we like is that you can use any MP3 file as a ringtone by selecting the “set as ringtone” option from the menu.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
There is no support for any online song downloading service. This is not perhaps surprising, as the KE970 is an unlocked phone, and most of the online music download services are connected to a specific carrier.

Streaming (0.0)
We were unable to get any online music streaming services to work with the KE970; it lacks the carrier specific services some phones have, and the built in web browser was unable to work with the links from several online radio stations that we tried.

Podcast Support (0.0)
No direct support is provided for downloading and playing podcasts. If you want to listen to podcasts on this phone, you’ll have to download them manually and copy them over using the synching application.

Music Sync with PC (4.0)
LG supplies their own synching software with the KE970, but it does not handle music; you have to convert files to the appropriate format yourself. Copying fils to the phone is a question of simply dragging and dropping them into the music folder on the appropriate drive. Unusually, both the memory card and the phone’s internal memory appear as drives on the PC when you connect it via the USB cable.

Music Formats and DRM (0.0)
The KE970 supports music in MP3, AAC and AAC+ format. However, there are limitations here; variable bitrate MP3s are not supported, and the AAC files are limited to 48kbps bitrates. If you’ve encoded your files to anything higher, you’ll have to reconvert them.

Music Interruption (5.0)
The KE970 did a middling job in this test: music was paused when a call came in, but it was not resumed afterwards; we had to hit the play button to get back to our tunes.

Video

Video Software Access (2.67)
The KE970 does not have a specific video application; if you want to watch a video captured by the phone, you have to go into the camcorder application and then into the album. If you want to watch a video you have uploaded, you have to go to the folder that the video file is in and select play. The latter process (which is what we use for our testing) is a lengthy process; we found that it took 7.4 seconds to go from the standby state to the video starting to play, most of which was taken up by navigating through the menus to get to the files.

Video Controls (8.0)
The same controls that are used for audio are used for video – specific buttons are mapped for play/pause, fast forward, rewind. The buttons on the wired remote can also be used, but they are less useful for video than they are for audio.

Video Software & Organization (2.0)
Much like the music software, the video software is very basic. You get the basic controls (play/stop, fast forward, etc) but no way to create playlists or otherwise manage the video. The video itself is presented in a postage stamp sized section of the screen, irrespective of the size of the video. There is no way to switch this to a full screen view or change the orientation to watch in landscape mode; the small screen is all you get.  As far as video organization, quite simply, there isn’t any. The only organization you get is the ability to copy or delete files, which is probably what you’ll be looking to do after you try and watch them on the KE970.

Video Sync with PC (0.0)
LG’s basic synching software does not support converting video for viewing on the KE970. Fortunately, there are several good cheap or free software packages that can do this, but that’s not as good as having one that comes with the device.

Video Formats (3.0)
The only format the KE970 was capable of playing back was 3GP; it refused to play Windows Media, Real or Flash video files. It also refused to play back MPEG 4 video files; although the player showed the existence of the files, it them refused to play them back, claiming the file type was not supported.

Video DRM (0.0)
None of the common video copy protection schemes are supported by the KE970. So, video downloaded from iTunes or other similar services won’t work on this phone.

Video Playback Smoothness 
We use a variety of test files encoded at different bit rates to test video smoothness, but the KE970 had a problem with all of them; even the smallest and lowest bitrate of our test files (which start at 24kbps) was jerky and almost unwatchable.

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The KE970 doesn’t support any of the common video downloading services.

Video Streaming unscored
You’ll probably be able to guess this one, but the KE970 didn’t work with any of the video streaming sites that we tried it with.

[page title="Software"]

OS (2.0)
The operating system (OS) that the KE970 runs is LG’s own.

Home Screen Score (4.0)
The home screen of the KE970 is nothing to write home about; it shows the time, date, battery information and signal strength, but the icons for these are rather small and difficult to distinguish. When you get a text or voicemail message, a box pops up that shows the number of new messages received, but there’s no preview of the messages themselves; you have to click into the messaging application to see them.

Extensibility (3.0)
The KE790 runs LG’s own proprietary OS, which means there aren’t many external applications available for it. It does, however, support the MIDP 2.0 implementation of Java, so you can run Java applications on it if they are written for this version of Java.

Customizability (4.0)
Relatively little customizability is available; you can change the menu wallpaper and choose one of two menu styles, but that’s it. You can’t change the font, the font size or otherwise customize the layout of the menus and screens of the KE970.

OS Responsivness (2.0)
The KE790 is not a responsive phone; we sometimes had to wait half a second or so for it to respond to button presses or for an application to open. The web browser in particular was slow to respond – we often had to wait up to a minute for web pags to appear that took only a few seconds on other mobile devices.

Gaming (2.0)
Two java games are included on the KE970; BubbleSoccer (a knock-off of the popular puzzle game Bubble Bobble) and Fishing Mania, a simple fishing game. Neither is particularly good, and the BubbleSoccer game involves a lot of scrolling to play, which gets frustrating after a while. Other Java games can also be downloaded and installed, but this process is not covered by the manual and is not simple to do.

Browser Features (7.0)
The web browser built into the KE970 is basic, but should suffice for most mobile browsing; it renders most standard HTML web pages, supports Javascript and Java applets. However, it is rather slow; many web pages took minutes to load and display.

Browsing Interface (3.0)
The browser interface is minimal, to put it mildly; all you get is the page and two menus at the bottom that are mapped onto the soft buttons. The scroll control allows you to scroll up and down web pages. But you can’t change the size of the text, switch to landscape mode or use alternative views of the page.

Browser Access (10.0)
It took us just 4 steps to go from the phone in standby to entering a URL; slide th phone open, hit the menu button, hit 1 for the browser, and select 3 to enter a URL. That’s a pretty minimal number of steps that can get you up and running quickly. Entering long URLs on the keypad is another matter, though; especially when accidentally hit the end call button and it clears the entire URL you’ve just typed in.

Calculator (7.0)
The KE970 has a surprisingly good calculator; as well as the basic arithmetic functions, it also supports scientific functions such as Sin, Cosine, radians etc. So, if you ever find yourself in an argument about how to convert radians to degrees down the pub, the KE970 can help.

Alarm (6.0)
The alarm clock application of the KE970 has the basic features most users will need, but it is missing some others. You can easily set an alarm to go off every day, or to go off on certain days (such as Monday-Friday for all you wage slaves), and you can set which ring tone it uses to awaken you. However, you can’t set it to go off on a certain day of the week; to do that, you have to set an appointment in the calendar. The choice of day ranges you can set is also rather odd; as well as Monday to Friday, you can set alarms to go off between Monday and Saturday, Saturday and Wednesday, Saturday and Thursday, or everyday, but there is no option for weekends only or setting your own day pattern.

Document Software (4.0)
The KE790 includes software that can view a range of common file formats, including Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, Powerpoint presentations and and PDf files. These cannot, however, be edited, and the relatively small screen size means that you only get a glimpse of bigger files. Some of the test PDF files we looked at also didn’t come out that well; the viewer allows you to zoom in on the files, but images were blocky and nearly impossible to discern. The document viewing capabilities might be enough for viewing a final draft of a document on the road, but they aren’t enough to do ay serious work.

Other Software (3.0)
There KE970 does have a handful of other small, but useful applications: - The world clock shows the time and date around the world, and you can zoom in on individual continents and cities. - The unit calculator provides and easy way to convert units measurements of currency, size, temperature and speed. International travelers will like this; it makes it easier to work out how much more expensive gas is in Europe, even if it is measured in liters.

[page title="Battery Life"]

Call Time (8.7)
LG claims a battery life of around 2 hours from the small 800MAh battery that comes with the KE970, but we found these claims to be rather pessimistic; in our tests, the battery lasted for an impressive 7 hours 15 minutes. We have found that GSM phones seem to have a longer battery life than CDMA ones, but this is an impressive battery life however you look at it.

Music Playback (4.45)
Playing back our test MP3 file from a MicroSD card, the KE970 kept on playin’ for 6 hours and 11 minutes. For a compact phone, that’s not a bad score; it is longer than the Razr V3m, which ran out of juice after just 4 hours and 23 minutes. But the battery life of the KE970 is nothing to write home about; the battery life is well short of the amazing 25 hours and 34 minutes of the Sprint Sidekick or the impressive

Web Browsing (8.08)
Our web browsing test sets the phone repeatedly loading a web page, simulating how a user would user the phone to browse the web; load a page, read it for a bit, click on a link, etc. the KE970 was able to keep browsing for an impressive 6 hours and 44 minutes. That’s a good time for browsing, and contrarily enough, the slow speed of the EDGE data connection it uses helps here; EDGE connections use less battery power than their faster EVDO or UMTS cousins. 

Idle Time
We don't test the idle time score, but LG claims a standby battery life of 320 hours (around 13 days)

[page title="Connectivity"]

Cellular Bands (6.0)
The KE970 is a GSM phone that supports the GSM-900, GSM-1800 and GSM-1900 bands. That means it’ll work on any US GSM network (such as Cingular or T-Mobile) as well as any international GSM network. It does not support the GSM-850 standard, though, which means that it won’t work in some parts of the US GSM networks that use this frequency. This may be a major issue for many users, as both GSM networks (Cingular and T-Mobile) use GSM-850 a lot in non-urban areas as it provides better range. To see what we mean, look at the T-Mobile coverage map; the KE970 won’t work in the dotted and dashed areas, as they are covered by the GSM-850 part of their network. T-Mobile also shares parts of their network with Cingular, and they use the GSM-850 band a lot as well (although they don’t specify the frequency band they use on their coverage map). The KE970 won’t work or roam onto CDMA networks such as those run by Verizon or Sprint, so it should not be considered if you have an account with these networks and don’t want to move your number to a GSM network.

Data Support Score (3.0)
Data support is rather limited; the Shine only supports the EDGE data standard, which maxes out at around 150Kbps. That’s much slower than the UMTS or EVDO connections that many other phones are offering, and this would make downloading large files or using the KE970 as a tethered modem a slow and frustrating experience.

Bluetooth (8.0)
The KE970 includes a Bluetooth 2.0 radio, and includes support for all of the commonly used profiles. We had no problems pairing the KE970 with Bluetooth headsets or PCs and Macs with Bluetooth radios.

Wi-Fi
There is no Wi-fi on the KE790.

Infrared
No infra-red port is present on the KE790.

[page title="Hardware"]

Keypad

Text Words Per Minute (4.6)
The small keypad of the KE790 doesn’t encourage quick typing; we measured our average speed typing out a 16 word test sentence at a rather pedestrian 41 seconds. This works out at an average words per minute score of 23.4 words per minute. This is somewhat slower than many of the other keypad phones we have tested, and this is due to the smaller size of the keys and the lack of any ridges or bumps to allow you to find your way by touch. Instead, you end up hunting for the keys by sight and pecking at them to make sure you don’t hit the wrong one by accident.

T9 and Auto Complete (5.0)
T9 text entry (where the system tries to predict the word you are entering from key letters you enter) is supported, and, as you would expect with an international phone, this can be switched to any of 20 languages. There is no option for auto completion of words, though.

Two Hand Usability (4.4)
Like most keypad only phones, we didn’t find much difference between using one hand and two; the keypad is simply too small to get much advantage from using both hands. We found that the typing speed of the KE970 with two hands was 22.4 words per minute, a touch slower than one hand.

Keypad Backlighting (6.0)
The keypad and controls are illuminated by a cool blue glow when the cover is opened. This should make it easy to use the KE970 in dark rooms. The brightness of this backlighting is tied in with the screen brightness, which can be set by the user; there is no light sensor. How long the backlight stays on is also controlled by the screen backlighting controls. One interesting thing to note here; if you set the backlight to always on, it seems to automatically reduce the backlighting level to save battery power.

Controls
The KE970 has a rather unusual set of controls; it eschews the common directional pad, replacing it with a scroll wheel and 4 small buttons. This different approach is not that successful; the phone ends up being awkward to use.

D-Pad/Joystick (0.0)
There is no D-pad or joystick on the KE970; all of the functions commonly controlled by this are managed through the scroll wheel.

Touch Screen (0.0)
The Shine does not have a touch screen interface.

Jog Dial (4.0)
The scroll wheel on the KE970 is centrally located, right below the screen on the sliding front panel. This small scroll wheel also doubles as a button; you move through menus by scrolling it then select by pushing it in. However, this really doesn’t work that well; it is far too easy to inadvertently scroll while pushing it in, accidentally selecting the wrong menu option. There are also two small buttons on either side of the scroll wheel that are used to move up and down in some menus (such as the camera and camcorder controls). These are very awkward to use; they are way too small, and it is too easy to inadvertently push in the scroll wheel instead.

Soft Buttons (4.0)
Two illuminated soft buttons are located on either side of the scroll wheel, and the functions these perform are shown on the screen. The left one is usually used to access the options menu, while the right one usually works as a back button. These are well spaced, but they lack much positive feedback; it is hard to tell if you have pressed them in properly.

Volume Control (5.0)
The volume control of the KE970 is in the form of two buttons on the right side of the case. These are rather poorly placed and are hard to reach in a call when you need to knock the volume up or down a notch.

Power and Standby (7.5)
The KE970 automatically switches to standby mode when you slide the cover closed; in this mode, the buttons on the side are disabled, and you have to press the left and right soft keys to activate the phone. This is a good approach; it makes it unlikely that you would accidentally dial, but means that it is easy to open the phone and make a call. To shut the phone down completely, you hold down the end key.

Other Buttons (4.0)
There are a handful of other buttons; an MP3 button on the side of the case starts off the music player software, while the shutter button is used to take photos. This is placed where you would expect to find the shutter button on a compact camera, so you can use the KE970 in a similar way.

Display

Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.0)
The main and only screen of the KE970 is a 240 by 320 screen. That’s some way below the high resolution screens we are seeing some smart phones, but it is more than adequate to show the menus and images.

Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (8.8)
In theory, the higher the pixel density, he more detailed the images it can present and the stonger the color. With the 320 by 240 resolution screen measuring 1.33 by 1.8 inches, we calculated the pixels per inch of the KE970 at 178 pixels per inch. That’s a little higher than most, but it’s not a record: the LG Chocolate had a higher pixel density of 200 per inch.

Screen Physical Size (5.5)
The screen of the KE970 has a diagonal measurement of 2.2 inches; a good size for such a compact phone.

Screen Brightness (3.35)
We measured the screen brightness of the KE970 at a paltry 47 lux; you certainly won’t be using the KE970 screen as a torch. There are 4 settings for the brightness level, but there is no sensor for the automatic adjustment of the backlight depending on the lighting conditions.

Screen Bright Light Performance (1.0)
The performance of the mirrored screen in bright light of the KE970 is, in a word, awful. The reflective coating may look cool, but it also reflects sunlight, which drowns out the image on the screen. This photo shows an example; believe it or not, the phone is turned on. But even with the phone out of direct sunlight, the reflected light still drowns out the screen so the menus are barely visible.

Color Depth (7.0)
The KE970 screen has a color depth of 18 bits, which means it can display up to 262k colors. That’s pretty standard for cell phones, and is adequate for menus and viewing images. And out of daylight, the colors look reasonably accurate; just don’t try and show off your photos in daylight; because of the mirrored screen, people won’t be able to see them.

Ports & Storage

Power & Data Ports (3.0)
A single port on the left side of the KE970 body provides both power and data connections to the phone. This is a proprietary port, so if you loose the supplied power adapter or USB cable, you’ve got a problem. However, the phone can be charged through the USB connection, so you can get away with just taking the USB cable with you on a trip if you have a laptop.

Headphone & Jack Compatibility (8.0)
There is no headphone socket on the body of the phone itself, but the KE970 does come with a wired remote that includes a 3.5-mm headphone socket. It also supports Bluetooth headphones that use the A2DP profile.

Internal Storage (1.0)
40Mb of RAM is built into the KE970, which can be ued for storing files. That’s a little less thant wehat we have seen on other phones, but it’s enough to store a few images and a few songs. And memory cards are so cheap these days that adding more storage capacity for music is not an issue.

Expansion Slot & Format (6.0)
More storage space can be added through the MicroSD card slot. Capacities of up to 2GB are currently available.

[page title="Other Features"]

Tethered Modem (7.0)
The KE790 can act as a tethered modem via the USB cable; a drivers for Windows is included on the software CD, and MacOS X comes with support for the phone built in. We had no problems connecting the KE970 and using it to connect to the internet on both OSes, either as a USB modem or as a Bluetooth modem. However, it was not particularly fast; support for EDGE data connections only meant that the speed was limited to around 100Kbps at most.

[page title="Value & Comparisons"]

Value (2.0)
At $450, the KE970 is an expensive phone. That’s the price that you pay for buying an unlocked phone; removing the carrier subsidy reveals the real cost of the phone. But it does provide flexibility; you can change to another network by simply swapping out the SIM card. Some users may find this worth the extra. Whether this is worth the extra is up to you, but most users will find the cost of the too high.

Comparisons
Motorola Razr V3m - The Razr has a similar look to the KE970 - both feature a sleek, thin design. Both phones are a similar size (at just .5 inches thick and around 3.9 inches high), but many users may be more comfortable with the flip form factor of the Razr. However, the KE970 has a more innovative design, and the fact that it is newer, more unusual and can double as a mirror may make it the phone of choice for the fashion conscious.

LG Chocolate - LG’s other model in the candybar form factor is the older Chocolate. At first glance, the two look pretty similar; they are about the same height and width. But the KE970 is thinner (0.55 inches against the 0.72 of the Chocolate), and the screen on the KE970 is larger. But the Chocolate is entering the phase of its lifespan where it is getting very cheap, so it is worth considering if you are looking for a budget small, thin phone.

T-Mobile Dash - This might seem like an odd comparison, but the Dash has several advantages over the KE970. For one, it has a proper keyboard, which makes writing text messages and email much easier. It also has the same epic battery life and, although it is a little larger, it isn’t much heavier; the Dash weighed in at 4.6 ounces, while the KE970 weighs 4.4 ounces.

[page title="Conclusion"]

Who's It For
Business User - Although it can view business documents, the KE970 would make a poor choice for the business user. The email is limited, and the small keypad makes typing a pain. Those who need to take their business on the road will be better off with a more data-focused device like the BlackBerry 8800.

Budget Callers - The high cost of the KE970 as an unlocked phone will put it out of the reach of the budget caller. When you can pick up a phone from a cellular network for free when you sign up, there’s no reason for a budget caller to consider the KE970.

Chatty Teenager - The KE970 will have a definite appeal for fashionable teens who want to have the latest phone that can double as a mirror for checking makeup. But the cramped keyboard and slow typing mean it wouldn’t work well for the teen who likes to chat via SMS messages.
Media Maven - Those who like to take pictures may like the combination of the built-in 2 megapixel camera and think profile, and the wired remote is great for controlling the music from a bag or pockets. But the awful music player software and the small video playback size make this a poor pick for the media maven who wants to watch and listen on the road.

Conclusion
The LG Shine KE970 is a nice looking phone; the mirrored screen and clean design make it one of the most attractive phones that we’ve looked at. It wouldn’t look out of place in the hands of a supermodel on the catwalk in Milan. But, like the supermodel, appearances can be deceiving, and our tests reveal that the KE970 has serious issues under the skin.

The major problem here is the display; the mirrored finish of the cover reflects the sun and means that it’s practically unusable in daylight (see the photo on the right, which was taken on a sunny day with the display brightness at maximum). That may be fine if you’re an all-night partygoer, but it will be a problem for those of us who like to go out in daylight.

The software on the phone is also an issue; the KE970 has a great wired remote and reasonable battery life playing back music, but the MP3 player software is, not to put too fine a point on it, awful. It doesn’t support playlists, provides no way to organize your music and can’t play music directly from the memory card. It’s also worth bearing in mind that this imported phone does not support the GSM-850 standard, which is used by many US networks to cover more sparsely populated areas. It does support the GSM-1900 standard, though and this is what the networks use in big cities. So, like the supermodel again, this phone wouldn’t be at home in the country, but it would fit right in with the big city.

[page title="Ratings & Specs"]

Dimension
Height	3.90
Carrier	Unlocked
Type	Slider
Low Price	0.00
Width	2.00
Depth	0.55
Weight (including battery)	4.40
Physical
Number of Screens	1
Main Screen Dimensions	1.3 x1.8
Main Screen Resolution	240 x 320
Main Screen Colors	0
Main Screen Type	TFT
Secondary Screen Dimensions
Secondary Screen Resolution
Secondary Screen Colors	0
Secondary Screen Type
Keys
Number Keys Type	keypad
QWERTY
QWERTY Keyboard Type
Other Control Keys
Internal Components
Processor
RAM Memory	0
Flash ROM Memory	0
Memory Card Slot	MicroSD
Jacks & Ports
Microphone Jack
Headphone/Mic Jack	3.5-mm
USB Port
Dock Port	No
Radios
Bands	GSM Tri-band
Bluetooth 1.2
802.11 b wifi
GSM 850
GSM 900
GSM 1800
GSM 1900
CDMA 800
CDMA 1900
Bluetooth 1.1
Bluetooth 2.0
802.11g WiFi
External Antenna Port
SAR at Ear	0
SAR on Body	0
Flight Mode
Data Standards
GPRS
EDGE
1XRTT
EVDO
EVDO Rev A
HSDPA
UMTS
Battery
Standard Battery Type	Lithium Ion
Standard Battery Capacity	0.00
Standard Battery Model	LGIP-470A
Vendor Quoted Standby Time	280.00
Vendor Quoted Talk Time	3.00
Camera
Maximum Native Still Resolution	1600 x 1200
Image Sensor Type	CMOS
Megapixels	2.00
Optical Zoom	0
Digital Zoom	2x
Built-In Flash
Focus Type	Auto Focus
Aperture Range
Shutter Speed Range
Focus Range
Exposure Modes
Exposure Compensation
White Balance Modes
Scene Modes
Video Capture
Video Resolution	176 x 144
Video Frame Rate	30
Video Format	3GP
Maximum Video Clip Length	Unlimited or 30 seconds
Audio with Movies
Audio Format
Software
OS	Proprietary
PIM Software	Proprietary
Max Number of Address Book Entries	1000
Max Number of Appointments	0
Included Business Software	Proprietary
Included Leisure Software	Proprietary
Included Syncing Software	Proprietary
Other Software of Note
Calling Features
Address Book Type	Standard
Address Book Photos
Alternative Ring Types	MP3
Speakerphone
Can work as PC Modem?
Customization
Ring Tone Formats	MP3
Individual Caller Ring Tones
Skins for Look & Feel
Messaging (built-in clients only)
SMS
Yahoo! Messenger
MMS
POP3
Exchange
IMAP
AOL Mail
Blackberry Mail
Good Mail
AIM
ICQ
MSN Messenger
SMS Message Capacity	0
Web Browsing
Web Browser	Proprietary
Music
Music Playback
Music Player	Proprietary
Music File Formats Supported	MP3, AAC AAC+
Downloadable Music Service	None
Video
Video Player	Proprietary
Video Formats Supported	3GP, MPEG-4
Downloadable Video Service	None
Bluetooth Profiles
Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP)
Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP)
Basic Imaging Profile (BIP)
Basic Printing Profile (BPP)
Cordless Telephony Profile (CTP)
Device ID Profile (DID)
Dial-up Networking Profile (DUN)
Fax Profile (FAX)
File Transfer Profile (FTP)
General Audio/Video Distribution Profile (GAVDP)
Generic Access Profile (GAP)
Generic Object Exchange Profile (GOEP)
Hands-Free Profile (HFP)
Human Interface Device Profile (HID)
Headset Profile (HSP)
Intercom Profile (ICP)
Object Push Profile (OPP)
Personal Area Networking Profile (PAN)
Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP)
Serial Port Profile (SPP)
Service Discovery Application Profile (SDAP)
SIM Access Profile (SAP,SIM)
Synchronisation Profile (synch)
Video Distribution Profile (vdp)
Wireless Application Protocol Bearer (WAPB)
Audio Quality Ratings
Handset Side Tone	6.62
Sound Recieve Frequency Response	7.37
Sound Receive Distortion	0.00
Sound Receive Speaker Volume	0.00
Sound Send Frequency Response	5.83
Sound Send Distortion	0.00
Speakerphone Sound Receive Frequency Response	0.00
Speakerphone Sound Receive Distortion	0.00
Speakerphone Sound Receive Speaker Volume	0.00
Speakerphone Sound Send Frequency Response	0.00
Speakerphone Sound Send Distortion	0.00
Headset Sound Receive Frequency Response	0.00
Headset Sound Receive Distortion	0.00
Headset Sound Receive Speaker Volume	0.00
Headset Sound Send Frequency Response	0.00
Headset Sound Send Distortion	0.00
Headset Pickup Ability	0.00
Imaging Ratings
Resolution	2.09
Color	3.41
Noise	1.32
Live Preview	7.00
Unlocked Standby to First Shot	2.82
Shot to Shot Time	6.90
Shutter to Shot Time	2.50
Interface	5.50
Photo Album Software Internal	4.00
Manual Control	2.00
Zoom	1.00
Focus	5.00
Flash	3.00
Metering	4.00
White Balance	5.00
Image Handling	0.00
Video Overall Score	2.00
Video Resolution	0.58
Video Compression	2.00
Video Interface	7.00
Video Manual Control	2.00
Video Zoom	1.00
Video Editing	0.00
Video Modes	2.00
Placing & Receiving Calls Ratings
Dialing Speed	5.26
Talk and End Buttons	5.50
Call Management	8.00
Startup to Call	3.23
Volume	8.53
Customizability	6.00
Non Audio Alerts	2.00
Messaging Ratings
Supported Email Services	3.00
Push	0.00
Multiple Account Ability	10.00
HTML and Attachments	5.50
Messaging Customizability	0.00
Time to New Email Message	6.45
Email Usability	4.00
Supported IM Services	0.00
MMS Support	7.00
Smiley Face Interpretation	0.00
SMS/MMS Ease of Use	6.00
Time to a New Text Message	3.23
Organizer Ratings
Synchronization Ease of Use	2.00
Alerts	6.00
Over the Air PIM Sync	0.00
Adding Contacts	3.51
Looking/Sorting/Searching	4.00
Fields	1.00
Speed Dial/Voice Tags/Voice Command	0.00
Calendar Adding Items	8.00
Calendar Views	4.00
Calendar Fields	4.00
To Do Adding	0.00
To Do Task Sorting & Prioritizing	0.00
To Do Fields	0.00
Notes Adding	3.57
Note Interface	2.00
Note Formatting	0.00
Voice Memo	7.00
Multimedia Ratings
Accessing Music Software	7.14
Dedicated Music Controls	16.00
Music Software Functionality & Organization	1.00
Online Song Downloading	0.00
Streaming	0.00
Podcast Support