LG Shine KE970 Review - Software
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Richard Baguley Published on April 25, 2007 Comment on this |
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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.
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