Social networking is the order of the day, is it? Being on Facebook or Twitter is like the existence of a parallel world. Mobile companies today are focusing on messaging and social networking to such an extent that phones for these categories are being launched every other day. The LG Cookie series phones, priced below 10k, are aimed at social networking enthusiasts. Their device Cookie Glide or the GT 350i came to us for review and lets see if it keeps up with the social networking mania.
The device in a black could have been way better looking had it not been glossy. It seems that the phone has carried a round theme with rounded edges and round buttons on the front as well as on the QWERTY keypad. The front hosts the 3-inch screen with call connect, favourites/running apps indicator button and the call disconnect button under it and the back just has the 2 megapixel camera. To the right are the micro USB slot and the camera button and the left has the volume rocker and microSD card slot. Both the USB and the card slot are neatly covered with plastic flaps. The top hosts the 3.5 mm audio jack and the lock/power button. The top slides to the left to reveal the QWERTY keypad that is grey and the keys are backlit.
The 3-inch resistive touchscreen is not very impressive in terms of response and speed. The response time is quite slow and touchscreen at times fails to respond readily. The user interface is LG?s proprietary interface that has three home screens. The widget screen, live square and favourites pages with four constant touch icons at the bottom, the dialer, contacts, messaging and menu buttons. The widget screen has 8 options that can be placed on the screen and there are 16 stylish themes to set the widgets in.
The live square is LG?s typical page for records of recent conversations and interactions and the shortcut screen allows 9 favourites to be set there. One just needs to swipe their finger across a page to navigate between these three screens. There is also a pull down screen with information about the device laid out like the time, connectivity, connection, battery condition, mobile and microSD storage. One can change profiles directly from here or switch the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on directly from here.
The menu layout is interesting and can be changed in 3 ways, screen by screen, zig zag and scrolling?all interesting and easy to understand. There are four basic tabs: communication, entertainment, utilities and settings that can be edited and changed easily. The music player can also be accessed directly. Once the keypad snaps open, the layout of the screen automatically goes landscape and the layout changes as soon as the keypad is shut. There is no accelerometer otherwise.
Among other usual things what is interesting is the social networking access, that the device boasts about. The shortcut takes you to Facebook, Picas, Flicks, MySpace, Orkut and Twitter. There is instant messaging for Yahoo! and MSN and email sync as well. Another set of applications focus on connectivity and social networking with BlacMail (a pull mail application), Opera Mini 5, Push e-mail and ROckeTalk an IM integrator). The presence of Wi-Fi is probably the best feature of the device. It connects easily and access to all the applications becomes very easy.
The camera works on the landscape mode and the image quality is average at 2 megapixels and the lack of flash makes it even more ordinary. Messaging on the device is easy with the QWERTY keypad. The keypad also supports social networking with various shortcuts on it like the SNS, browser, mail and messenger shortcuts. Typing on the normal touch keypad as well as the well spaced out keys on the keypad is comfortable.
The in phone sound quality is good with the freedom to experiment with headphones because of the 3.5 mm audio jack. The sound on loudspeaker is just about average and definitely not great. Overall, a decent device that does have a good bunch of features, but there are also issues that work against it. The GT 350i, though stylish, at its price is just an average phone though it does not have any competition at its price and features within this price range.
? CyberMedia www.LD2.in
Mail:talkLD@cybermedia.co.in