After fence-sitting for a while, LG has popped in a star performer in the Indian cell phone arena, the ?Cookie PEP? and ?Cookie POP? for the northern hemisphere!
In sync with the young adults and their needs, the LG has engineered a brilliant piece of mobile handset that is compact and stylish, sleek and lightweight and, as the name suggests, ?peppy?!
The front of the Pep is a full uninterrupted sheet of glass or at least it looks like one, except for a very thin aluminum bezel that widens at the bottom to accentuate the three-inch WQVGA resistive touch-screen display and to lodge the lone function key button.
The designers at LG have more or less done away with the keys or buttons and the ?Pep? has a bare minimum of them. There is one tiny button on the top panel to power On/Off the phone and also lock/unlock the screen, one on the bottom of the right side panel to trip the camera shutter and multi-tasking and one rocker volume control on the left side panel. The lone backlit button on the face functions as the menu, call receive/end and cancel key, depending on the phone?s mode. On the top-left corner of the phone, a very elegant chrome plated eyelet for the wrist strap or lanyard accentuates the metallic theme of the sophisticated design. For connectivity, hands free and charging, a mini USB port has been provided on the lower end of the same (left) panel with a nice dust cover.
The rear panel in brushed titanium finish has a square slot for the 3 megapixel camera lens to captures photos and videos for sharing online. The camera lens is well placed on the top-right corner and shoots some very sharp images with vivid colours in daylight, but once indoor it gasps for light and absence of any flashlight further hampers the picture quality. The plastic back cover slides open to access battery, SIM and hot-swappable microSD card (up to 8 GB).
Though the phone has a plastic chassis in metallic aluminum finish, the build quality is excellent and not compromised.
To keep its targeted audience glued to the resistive touch screen, the LG Cookie Pep comes bundled with a plethora of fun applications and graphical interface, designed to offer an enjoyable mobile phone experience with full touch-screen capabilities. The embedded social networking and connectivity options will let you stay connected to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other popular social networking sites any time and anywhere.
The touch screen, though resistive, works well and pretty accurately too; except if you have exceptionally fat fingers. LG has done away with its trademark dangling telescopic stylus, as there is none in the box. And if you wish to use the handwriting recognition interface, then please beg, borrow or steal one! LG?s default GUI (graphic user interface) is rather drab, but in case of Pep it has been decked up a bit to maintain the youthfulness of the design. The three swipe and customiseable home screens are trendy and well in tune with the times. Though the Pep?s interface works smoothly, the transitions are a bit slower and they get worse if indulged in heavy multitasking. Otherwise, Cookie Pep delivers most of the essentials in communication, entertainment and multimedia extremely well.
For an MRP of Rs 7,500, Cookie Pep is a cool buy and will keep you happy till you decide to grow up!