In Korea the use and production of metal (bronze) dates back to circa 900-700 BC, when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artifacts lent prestige to those who wielded them. Metal (bronze) was an important element in social and military ceremonies. Keeping that tradition alive, Korean giant LG has launched the all-metal cell phone Shine.
For the Indian scenario, the timing is perfect. There could not have been a better time than this. It?s the festival season, the Indian economy is shining, the Sensex is zooming up and then, there is LG?s latest flagship cellphone Shine.
Born as Shine Black Label Series (as LG prefers to call it), KE970 is an all-metal hard-core slider phone. As you take it out of the box, the phone looks more like a very slim and sleek camera, and the large, shiny display screen (240×320, 2.2? QVGA) catches your reflection like a mirror.
The phone has a rather flat and blank but mirror-like top surface with just the multi-function navigation roller and two blue-eye-like soft keys under the display and of course the earpiece and microphone slots. Flip the phone and you have the 2-mega-pixel camera lens and its flashlight, adorning the top-left corner of the otherwise-blank, back panel. The side panel on the right has a slot (with a cover flap) to connect the battery charger and the hands-free. It also doubles as a USB interface to connect with the PC. Two soft volume control keys with up and down arrows marked on them are also there, along with a shortcut key for the MP3 player and another for the camera (also works as the shutter release button). The top panel has a grey plastic latch button to open the battery cover and on the left corner is the hole to attach a wrist strap.
Hold the phone in your hand and slide it up using the thumb over the navigation roller and you get the first look of the keypad. The metallic ?cling? sound of the phone sliding open can only be compared with the otherwise very masculine sounds of a Swiss Army knife or a Zippo lighter. The flat keypad resembles fish scales and gives the impression that it?s been etched out on a thin metal sheet. But on using it, I found the keypad quite comfortable and uncluttered. The soft blue light glowing under the keys illuminates alphabets and numbers evenly. The multifunction navigation roller key can be rotated up and down or pressed on left or right edge to scroll the menu and pressed in the middle to select the OK key. The LCD display screen when not in use turns into a very clear mirror (God-sent for ladies who will love this otherwise very masculine piece of steel). But I found reading the display in bright sunlight outdoors a bit difficult and one has to shade the screen to see the display clearly.
The network signal connectivity of this triband GSM (900/1800/1900) phone is very good and I never lost a call even in the basement of my office or the subways around. Connectivity with the Internet is through GPRS/EDGE.
The single-touch MP3 player is pretty good and boasts of an equaliser too, but I found the inbuilt speaker shoddy and unusable. The sound distorts at barely an audible volume, forcing you to use the provided stereo hands-free earphones. The FM tuner is also missing. The 2 megapixel auto-focus CMOS camera sports a Schneider lens and can also record videos, but lacks optical zoom. Shine has 50 MB of internal memory and has a slot for a micro SD card of 2.5 GB external memory to load all your music and pictures.
Styled in all-metal and measuring just 99.8×50.6×13.8 mm, Shine definitely is eye candy for both friends and foes. Though at an MRP of Rs 19,000 and weighing 118 grams, it?s a bit too heavy for most pockets.