Crazy Life

Well I bought an LG U990 for Christmas so I though I would let the world know what its like.

First of all I went into my local 3 Mobile shop because I wanted a mobile phone that I could seriously use to browse the internet and read and write emails. Don’t ask me why I wanted these things. Probably just because I could get them. My main requirement was a decent keyboard and a full keyboard. Whilst I’m perfectly comfortable with the predictive text, I wanted better. For me it was time to get a mobile mini-computer.

 After lots of deliberations I settled on the LG U990. Believe it or not, there are very few mobile phones on the high street market that are fairly large and have a full qwerty keyboard. I’m not sure why. I guess there isn’t the market for them. I used to like the Nokia communicator for example (I know). It would have been good if it was 3g enabled. I was drawn by the large screen and the iPhone like functionality.

On to the phone. Well it looks really good. It’s not as large as I thought I would end up with and obviously the lack of a push button keyboard means there is more room for screen and other important things. Functionality is not bad either. One of the things that I find important about a phone is the menu structure and the ability to easily navigate to where you want to go and back. Nokia were/are always good at this. The U990 is up to the job. The menu is well layed out and the controls are easy to use. Another important thing for me is the alarm. I use my phone (always have) to wake up in the morning so a good alarm with good features is a must. The U990 meets this requirement well. You can choose week days, Monday to Saturday, Monday to Sunday or all days except holidays. Again it’s not as flexible as most Nokia’s but its good enough for me.

One of the attractive things about the LG U990 is the touch screen and lack of push button controls. The screen is similar in looks and operation to the iPhone (according to the adverts i see on TV). The touch screen is quite sensitive and can really be controlled without the attachable stylus that comes with the phone. It is worth noting though that the scrolling feature is a bit of an art form. It takes practice to get it right. The phone sometimes gets confused between a tap on an option and a scrolling movement. It’s quite tricky (none the less do-able). It’s also quite frustrating when you are on a call to an automated phone system and they ask you to press three for option A, and you then have to press the screen to bring up the number pad to find the screen has been locked for security. Then you unlock it with a button on the side of the phone then press again for the number pad and then hit the number you want. You can delay the lock time but it is still infuriating.

Music is not one of my most important features but the U990 has a decent enough mp3. The sound quality is good if maybe not loud enough. It is clear and sharp. As for the mp4. Well I’m not an expert but I have just downloaded a track and the video quality is rubbish. Someone tell me if this is just the mp4 file (I would guess it is). There is also an FM tuner built in. The one station that the automatic tuner could pick up sounded great! Not sure I would rely on the radio though.

The camera is also quite high spec. . The U990 has a 5.0 mega pixel camera. I always find mobile phone cameras don’t take nearly as good pictures as real cameras. Well this phone comes fairly close. It has an image stabilizer which helps. This is the first phone that I have ever used to take a meaningful photo. That says a lot for me. There is a movie mode to so you can take short movies. The camera has a digital zoom which is a useless as al digital zooms. The zoom control is quite smart. There is a movable disc around the lens that controls zoom. It also doubles as a volume control and a menu scroller. In fairness your fingers do get in the way of the lenz when you try to operate it!

On to the 3g enabled features. £g opens up all sorts of possibilities for a mobile. Along with internet browsing and movie streaming, the U990 comes pre-installed with Google Maps, Google Mail, Live Messenger, Live TV (selected range of channels, don’t expect everything), ebay, You Tube, Music downloader and Skype. Not all of these services work all the time but I put this down to the Three network rather than the phone.

One important point to note is that the Skype software installed on the phones ONLY allow you to call other Skype phones. Don’t expect to be able to use Skype to call family abroad because you can’t! I find this a little bit of a con. Since I have no friends that use Skype all the time, it is pretty useless. However this may catch on if everyone you know ends up having a skype enabled phone. If that is the case the mobile to mobile calls will be free!

Again this is not a criticism of the phone but a lot of these services don’t work from time to time. For example I still am not able to download my own emails from my own email provider. I think this is a Three network problem but getting help form Bombay is not the easiest!

Network coverage is also pretty good. I live in Maidenhead, Berkshire (also where Three are based) and the coverage is good. Also note(as its not too clear) that if there is no 3g network coverage then the phone simply uses the normal mobile network. However, things like internet browsing, Skype etc will not work unless there is a 3g network.

 Pricing at Three mobile is not so bad either. They are much cheaper than Orange for example. Three have a unusual pricing structure. Unlike most other providers, you don’t pay anything up front for a more expensive phone. The price is included in your monthly contract for the duration of the contract. The more expensive the phone, the more you pay each month. I am no a fairly cheap contract. I think its 200 minutes/texts which costs £29 per month. i have an internet add on for a brilliant £5 per month. This gives me unlimited internet use (subject to fare use policy). This is great for browsing the internet. So all in all, I pay £34 per month for this good phone.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.