Introduction
Announced back in July 2008 the LG KS360 was code named the LG Tribe and in fact still retains that name on the TIM Italy network. Not by any means the first QWERTY handset by LG but certainly the first handset by LG that was designed with typical phone users in mind and the first to come in an array of bright but very simplistic colours.
This phone holds a bag of surprises and given that "again" the phone was in Pink we gave it straight to Lynne to play with.
Lynne (up until this handset) was a Sony Ericsson fan and was using the W850i for about 2 years because she just could not find a phone that suited her like that but this handset changed that opinion and we will go a little deeper into why during the review (which Lynne wrote herself….. So proud!).
LG KS360
The 10 second review:
Device: LG KS360
Cost: £88.09 on Orange PAYG
Available to order from: Argos (Go and buy one from here)
Summary: A very nice phone with a great QWERTY keyboard and a simple menu layout.
Best of: QWERTY Keyboard, Music Player, Design & Style
Worst of: No WiFi, No Flash for the camera
What’s in the box?
- Handset
- Battery
- Wired Headset
- Data Cable
- Travel Charger
- User Manual
- Software Disc
LG KS360 Specification:
- GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
- Dimensions: 101.5 x 51 x 16.8 mm
- Weight: 108 g
- Display Type?: TFT, 256K colours
- Size: 240 x 320 pixels, 2.4 inches
- Touch Screen Dialling
- Full QWERTY keyboard
- Vibration
- microSD (TransFlash) up to 4GB
- 15 MB shared memory
- GPRS
- EDGE
- Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
- USB v2.0
- SMS, MMS, Email, IM
- WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
- Colours: Black and red, Black and silver, White and soft pink, Titanium and bright blue
- Camera: 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels, video
- Java MIDP 2.0
- MP3 player
- MPEG-4 player
- FM radio
- Photo/video editor
- Built-in handsfree
- Voice memo
- Standard battery, Li-Ion 800 mAh
- Stand-by Up to 430 h
- Talk time Up to 5 h
General
To keep with the site format we will now take a look around the phone from top to bottom , left to right and front to back but in a more simple than normal format.
Top: Release catch for back cover
Bottom: Microphone
Left: Volume Rocker Button and Camera Hotkey
Left hand side view
Right: At the top there is the charger port which doubles as a headphone socket
Right hand side view
Front: The top has the speaker grill with the 2.4 inch screen just below. There are also several keys on the front of the phone namely (from left to right and top to bottom), hot selection key, call start key, left direction key, phonepad key, up selection key, ok button, down selection key, right selection key, cancel button, hot key, and call end.
Keyboard Open: Full backlit QWERTY keyboard with an SMS hot key.
Keyboard Open and Slanted View
Back: Loudspeaker Grill, Self Potrait Mirror and 2MP Camera Lens.
Highlights and Lowlights
+ Comes in an Array of colours to suit individual taste.
+ The music player is far superior to that of the Sony Ericsson W850i which was Lynne’s last handset.
+ The QWERTY keyboard when in use for SMS (Landscape Mode) allows a clearer view of the screen.
– No WiFi
– Sensitive Touch Screen
– No Camera Flash
Review
LG KS360 in Pink and White
I am not a fan of fancy phones and to be honest I never really wanted to try another handset but as Matt said that I would love this little pink phone I decided to give it a go.
My initial reaction to the phone was "excellent it’s pink" but we all know that colour doesn’t really make a phone and in this case it just helped it out a little.
Setup was easy, I had a lot of files on my old phone and to get them over to the LG I decided to use Bluetooth which proved to be a wise move as the transfer rate between the phones was great. I moved onto the contacts next and decided the easiest way to do this would be to stick all my phone contacts onto the simcard then when I put the simcard into the LG I could just copy the sim contacts to the phone which was my biggest pain point. For some unknown reason the phone imported the contacts from the sim in last name first name style which meant I had to edit every contact one by one to get them right as there was no option to fix this on the phone itself.
On my next step to making the phone my own I decided to go through the menu system one option at a time to see what was there and to make sure the settings within the options were exactly how I wanted / needed them. To say I found this easy would be an understatement, the menu system was easy to navigate, had everything in the right place and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what each option / setting did. I particularly loved the animated desktop graphics when I first used them, they were fun and very unusual to see.
Like I mentioned above, I’m no techy when it comes to phone and when John explained that the SMS messages would need to be typed using the QWERTY and the phone numbers dialled using the touchscreen I thought, forget it, I’ll never get my head round this but I was very surprised at just how quickly I learned how to use these and how easy to use they were. After a few hours I thought to myself "I don’t know how I managed without a keyboard before".
The touchscreen vibrated on the touch of every button which was a tad weird at first and the over sensitive screen meant that I quite often hit the wrong button but again after a few hours I had it sussed and away I went with my new mobile.
I made a call to my mum cause I really wanted to see what the call quality was like (not that I would know much of a difference). There was not a single glitch or blank during my 20 minute conversation and my mum could here me very well too which was a great change as my W850i had a terrible habit of dropping speech during calls when we were on the move.
The easiest thing about this phone is the SMS, it’s quick, simple and fun to use which makes it an excellent phone for me as it’s the main thing I do with my phone. The QWERTY keyboard slide mechanism is smooth and doesn’t just throw itself out now does it crawl out making it seamless to use.
Conclusion
Keyboard Open in Landscape Mode
I can’t believe I never moved phones before now, this is by far the best phone I have had and yes I know it has no WiFi or Flash for the camera but trust me, you really don’t need it. I can honestly that everything I need this phone to do, it does it and then some.
A cheerful phone which I would fully recommend to anyone. If I were to mark it out of 10 then I would break it down into the following:
Looks: 10
Design: 10
Features: 8.5
Ease of use: 9
Call Quality: 10
Easy Setup: 8
Overall: 9.5
I hope this was useful to you all and since I will now have this as my own phone I would be happy to answer any questions that you have about it.
Posted by: John
Review by: Lynne
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