Author Archive: Matt

LG KU990 Viewty review

LG Viewty reviewty.

A phone with a quality digital camera or a digital camera with a phone?

INTRODUCTION

Well for the first time in probably 5 years – I’ve not used a smartphone for a week. The LG Viewty, and its other brother the Prada phone thing have interested me for a while, so when Matt rather randomly asked me to review LG’s latest and greatest I was more than happy to.

Lets get one thing out of the way first off: This is not an iPhone beater. As long as you don’t expect it to be – you’ll be fine.

It’s very much a “chav-phone”, and it will sell by the bucket load regardless of this, or any other review. It’s a bit of a looker really as well – surprising considering the huge touch screen.

What’s in the Box?

A decent package, which looks expensive and well thought out. I especially liked the named boxes within the main package, which make it clear which lead is from where. Especially useful when sending review devices back!

For the full low-down have a look at Matt’s unboxing video.

LG Viewty Specification:

3″ 240 x 400 pixel touch screen

5 megapixel digital camera with flash

55 x 104 x 17 mm

112 grams

GPRS, EDGE, UMTS & HSDPA

Bluetooth 1.2 with A2DP

microSD card slot

DivX video capture VGA 30fps, QVGA 120fps

built in email client and web browser

bespoke flash based UI

front facinng camera for video calling

GENERAL

At 103.5 x 54.4 x 14.8mm it is larger than the older Prada phone, but not by much. The extra space I guess its to do with a pretty special 5mp camera included in a still small form factor. It is most definitely not too big though – fits nicely in the pocket, and although it’s slightly heavy – it’s not a problem.

Lets take a look around the device then, and on the front, as you might have guessed – a dominant 3 inch touch screen running at 240 x 400. The screen seems to be high quality – and sometimes you could also be fooled into thinking some of the displayed buttons are hardware based!

While the standard earpiece and forward facing camera are found at the top of the screen, a single row of three buttons is all we find at the bottom. They are the rather common(!) call and end keys, sandwiching the ‘back’ button in the middle.

Moving to the right hand side, we see the two position camera button – auto-focus, take photo, and a 3 position sliding switch, allowing the user to select between photos, videos, and playback/review. In between these, is the unlock/lock push button. Slightly concerned about this really – although I had no problems, I think the chances of accidently unlocking the device in your pocket could be quite high.

On the opposite left side, all we find is the headset/data/charger socket, behind a sliding cover. This is most definitely not a standard socket I’ve seen – although I’m not sure if it’s an LG standard – maybe someone in the know could comment about this?

On the top of the device – just the battery compartment release. There is no fixed power button on the device – it shares this function with the call end key. Just like old times!

Finally on the bottom…. well there is no bottom. There is no flat edge – it just flows round from the hardware buttons on the front, to the LG logo on the camera front.

Just a quick note on the reverse of the phone – it’s been designed to look exactly like a digital camera – and they have done an unbelievable job in achieving that aim. You really would not be able to tell that it isn’t a digital camera from the front.

I guess that I should also mention the strange stylus that’s included. Unlike most other devices I’ve come across, that would have the stylus slide into a slot in the phone itself, LG have elected to include a stylus that dangles from a string. It’s like a cross between a phone-charm and a lipstick. I think this will be something that the ladies may like but that the guys will leave in the box!

SOFTWARE

Interesting section this. Obviously at Tracy and Matt, we tend to stick to a semi-rigid template for out review to aid comparisons. But how do you review software on a non-smartphone?

The OS is usable. It’s certainly not going to win any awards – despite being skinable, and certainly not letting the side down too much. As it is a touch screen, you are without doubt going to compare it to the iPhone. As I said earlier – it’s not an iPhone beater, but then it isn’t £270 on an 18 month contract. Having said that, it does have 3G and a half decent camera – so specs wise, the Viewty isn’t bad at all in comparison.

The touch screen UI is nice, but even when doing simple scrolling – its very apparently that this isn’t exactly a speed machine. Remember the lovely scrolling interface on the iPhone? Well its not really like that – think scrolling in XP without your graphics card driver installed. It’s usuable, but hard work at times.

Unfortunately the speed issues don’t end there – and the camera functions also suffer. It isn’t the fastest to take photos, but it does OK. Certainly suitable for camera phone use, if not as a replacement for your digital camera. The main problem is looking through and reviewing old snaps. I don’t know if the 5mp size of the photos, coupled with the low spec CPU is the problem – but I suspect it probably is. It’s torturous trying to skim through photos – with each one taking up to 15 seconds to display.

The rest of the O/S is pretty straightforward, and works rather well. Messaging is a breeze – even compared to the iPhone – with both an onscreen T9 board and full keyboard present. There is handwriting recognition, but somehow LG have managed to make it even worse than that built into Windows Mobile.

Highlights:
Ease of use: I like smartphones, but it was nice to go back to a phone that just works. No silly bugs, no silly keypresses required, overly complicated menus etc – just a decent easy to use phone.

On-screen T9/vibrating touch screen: It really works. The screen is great – and I assume a high quality touch sensor too – very accurate, very ease to tap out a message – and the vibrating response to a press really does work, and help to improve typing speed – at least for me

Battery life: It doesn’t appear to go down. I’ve been needing a phone on me a lot this week – so have been charging it regularly – but I’ve never seen it go beyond three-quarters full.

3g: It’s great to see 3g making it to almost all areas and markets of the mobile phone industry now. Personally, I think any phone without 3g should be taken off the shelves immediately, but equally LG deserve praise for including it.

Lowlights:
Poor PC Software – LG Suite. Stay away from it at all costs. Save photos to the storage card and use mass storage mode instead!

Speed: Low spec compared to the iPhone I suspect, and it does at times suffer from it. I’m being picky in most cases, but the camera and picture review functions are a real let down.

REVIEW

Anyway, back to the review. On startup I was very surprised (And a little confused to be honest), to find it had auto-selected Orange settings for me – despite no user input. The device was supplied direct from LG, so I suspect it may have auto-created these itself, finding the network from the SIM card. Odd that it didn’t bother to tell me, but a nice feature anyway.

With this all setup, I had a bit of a play with the web browser (web, rather than wap), and the finger scrolling is especially useful, if a little hard to master.

A major problem I have these days, having used Windows Mobile devices for so long, is message storage space. I’ve never deleted a text message or email from my WM phones – unless I’m hard resetting. Unfortunately like all non-smartphones, the LG only has so much room reserved for messages – regardless of microSD card installed. This is a pain in the bum LG!

I should also note that LG maintain that a Youtube client will be installed on the final version, which will allow both download and upload of videos. Unfortunately it wasn’t available on this review unit.

I hope this addition will be couple with an upgrade of the camera applications and tool as well. The options are endless – and its all very, very impressive in such a small, cheaper unit. It’s just way too slow. Hopefully this might be improved in the official released units – because the options available to edit photos and video – on the device – are some of the best I’ve used.

To review this device though, I have to look at the day to day use of it. I have been lucky enough to have used the Viewty for quite a while, and I’m really impressed with the simple usability and stability of it. From the simple, if scary, unlock button to the onscreen qwerty keyboard in landscape mode.

One other thing that bugs me about many devices at the moment, the LG Viewty included, is that they seem to come with their own proprietary connectors for headphones, chargers and data cables. I find this frustrating that each time you buy a new phone you have to buy new chargers etc. or you have to buy adapters in order to use any headphones other than the ones supplied. On the plus side there is a nice sliding cover over the connector which will help to prevent dust getting in there but is it too much to ask for a standard headphone socket and mini USB connector?

One little titbit to end with, that I found while using the camera on the Viewty – the rocker switch around the camera lens, used to digitally zoom in and out when taking photos – is also an up/down rocker key throughout the entire O/S. Not ideally positioned – but sometimes useful when trying to move to a set position in a text! Another hardly-advertised feature is the support for divx movies. This coupled with the microSD slot makes the Viewty a small portable media player. Not bad for what isn’t exactly an expensive phone.

CONCLUSION

I really didn’t expect to get along with this. The idea of a touch screen being the only input method was not something I fancied trying. Equally, I didn’t really fancy dropping my ultra smart TyTN for a ‘normal’ phone either.

It did take a while for me to come around to the ideas behind the Viewty – but now as of Monday, with the device going back tomorrow, I’m almost sad to see it go. Its not smart, and in many ways is very limited compared to the phones I’m used to. But it just works. The touchscreen input – just works, the navigation – just works. It doesn’t do anything particularly special, but everything I really need it to do – it does.

I think I like a non-smartphone.

Review by: Mark

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, LG, Viewty, KU990, camera phone]

VITO ZoomBoard review

After moving from an HTC Vario with in built keyboard to a HTC Touch (I have to admit I much prefer the smaller phone for sure) I did start to miss the keyboard as I do quite a bit of texting and sending of Outlook e-mails. Whilst the word completion on the Touch does really help, the standard Windows mobile keyboard is pretty poor for fast and accurate entry. Being out and about quite a bit, grabbing the stylus just becomes a pain and requires both hands and lots of concentration!

Looking through at tracyandmatt.co.uk last week, I noticed the release of VITO Technologies ZoomBoard application. ZoomBoard is a replacement for the standard on-screen keyboard included on a Windows Mobile device. The download site http://iwindowsmobile.com/onscreen-keyboard.html offers a free trial (I think all software should be available on a free trial basis) so I downloaded as I had nothing to loose!

I have to admit using the ZoomBoard keyboard was a little strange at first. ZoomBoard is unlike most other keyboard addons as it uses a very clever “Sliding Technique”. Keys are not actually accepted or processed until you remove your finger from the screen. As you slide your fingers over the screen, a magnified image is shown on screen showing a much larger version of the key that you are hovering over, so you simply can not choose the wrong character. This allows even those with the biggest thumbs to enter information concisely without mistakes.

Even if you are a stylus addict, the larger on screen keys are much, much easier to select and access with the stylus as well. You don’t have to use the sliding mechanism to use this keyboard all the time so for quick messages I tend to just hit the larger keys just like a normal keyboard. The simple buttons to change to upper case and numbers/symbols also offer much faster keyboard entry.

The best part of this application? The cost… $9.95 so around £5.00 in English money so, yes, I now have a fully registered version!

Review by: John

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, VITO Technology, VITO ZoomBoard, Tracy & Matt]

Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ700B review

The Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ700B represents the pinnacle of Panasonic’s plasma TV range, this being the 42″ Full HD version. There is also a 50″ version of the PZ700 available.

I have to admit that I really didn’t know what all the HD fuss was about. How much better can HD pictures really be? There is also some confusion over HD Ready and Full HD. I wont go in to this in to too much detail here, suffice to say that Full HD is better as it supports all the standards that an HD ready TV does plus the 1080p format.

The TH-42PZ700B is Full HD with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

The PZ700 is not just limited to TV and Video though as the front mounted SDHC compatible SD card slot will allow you to play MPEG-2 and AVCHD video formats as well as JPEG images and MP3 audio files. Good news if you have a video or still camera that records on SD media.

What’s in the box?

We recorded the unboxing of the Viera but it’s worth pointing out that we have a PR sample and we’re not the first to open the box so this is what you can expect to find in the box:

The Viera TH-42PZ700B (otherwise you just bought a very expensive box!)

Infrared remote control unit (Inc. batteries)

Getting started guide

Manual and user guide

Mains power cable

Warranty and product registration card

Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ700B Specification:

Full HD plasma Panel (1920 x 1080 pixels)

1080p Digital Processing Chip-Set

1080p Digital Re-mastering Processor

4,096 Equivalent Steps of Gradation

Max. 5,000 : 1 Contrast ratio

Digital Optical Output

3 x HDMI Input

SDHC Card Networkability

PC Input

SRS TruSurroundXT

Dolby Digital

GENERAL

Like the Viera models that have gone before, the PZ700 is housed in a glossy back chassis which makes for an attractive package and wife-friendly piece of ‘furniture’. The front of the unit has clean lines with only the power lights and power button obviously visible.

However on closer inspection you will see a hinged panel in the middle of lower part of the frame, behind you’ll find a host of buttons and connectors. These include channel and volume controls, headphone socket, S-Video socket, composite video and audio inputs, and a front-facing HDMI socket.

Further to the right is another hinged cover behind which is the SD card slot.

The sides of the PZ700 have no additional connectors or controls, you have to move to the rear of the unit in order to see anything else. The back panel has a raft of AV connectors; 3 Scart sockets, Component Video sockets, digital audio out, VGA socket and two more HDMI sockets. There’s even a CI card slot when (if) pay per view card readers become available in the UK.

This Viera TH-42PZ700 comes in three varieties: wall-mount, pedestal and cabinet versions. We’re concentrating on the display itself and not the mounting methods. However, if you are looking to wall mount this plasma, you should bear in mind that it weighs approx. 35KG and you’ll need good wall fixings!

HIGHLIGHTS:

Excellent menu system and controls

Superbly sharp picture

Good audio performance

Plenty of AV connectors

Deep blacks and vibrant colour

LOWLIGHTS:

Colour banding evident on some scenes

Gloss back chassis a fingerprint magnet

Settings need altering to get the best from this TV

REVIEW

Initial unpacking and setup of the PZ700 is pretty straight forward. I’d prefer to see more of an ‘idiots guide’ to help the average user though. As with many TV’s, when you first turn the power on you are prompted to go through the setup programme which scans for TV channels etc. This takes a few minutes, definitely enough time to drink your cup of tea and have a look at the user guide.

There is a comprehensive menu system that’s either fantastic or scary depending on your point of view. For people like me that love to tinker with image and colour settings this is great but for the novice this might seem rather daunting. It need not be though as you probably only need to know how to switch between the different preset picture modes: Auto and Cinema modes for watching TV and DVD’s and Dynamic mode for playing games.

Before I move on to describe how the Viera performs I want to mention the remote control. In the past, I’ve found it frustrating that you spend hundreds of pounds on a TV, DVD or HiFi and get a cheap plastic remote. This isn’t the case with the PZ700, what you get is a fairly large, well designed and clearly laid out unit finished in graphite and chrome. It does at least feel like it belongs to a TV costing over a thousand pounds!

We start our PZ700 testing with analogue TV. Typically, low-def pictures, such as those from terrestrial TV, can be poor on an HD TV, but this is just not the case with the Viera. The picture was surprisingly free of noise and even high contrast scenes were rendered accurately. It’s a similar story when viewing digital TV but if anything things are a little better. Motion tracking is smooth and shows no signs of blurring or shimmering which can happen with low-def. I suspect that this thanks to the excellent picture noise reduction and 3D-Comb filters which help to remove artefacts and perform smoothing.

With the integrated digital tuner you also get 7-day EPG functions and genre filtering.

Moving on to some High-def footage we connect up a Blu-Ray player via one of the HDMI connectors. As this is a Full HD display there is no scaling and video footage plays in its native 1080p format. Watching Spiderman 3 and Casino Royale really does show the Viera off, there is an astonishing amount of detail, colours are truly dazzling and incredibly sharp. Even the black and white scenes at the beginning of Casino Royale are a wonder to behold, the contrast is excellent and the blacks really are er, black!

It’s a similar story with normal DVD’s. Obviously there is less detail to be seen in regular DVD films and with the compression ratio some artefacts are evident, however, the image scaler on the PX700 does a brilliant job. It’s at this point that I start flicking through our DVD collection to see how well it plays my favourite scenes from various films. All very impressive.

Hooking the PZ700 up to my PS3 gave me the ability to test 720p and 1080i sources. Again, using HDMI means that connection is easy and even carries the audio signal to the TV too, only one cable needed.

Playing some of my favourite games, Fall Of Man and FEAR, you begin to see the levels of detail and contrast that the Viera is capable of. There are some dark scenes in these games but these are handled with ease, no obvious motion blurring and again, amazing detail. The brighter, cuter games show an amazing richness and depth of colour.

However, it’s while playing games on the PS3 that I first noticed some obvious colour banding on more subtly shaded areas. Initially I thought that this might be down to the game I was playing or the video encoding so thought I would put this to the test by connecting my PC. Using a photo package I filled the screen with a 32bit image which was a black to white colour fade. Sure enough there was some nasty colour banding. As you’ll see from the photo below which I took of the image on screen, the top quarter of the screen is pure black before some grey colour bands and the fade to white. This isn’t down to the image compression, this is what you see on screen.

I should mention that you can reduce the effects of the colour banding by altering the picture noise reduction settings but you can’t get rid of them completely. However, you probably wont notice banding on TV and DVD/Blu-Ray pictures as things move rather too quickly. You may notice when playing computer games, I found it most noticeable while playing Gran Tourismo HD. I should also mention that the Viera is not alone in suffering this problem, many if not most plasma and LCD demonstrate the same issue.

Audio performance on the PZ700 is pretty good. There are several audio settings that you can play with, from the normal treble and bass settings to the SRS and SRS TruSurroundXT settings. The virtual surround works quite well but is no substitute for a proper surround system but I feel sure that many will find this good enough. It certaily is good enough for watching ordinary TV.

I like the overall design of the PZ700 but I guess I should mention that glossy black bezel. While it does mean that the Viera is quite attractive to look at it can lead to some distracting reflections, especially if you do not have a completely dark room. Also, as you’ll be able to see in top right of the picture below, it’s a fingerprint magnet – parents with young children beware!

If you saw my unbox video you’ll have heard me mention those cooling fans on the back of the set. In fact all plasma TV’s have these as they tend to run quite hot. There are times, especially during films with quiet dialogue, when you can hear these fans running. You’ll get used to it after a little while and it really isn’t a problem, it’s another of those things that once you become aware of it you start to listen for it!

CONCLUSION

If, like me, you thought that HD was more Hype than substance then you really do need to take a look at the Panasonic Viera! This really is the best HD plasma TV that I’ve seen to date.

That said, I was rather disappointed by the colour banding issue, especially from such a high-end set, and once I noticed this I just couldn’t get away from it. Luckily the PZ700 makes up for this with everything else it does get right!

The PZ700 offers fantastic sharpness and overall picture quality, this set delivers on the promise of the digital home cinema experience.

Will I be buying myself a Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ700B? No way – I’ll be buying it’s 50″ big brother!

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, panasonic, Viera, TH-42PZ700B, plasma tv]