LG KS360 Review

Looking for a flashy phone that catches every one’s attention? Then LG KS360 is the one you should be looking at. The latest LG phone to hit the market is not only flashy but also has some nifty features too. The phone comes in various color combos so you can chose one to match your personality. It does look kiddish though and performance isn’t that great, do read on to find out how the phone fares.

LG KS360 specifications :

• Dimensions : 101.5 x 51 x 16.8 mm
• Weight : 108 g
• Display : 2.4 inches TFT
• Display resolution : 240 x 320
• Card slot : microSD
• Connectivity : GPRS, EDGE
• Camera : 2.0 MP
• Bluetooth : v.20 with A2DP
• Other features : FM Radio, QWERTY keyboard
• Approx. price : $400

The device has a slide out QWERTY keyboard and that adds a lot of thickness to the device. The corners of the phone are round and so are all the buttons on the phone. The round buttons on the keyboard and elsewhere make it look like a complete toy. LG has included minimal accessories in the retail package. Charger, data cable and headset is all your can expect to find bundled with the phone. No memory card is included, so you have to spend extra on that too.

The device is targeted towards teens who like to flaunt the device, atleast the design and color combination suggest that! The cell phone fits in to the pocket rather easily despite being thick. The weight is on the lower side at just 108 g. The left side of the phone has the LG universal port for connecting charger, headset etc. The microSD slot is also located on the left side. On the other side are the volume rocker and shutter keys. The overall build quality is good in spite of it being all plastic.

Display and Keyboard

The cell phone has a 2.4″ TFT touchscreen display that occupies most of the front panel. The display has QVGA resolution that is fine for a display of that size. The display has limited touchscreen functionality that is available in the phone dialer. The display is great with accurate color reproduction and nice contrast. The sunlight visibility though is pretty average.

Below the front panel are the Call/End keys as well as navigation keys. The keys on the front panel are cramped for space that takes a toll on the ergonomics. The keyboard has flat keys that are widely spaced. The QWERTY keyboard does look like a toy with those round keys but it does have good ergonomics. The orientation of the display is automatically changed when the keyboard is flipped out. The keyboard duplicates the front controls so to as make navigation easier while holding it with keyboard flipped out. The backlight is probably the only problem with the keyboard as the blue light is not strong enough in dark environments.

Music Player and Camera

The music player on the device is pretty basic and has limited features. Sorting tracks by artist, album, genre etc is not available. You can however, search for tracks and it does have equalizer support. Playlists are supported on the music player too and Favorites and recent are the two automatic playlist options. Not much to say about the sound quality as it is just above average. The phone does have FM Radio integrated, but the interface for the same is too elementary for our liking.

The camera has a 2.0 MP resolution but it does not have either flash or autofocus much like the Apple iPhone. The camera interface is neat and has quite a few manual options. These include white balance, exposure compensation, color effects etc. It also has self-timer and multi-shot option that can takes 3, 6 or 9 images in a go. The camera quality however, is much better than the iPhone and it manages to churn out good quality images for a 2.0 MP camera. The detail is not compromised and the contrast level is just about fine. The video recording option on the phone is below average with it recording @15fps in 3GP format, good enough for sending MMS.

Web Browser and Organiser

The web browser is pathetic to put it straight. LG has done a horrific job with it with both the engine and the interface. The pages on the browser load slowly on EDGE connection and the rendering does not match the screen resolution for most websites. It takes ages to pan the page or to zoom in or zoom out. You would be better off installing Opera Mini on the phone.

The organizer on the device has loads of stuff to help you manage your time and tasks. Calendar, Alarm clock, Memo application, Voice recorder, calculator, stop watch, unit converter, world clock application are some of the standard applications. The Alarm application can handle five alarms at a time. World Clock application lets you view time across different time zones. It also has a document viewer that supports office files such as DOC, PPT, XLS, TXT as well as PDF files. The performance of the document viewer is flaky as it sometimes loads documents slowly.

Pros :

• Great display
• Physical QWERTY keyboard
• Ergonomic keyboard
• Respectable camera quality
• Great organizer

Cons :

• Buttons look childish
• No 3G support
• No LED flash, autofocus
• Basic music player
• Limited touch functionality
• Pathetic browser

Final Thoughts

The LG KS360 is a cell phone for the young generation with its funky looks. The slide out QWERTY keyboard along with a good display are some of its strong points. It however lacks a lot of features and the touch input is also limited. Its negative points are far more than its positive ones putting it in the league of ordinary phones. Apart from the looks, it misses out on 3G support and a better camera. The interface for music player, FM Radio is too basic. The web browser is inefficient with slow browsing speeds and bad rendering. LG could have done a much better job with the phone. The price is on the higher side, and you can get much better cell phones in that range.

Rating : 2.5/5