A few weeks ago, the wife and I decided to retire our respective phones. Which was a good thing too because her phone can no longer function properly after receiving one call for me, and the last time I bought myself a new phone was more than seven years ago.
It was a Nokia 7110 that only lasted for a few months before breaking down completely. Shortly after that, my succeeding phones consisted of a second-hand Nokia 6100 which I bought from the wife which had a penchant for resetting itself in the middle of composing a text message. After that I inherited an old Nokia 7250 whose performance had no perceptive improvement over its predecessor other than the fact that it died on me much more often. Lastly, I had a Nokia 3230, again inherited, of which I can say nothing good about.
Which brings us to the present. We’ve always wanted to have 3G phones and since money is indeed an issue, we figured there really is no choice but to go with the “cheapest 3G phone in the market.” So we filled up our applications for Smart (don’t go Globe if you’re planning on using 3G because their rates are insane), waited for 3 weeks even though they said it was only going to take 3 days, and got our phones. We’ve been playing around with these babies for quite some time now and here are our thoughts:
THE BAD
Too Small. I guess my biggest beef with the phone is also its biggest asset: the size. Particularly the size of the keypad. It’s so small, you have to use your fingernails to be able to punch the right button and not any one of the several neighboring buttons. If I were to lay my thumb flat on the keypad, it would take up more than 2/3 of the keypad. Which is more than half to all of you who don’t speak Maths.
No Third Party Support. Next on the list of grievances is how the phone doesn’t come with preloaded games. You have to download them off the web if you want to be able to kill space aliens or watch skimpily-clad, pixelated, Asian girls play volleyball. This probably won’t be so bad if there was a significant number of games that was made for this phone.
As it is, there are only a dozen games that will work on this phone. Most of the websites I’ve visited didn’t have a category for this phone. While it is understandable since it is still a new model and was only designed for a certain demographic (poor, cheap people like myself), it can be quite vexing nonetheless. Luckily, GetJar.com hosts some Java applications made for 176 x 220 pixels screens which makes them compatible with this phone.
PC Suite. The PC suite that comes bundled with this phone is quite a disappointment for two reasons: 1) It has no function that allows you to install games and applications on your phone and 2) sending messages using the PC suite isn’t very elegant.
Since the PC Suite is not capable of installing applications to your phone, you have to get these applications via WAP. This setup isn’t very cost effective since it goes without saying that surfing using your phone costs money. And since not a lot of applications were made for this phone, this process involves a lot of trial and error before you find the right application / game you’re looking for.
The message sending function of the PC suite doesn’t allow you to look up numbers from your phone book, so you have to memorize the number yourself. This oversight in the design of the software makes it more sensible to simply send messages from your phone and negates the need for a message sending function on the PC Suite.
THE GOOD
While there are still more things about the phone that we feel could have been done better, they’re quite insignificant and therefore do not warrant further discussion. So without further ado:
Lightweight. At 73g, this is quite possibly the lightest phone I’ve ever come across. Not only does this make this phone easy to carry around, but its lack of mass works well in protecting it. For example, I can’t count the number of times I’ve accidentally dropped this phone, and it still doesn’t have any visible scratches.
Fast. My biggest complaint about my old Nokia 3230, and each of the three Nokia N70s that that my mother, my dad, and my sister use, is that they all have significant response times. Composing a simple text message takes a lot longer than it should have.
But with this new phone, the response time is hardly noticeable, the letters appear on the screen as soon as I key them in. And most important of all, the phone has yet to freeze up on me.
Battery Life. What I’ve noticed about the new phone models is the short standby time. You have to charge the phone after 1.5 days on the average. With the LG, even with video calling, surfing, downloading, texting, it was still able to stay alive for 4 days without charging. That’s a long time by today’s standards.
THE VERDICT
Despite my long list of complaints about this phone, the fact still remains that this is a good buy. Most of the stuff I listed under “The Bad” are just feature enhancements that really aren’t necessary in the everyday use of a cellphone. Bottomline is, if it can text and make calls, and doesn’t hang or die on me in inopportune moments, then I’m happy.
At a very low price tag of P1,500.00 deposit with a 2 year contract with Smart’s Plan 500, I really have no reason to complain.
Wait, 2 years with plan 500?! SOLD!
I will get the phone today under Plan800. After reading this it doesn’t change a thing. I guess it’s still a good catch! =)
Abby: Yup, it’s still a good buy. Enjoy!
did u have a hard time with the calls?i experienced a problem where the person calling me cant hear me properly..as if my voices were distorted…let me know..
That hasn’t happened to me yet. But I did hear that it happens to people who use the hands free kit. Have you been using the hands free kit?
nope.i was using it the normal way. i tried using the headset and it seems that its much clearer that way.anyway, for those of you who are interested, globe gives the phone for free at plan 800..seems reasonable..im satisfied so far with this, thats the only concern i have for now…hopefully, its just one of the glitches.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Maybe you can still have it replaced.
And SMART also gives away the phone for Plan 800 subscribers.
im starting to enjoy my LG KU250 unit. my only regret so far is that it has no MP3….
i just got mine a week ago as loyalty reward from globe for maintaining my plan. at first i was kinda agit at getting a non-nokia phone because i plan to keep my Nokia 6020 (which has served me quite well for the last two years). there were a lot of nokia features i missed like the message counter and the delete all messages settings. however, all in all the interface was easy to use. quite similar to the nokia interface. right now, am quite satisfied with it especially with the mp3 player.
now that it is three months after, how has it served you? am hoping that the phone does not just perform well at the start then suddenly come crashing down after prolonged use.
I actually swap my LG phone for another Nokia just for less than a week of use. I have been using a lot of International calls and the phone is affecting my conversation. I just cant hear the person im talking to on another line. It sounds muffled and the voice is distorted. I tried to swap it at Globe for another LG unit but it just didnt work. All the unit they tried for me has the same problem.
it’s a good buy. just had problems installing games using bluetooth from pc. the bluetooth interface freezes up when i try to get to push some object to the phone. and i never got this (bluetooth communication with the pc) to work. any help would be appreciated
i got my LG KU250 just end of last month. What I like in this phone is I was able to put in a microSD card 1GB, then I downloaded via PC Suite’s USB connection some MP3s, 3GPs and free games.
So far, no problem encountered.
I tried to use blutooth headset, it can be used only for incoming voice calls but I cant hear my MP3s.
let’s see how far this LG will get me through…
I bought a one from Srilanka, abans is the agent for LG phones, but I saw many defects, saw I told them to fix those things,
hearing problems to the other party(some thing wrong with the MIC)
signal problems, when the location changes it I have to manually search
the tower. And it turn offs automatically, (even the battery is full).
so they gave me a new phone, but i still get the same problems, except auto off(till today, it might occurred tomorrow
)
Now I hate LG!!!
I waste my money for nothing.
go for a SE
Pau!
Ganyan din phone namin ni Tams. Hehe.
Baka interested ka gamitin siya as Modem for your PC.
http://dayg.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/surf-anywhere-with-your-laptop-and-smart-3g/
Hi kay Rach!
I like to know anyone who’s got another party utility that will allow this phone model to be able to view a formatted TXT file?
Pau,
Try copying your files to the external Micro SD, you can then launch the Java installation routine from My Stuff > (My memory card) > Others menu.
HTH,
Paul