The new LG GW 520 touch screen phone arrived for review a few weeks ago. First impressions are good and the neat slide out QWERTY keyboard feels very solid and doesn’t wobble once exposed.

LG are aiming their new phone at social networking types in much the same way as Vodafone are with the 360 Samsung H1. The GW520 packs LGs LiveSquare visual alert system which displays the contacts you actually interact with as characters on your home screen allowing you to quickly call or text them.

So how does it feel after a month of use?

Touch screen and User Interface

The 2.8” touch screen is very bright and clear but feels quite clumsy in use in that you sometimes need to prod it a couple of times before getting the desired result. LG do include screen calibration from the phone setting options and although this improves things when you’re trying to open the useful shortcuts menu it can take a number of stabs to persuade it to open.

LG are using a simplified interface on this new slider and I have to say it isn’t quite as slick as the S-Class interface found on the Arena and Chocolate. You move between the widget and LiveSquare screens by swiping a finger to the left or right on either screen.

LG supply a number of useful widgets including the usual clock, calendar, weather, music player, etc. In line with the current fashion a FaceBook widget is also included that opens up the supplied FaceBook app. The 520 also supports a Push Email app that can be started from the strangely named “Good” widget.

LiveSquare

I’m not quite convinced by the LiveSquare visual alerts. On one hand it populates your home screen with all the contacts you actually interact with which is arguably better than pre-selecting your favourite contacts but on the other hand it insists on displaying them as cutesy animals or cartoon like people. The more you interact with a contact the more extras they get. What they get depends on whether you choose the Park or Zoo theme. These themes seem to be aimed at the teen market as the over twenties I let loose on the phone found them a just little too cutesy for their taste.

Touching a contact on LiveSquare selects it and starts the shortcut buttons at the bottom of the screen vibrating showing you what actions are possible with the contact. Typically you can call, look up or text the contact by touching the appropriate vibrating shortcut. Selecting multiple contacts allows you to send the same text to all of them without selecting each contact separately.

LiveSquare is very nearly there and with a more grown up theme it would be a very useful speed dial type feature although I think we could safely loose the; Zebra, Anteater, Giraffe, Duck and Bluebird.

Social Networking and Messaging

The FaceBook application is very neat if a little small to comfortably use with fingers. Of course being a resistive screen means that you have the option of using some form of stylus for better accuracy. A standard plastic pen lid works just fine if you don’t want to buy one.

Although the screen size means that the FaceBook app is not ideal it does suffice if you’re on the move and without access to a netbook or PC. One notable deficiency is the ability to upload photos, however as there’s no Wi-Fi on the GW520 it will at least help keep your data charges down.

The 520 packs both normal email and push email meaning you never need to be out of touch. Email setup is extremely simple with; Hotmail, Google Mail, Yahoo, AOL and generic Internet email setups options available. The push email application works well and new messages appear in your inbox within a minute or so of being sent.

Multimedia

Music playback is hindered somewhat by the combination of cheap packaged headphones and a proprietary connector. I know a single connector for charging, syncing, listening and speaking is cheaper and I know you can buy a cheap headphone adaptor and use your own buds but I just miss just being able to plug in standard headphones.

The audio player does a good job with your music and has all the usual functions we’ve come to expect. The built in speaker’s nothing to write home about musically but it’s quite loud and more than adequate for speakerphone calls.

The screen’s bright and clear and perfect for watching video clips on. It is, however, a little small for comfortably watching movies on.

Camera and Video

The 3 mega pixel camera has no flash or autofocus and so is of limited use indoors but used outside and at a distance it produces reasonable quality photos.

The video camera is similar to the camera giving reasonable outdoor shots but not really suited to indoor or badly lit situations.

Battery Life

With light to medium phone use you’ll need to charge the 520s standard 950mAh battery every three or four days. This is with practically no video usage and minimal time with Bluetooth turned on. Either of these would seriously reduce the battery life.

Conclusion

I have to say that using the LG GW520 has been somewhat of a mixed bag. On the plus side the LG is a well built touch screen phone with some nice UI ideas and a good sized slide out keyboard. It’s a solid workman like phone and should last well.

On the negative side it’s let down by the cutesy LiveSquare interface, fiddly resistive touch screen and a proprietary headphone jack. For some reason the screen seems to be more of a fingerprint magnet than usual.

Available from the Carphone Warehouse, T-Mobile, Three and Orange from free on contract and as little as £130 for PAYG.

Update: Three are currently selling the GW520 in a Christmas Special promotion for just £99.99 which includes free Skype to Skype calls and Windows Live Messenger.

Pros

• LiveSquare is nice idea although it’s a bit too cutesy for grown ups in its present form.
• The slide out keyboard is good and very comfortable to use.
• Feels solid and well made.
• External Micro SD slot.
• FaceBook app.
• Threaded messaging.

Cons

• No 3.5mm jack.
• Low quality headphones.
• No Wi-Fi.
• The touch screen lacks accuracy when using your finger but is better with a stylus.
• No Flash or autofocus limits the usefulness of the camera.

Specification:

• 2.8” touch screen 240×400 262K, TFT resistive with Haptic feedback.
• Dimension: L x W x D (mm) 106.9 x 53 x 15.9
• Slide out QWERTY keyboard.
• 3 Mega pixel camera.
• Video camera.
• Weight with Standard Battery 125.5g
• Battery: Li-Ion, 950mAh
• Standby Time: up to 500 hours
• Talk Time: up to 4.5 hours
• 3G: HSDPA 7.2
• Bluetooth : V2.0 with A2DP
• USB.
• Internal Memory: up to 40MB
• External Memory: Micro SD (up to 8GB)
• Threaded text messaging.
• Email and Push Email.
• LiveSquare visual alerts
• Java (MIDP 2.1)
• FM Radio
• MP3 player
• Internet Browser.
• Document Viewer

LG recently gave us some hands on time with a few of their new and upcoming handsets including the as-yet-unreleased GW-620 Android so I thought I’d post a few first impressions. (click on the photos for larger versions)

First up we have the GD510 POP. The unique selling point of this slim touchscreen phone will doubtless be the optional solar panel back cover that promises to keep the phone charge topped up without needing a mains adapter. Sadly production problems meant we couldn’t see that version so we were left with the standard model.

It’s simple to use – there is only a single button for making/ending a call with the rest of the functions being handled by the touchscreen. Specifications include a 3 inch “frameless” touchscreen (it doesn’t quite come to the edge of the phone, but it’s close) and dedicated applications for facebook and twitter. It should cost around £100 from carphone warehouse on PAYG.

Next we have the BL-520 chocolate 2. A smaller sibling of the BL-40 chocolate we recently looked at, the 520 is also endowed with the “Black Label” branding and bucks the current trend for touchscreens by using a slider design with physical buttons.

The BL-520 includes a 5MP camera with LED flash, is 3G capable and has a nice set of glowing touch sensitive navigation buttons to control the various functions.

We have a review handset in testing at the moment so we’ll post a more detailed assessment when we’ve had a chance to run it through its paces.

Moving into smartphone territory, we also have a sample of LG’s first foray into Windows Mobile in the shape of the GM750. Again we’ll be posting a few more thoughts when we’ve had a chance to run it in but the highlights are:

• Touchscreen only (no physical keyboard)
• Windows Mobile 6.5.
• Currently exclusive to Vodafone in the UK
• Includes a GPS and optical mouse.
• 5MP Camera with LED flash
• MicroSD expansion

You’re looking at about £15/month on contract at the moment with the phone free – a good deal for the full WinMo experience.

Last but not least we have the star of the show, LGs first Android handset. It currently goes by the model number GW620 but may end up with a different name in the UK once it’s released over here next year.

LG have skinned the usual Android UI with a version of their own “S-Class” user interface concept, although this can be removed if you prefer the vanilla Android look and feel (I do, so it’s good to have the choice).

Unlike the current crop of Android handsets, the phone looks “normal” – which is a good thing. It has a 3” touchscreen with 320×480 resolution and a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is a full 5 row affair so no need to go hunting for the function key when you want to type numbers.

Being Android it will run any application available from the marketplace and is compatible with push email. It’s also DivX and MP3 compatible and has a standard 3.5” headphone jack so you can can use it as a media player. A 5MP camera with LED flash rounds out the multimedia functions.

Pushing the social networking theme, LG have included an integrated contact manager that links facebook and myspace accounts to a contact, the idea being that you can always see what your friends are up to from one location. A nice idea if it works but not something we got the chance to see in action.

In use the device seemed responsive – more so than most Windows Mobile devices – and we look forward to using it more once it’s released in January.

Sony are bringing back the “Walkman” brand quite aggressively with various new models at different price points and capabilities. Today we take a look at one of the entry level models, the Walkman B series.

Features and design

Specifications:

• Width (mm): 86
• Height (mm): 23.6
• Depth (mm): 14.5
• Battery life – continuous playback music (h): 18
• Charging time (full charge) (h): 1h 10 min
• Available sizes – 2GB and 4GB

The B series has a simple design, incorporating a 3 line display that shows current track information and allows navigation of the menus (just). Physical buttons are provided for recording, volume and track navigation – for anything more complex than that you’re into the control menus.

In common with most players you get functions to repeat the track or playlist as well as a shuffle option. An FM radio is included and you also get a recording function which can record both voice and radio content.

Voice recordings don’t need a separate microphone or specialised headphones; the device itself has a built in mic which seems to work well for recording simple memos.

There’s also a “zap” button which runs through your playlist, diving into the middle of each song to play you a few seconds of it before moving on to the next. A second press of the button starts playing the selected track properly. It’s a convenient way of navigating through an album or shuffled playlist without resorting to the sometimes fiddly display, but I could have done without the chirpy “Zappin’ in!” and “Zappin’ Out!” voice on each button press.

In use

In common with the X series walkman we previously looked at, connectivity is a breeze. The B series plugs directly into a USB port and is recognised by Windows as a music player. It synchronises with Windows media player if that’s what you want, or you can just treat it like a USB stick and drag MP3s directly onto it.

The compact dimensions of the player lead to a necessarily small screen, which in turn means navigating the menus can be fiddly. Everything is fairly logically laid out so there’s no problem finding anything but you’ll probably want to set up some playlists or browse your music via album/artist/genre as navigating a single folder with several hundred tracks in it takes some button pressing!

Sound quality

The B series is a budget model so the included headphones are fairly basic and you don’t get the electronic enhancements of the more expensive X series. That said, you do get a 5 band equalizer to tune the sound to your taste and with some decent earbuds it sounds fine.

Conclusion

At the £30-£40 price point Sony have some competition from other devices on features but the compact styling and ease of use of the B series makes it stand out.

Sony Ericsson launched their new Windows Mobile powered X2 smart phone at the London Design Museum this evening. It runs on Windows Mobile 6.5, has a 3.5” resistive touch screen and is available exclusively on Vodafone from the end of November.

SE have a range of home screens available preloaded on the phone as well as more that are downloadable. Take a look at the pictures above to see two of the panels and the panel picker. Panels range from the typical Windows Mobile look through to something that looks very much like Sim City complete with animated trains and boats. You can add widgets to these panels to further customise the phone to suit your personality.

The X2 has a side slide full QWERTY keyboard to compliment its touch screen and this will probably be the text input method of choice for most people as it feels very stable in use. Having said that if the handwriting recognition is up to the job that might be an even better option. A stylus is neatly stored in the body of the phone to help if you choose the handwriting route.

The screen is clear and bright with video looking quite impressive and I’m glad to see that a 3.5mm standard headphone socket is provided. The X2 has an optical mouse pad allowing you to move around the screen and select functions with ease. Sony Ericsson have made this even better by using icons in place of menu options where possible.

The 8.1 mega pixel camera has autofocus, geo tagging, image stabilisation, face detection, an LED flash and is capable of recording video as well. The X2 comes packaged with Windows Office Mobile and a TV Out cable for those emergency PowerPoint presentations or perhaps just for showing off your family videos.

The phone is aimed at both the business and consumer markets so it will be up against both the Blackberry and HTC phones. Time will tell if it has what it takes to compete with them. Vodafone are promising that the X2 will be available free on contract from the end of November.

We’ll post a review in a month or so once we’ve had a chance to use the phone day to day for a while.

Specifications

• 3.2” resistive touch screen. (WVGA) 800×400 Pixels, 65,536 colours.
• Dimensions: 110 x 54 x 16mm.
• Weight: 115g with the standard battery.
• Claimed: GSM: Up to 10 hrs, Standby time GSM: Up to 500 hrs.
• Claimed: UMTS: Up to 6hrs Standby time UMTS: Up to 640hrs.
• Claimed music listening time: Up to 20hrs
• Quad Band.
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (A2DP) and USB.
• USB mass storage.
• 8.1 Mega Pixel camera, Auto Focus, Geo tagging, Image stabiliser, Send to web, Touch focus  and LED flash.
• Video WVGA 30fps
• Up to110MB internal memory.
• Memory card support: Micro SDHC™, up to 16GB of additional memory.
• A-GPS
• Microsoft Office mobile, PDF and text viewers.
• TV out via included cable.
• Standard 3.5mm headphone connection.

In the Box:

• XPERIA™ X2
• Battery
• Battery Charger
• Stereo Portable Hands free MH500
• USB cable
• TV out cable
• 4GB SanDisk Micro SD memory card
• User guide

See the Sony Ericsson website for more details.

The Nokia N97 Mini has many of the features of the original  N97 including the slide-out Qwerty keyboard, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and built in GPS navigation.

On the down side the internal memory has been slashed from 32GB to a paltry 8GB which seems pretty mean with the current cost of memory.  You can add a further 16GB with a Micro SD card for a total of 24GB which still isn’t as much as an unexpanded N97.

Interestingly the mini is mere millimetres smaller than the original N97, has the same resolution resistive touch screen and is only £20 cheaper on the Nokia website.

Available free from Vodafone on pay monthly plans of £35 and over from the end of October.

The HTC Tattoo looks to be a very cool implementation of the Android operating system and available to order now.  Unfortunately the small 2.8” touch screen, 512mb internal memory, 3.2MP camera and missing flash are all disappointing on a newly released phone. I know there is a memory card slot but 512mb of built in memory just isn’t enough for a modern phone.

Available free from Vodafone on pay monthly tariffs of £25  and over from October.

Finally the Vodafone 360 Samsung H1 is available in black or silver for pre-order now and delivery in November. The H1 is being marketed too social networking types and offers a 3D interface showing the connections between your contacts by using their photos.

The H1 is compatible with the new Vodafone 360 service allowing you to backup and update your contacts, photos and emails on your 360 account.

Services such as Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Goole Mail and Facebook are catered for by the Samsung.

With its 3.5” OLED touch screen, 16GB of internal memory, 5MP camera, WiFi, HSPDA, Bluetooth, GPS and app downloads the H1 seems to be taking a well aimed pop at the iPhone. The big question is will it succeed where others have failed?

Available free from Vodafone on pay monthly plans of £35 and over from November.

The e-reader market is starting to take off, with devices from Sony giving the Amazon Kindle a run for its money (not to mention a whole slew of more esoteric devices)

The QUE reader from Plastic Logic will be added to the mix in January at CES. It’s a slimline 8.5”x11” (US Letter) sized reader made from shatterproof plastic with Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Uniquely, it will support “business” file formats (Word, PowerPoint, PDF and Excel) and includes a touchscreen for interacting with them.

Price and full specifications are not yet available.

Tag Heuer

Unlike the B&O Serene, Tag have followed a fairly conventional design so this one looks like something I’d actually want to be seen using.

You can see some photos over at Stuff.TV – as you’d expect, the phone looks exceptional and has a wealth of timekeeping functions.

Tag are running a competition to win a personalised Meridiist of your very own at Meridiist-phone.com – enter your email, watch an aspirational video and wait for the draw on November 2nd.

Sliding the outside cover away reveals an inner box with a magnetic closing flap – nice touch!

The phone in its protective foam packing. The first thing you notice is the odd dimensions, it seems much longer than a normal phone due to the 4” wide screen.

The second thing I noticed was the inclusion of a standard MicroUSB plug for charging – this will soon become ubiquitous as the big manufacturers have all agreed to adopt this style of adapter next year but it’s nice to see companies getting in early.

It’s a small point but one worth mentioning – a standard 3.5mm headphone jack makes it a usable multimedia device without any additional cable hassle (HTC are you listening?)

Physically the gloss black finish gives the BL40 a high quality look. Flipping the phone into landscape mode automatically changes the on-screen keyboard from a phone keypad style to a QWERTY layout.

That’s it for now – I did say it was a first look! A more detailed review will follow when I’ve had more time with it, but I’ll leave you with the headline specifications:

• 345*800 pixel display (WVGA resolution, multi-touch)
• Wifi (b/g)
• Bluetooth
• 3G, Quad band GSM, HSDPA 7.2mbps, GPRS, EDGE
• 5MP camera, LED flash
• 1.1GB internal memory, MicroSDHC expansion
• A-GPS
• FM Radio
• DivX video playback

Back in March I enthusiastically extolled the virtues of my original Sennheiser CX300 in ear headphones. This outburst was brought on by the release of Sennheiser’s CX300 II Precision in ear headphones.

At the time I hadn’t tried a pair but after seeing them on sale for £13.99 from both www.7dayshop.com and www.play.com I took the plunge. These are in fact the Eco version which simply means that they are packaged in recycled cardboard rather than the traditional, impossible to get into, plastic.

In use

I have to admit I was worried that these new headphones wouldn’t live up to my expectations.  Their massively discounted price did nothing to reassure me either although it did make buying them much less of a risk.

I’m very happy to report that the sound quality that made me love the originals is still there in spades.  Sennheiser have boosted the bass and and volume levels and the result is a very clear and rich sound that’s a noticeable improvement over the originals.  Another improvement is in the wires which are now more supple and have less of a tendency to curl and tickle your chin.

In the Eco friendly box

• CX 300-II in ear headphones
• Ear pieces (Small, Medium and Large)
• Carrying pouch

Features

• 2-year warranty
• Noise-isolating
• Ear pieces to suit various ear canal sizes
• Frequency response: 19 to 21000 Hz
• Impedance: 16 ohms
• Connection: 3.5 mm angled plug, gold-plated (2.5mm available in black only)
• 1.2 m, asymmetrical cable
• Available in; black, white, silver, pink and red
• Weight: 11g

Conclusion

The proof of pudding is that they’ve replaced my original CX300’s which have been relegated to being the backup set.

With an RRP of £39.99 they’re a good buy but heavily discounted down to £13.99 they’re an absolute bargain and not to be missed.

I’ve been waiting for the best part of a year to post this, but at last it’s official – Kiloo and Manomio have launched a Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone!

Including 5 free games (Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck and Jack Attack), the emulator faithfully reproduces the graphics and sound of the iconic home computer.

For more information go to c64iphone.com, or just head over to the app store to pick up your own copy for $4.99:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=305504539&mt=8