Introduction, exterior
It’s been sitting behind a glass in Barcelona. We couldn’t take it out so we’ve been looking for someone for ours who might have the right to even say something about the product. We’ve thought that it’s just a dummy, only fiction, a vision of the future that won’t hit stores very soon.
We were wrong, very wrong. I hold it in my hands and if I wouldn’t be playing with it I wouldn’t believe that this exists, not to say that it works. It’s a non-probable thing, but also beautiful. Anyway, what is it in fact?
LG GD900 Crystal is the world’s first phone that has a completely transparent keypad. This slides from the bottom and it first seems as a simple piece of glass. Of course on second thought, it’s not just simply that. And it’s not only for typing numbers, no way. It has a multitouch interface, which, when used cleverly, can be used for doing all kinds of extra stuff with the handset, it can be great when reviewing pictures, browsing the web or when getting around the menu. This here, my friends, is a transparent touchpad.
And you can pull this from an LG Arena-like phone, which has a touchscreen display, an 8 megapixel camera, WLAN support and it has the S-Class user interface which was introduced on the phone I just mentioned. There might be more feature-filled devices, we could find mobile phones made of higher quality materials, but one could hardly increase the enjoyment factor.
The glass and handling
Not for sale, preproduction beta, marketing sample. Any of these notions means that we’ve got something special, a non-final test model, an internal sample, which usually doesn’t really get out from the manufacturing plant. It took some really fortunate circumstances to have it in my hand right now.
Anyone who saw it, immediately asked to try it. People just couldn’t believe that such a thing exists. The glass keypad is really made of glass (it’s told to be scratch-resistant), I’ve used a magnifying glass to spot the circuits, but I had no chance. The production mechanism is LG’s best-kept secret, but after some research I found another company, a manufacturer called Elan, who have made a similar product. Of course they won’t tell either how does it work (I personally think we are having some ultra-thin circuits), it could be that LG bought the license from them.
It doesn’t matter.
LG GD900 is a beauty. The purple-white backlight is cool in dark as well, while the transparent glass is the most attractive part in light. After taking off the back this surface might seem even slimmer, it’s touch-sensitive only on the front. The question is: does this have any meaning at all?
Well, it has in some cases. What we can do with our fingers on the keypad (zooming pictures, rotating the S-Class interface, handling the browser) are all available on the touchscreen as well. And it’s usually somewhat more comfortable. But the glass panel helps when typing, we can enter the characters in a normal fashion. We could do without it, just like in the case of LG Arena, but then we would be missing a wonder. You can check out a short video right below:
Functionality
We’ll disclose the details in the full review, as the software still does some strange stuff sometimes and its speed wasn’t perfect either. Still, it’s about the same thing we’ve seen on LG Arena, and although the screen is much smaller, in turn we get an 8 megapixel camera. There is still HSDPA, WLAN and Bluetooth 2.0 support and of course we can enjoy the benefits of multitouch technology as well. Thanks to the gyroscope the menu can automatically rotate in many places and the S-Class system has the same features.
Umm, in fact it’s not exactly the same. GD900 now has two themes, besides the one with a black background there is a white one as well, which improves readability a lot. In terms of applications and features, however, I couldn’t find any differences after the short check, but I didn’t like that we can’t fasten searching in the contact list by pressing a letter key on the glass keypad, only after first tapping the zoom. Of course this could change by the time the final phone is launched.
Another change is that the data- and charger connector – hidden in the top left corner of GD900 – doesn’t use LG’s own standard anymore, but it connects with microUSB accessories and cables. There is no 3.5 mm jack and since the phone came without any kind of accessory, I don’t know whether the headset that will ship with the phone can be taken apart or not. Let’s hope for the better.
Since I had the handset for three days I can already share my experience with the battery. The capacity of the module, placed under the semi-transparent back panel, is unknown, but it didn’t need no charging during these three days (it was full when I inserted my SIM card) and it had some power reserves when I gave it back. And consider that I have been using it continuously.
Of course GD900 won’t be cheap. It has the functionality of LG Arena plus a bonus data entry method, so we will surely have to pay a serious sum. This is an exclusive phone, it’s unique, but it’s also usable at the same time. Sound quality is already flawless, but the case is not made of metal. The glass keypad makes it really special, so we’re waiting for the final version to have a more decent test.
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
