Introduction
As we might have expected, the resolution increase, brought about by Samsung Innov8, has affected the other manufacturers as well, one of the results of this process being LG KC910 Renoir - I might begin the review this way, but let’s admit it, it wouldn’t be really practical. Instead let’s think about what kind of handsets are available today that have an 8 megapixel image sensor: there is of course Samsung Innov8, as the first European phone, or the handset called Pixon from the same manufacturer, which has the same resolution, but a different type of image sensor. We also have Sony Ericsson C905 and the subject of this article, the new handset from LG. That’s the end of the list, we have four phones, from three manufacturers. Don’t we miss something?
Well I do, as a matter of fact two manufacturers are missing from the list, one is Nokia, considered to be the alpha and omega by many users, and Motorola is not here either, though they are amongst the five largest ones. They have some financial and other problems which block them from launching such a high-res phone, although thanks to their cooperation agreement with Kodak we can be sure that something’s coming sooner or later. On the other hand, we don’t know what’s with Nokia, who have recently announced their latest multimedia-wonder, N97, which will still have a 5 megapixel image sensor that can be soon considered as a veteran. Fanatics probably see the greatness of their favorite manufacturer in this phone as well, saying that the Finnish guys won’t join the war. The situation is much more complicated, I can hardly imagine that the largest manufacturer has material/technological problems, so the question remains open. It is, however, thought-provoking that LG is the third manufacturer who has launched such a solution. We have written this so many times that it’s a cliché: one should pay attention to the smaller Korean company as well.
LG KC910 Renoir – the name is interesting for two reasons. Firstly because the direct predecessor, Viewty, has been a member of the KU series, but it looks like after the model number 990 the manufacturer has decided to switch series, so they have launched this phone in the KC series, which had only one member that’s worth to mention, this is KC550 with a 5 megapixel camera – we can see on both models that there is no connection between the resolution and the model number. The other question is that why they had to use the name of the 19th century impressionist/classicist painter for a camera phone? It’s clear that the manufacturer likes to name its handsets after celebrities, but this smells like some marketing crap, as no famous motorcycle champion or Pierre-Auguste Renoir have to do anything with photography, and most of the potential buyers know as much of the painter that have been taught to them on art history class a couple of years ago – which means not much. I don’t want to be unnecessarily annoyed, but I think I’m not the only one who thinks that this makes art look like a cheap thing, but putting the creations of a French painter as wallpapers on a phone, what a thought… oh, and it’s not just a thought: this is reality.
Package, exterior
The handset has been provided by XXL GSM, thanks for it. The mid-size, quite nice box has the handset, an in-ear handset that can be taken apart, a network charger, a data cable and a very strange stylus inside. This might be even funnier than the eye-liner thing that came with Omnia, as the stylus of Renoir is inside a small leather case and we can tie this to the phone.
The first thing that pops into our mind regarding Omnia is that it’s very light. Te reason for this is that they have used lower-quality materials, as although the handset really seems extremely light in our hands, it’s not really that light, as it weighs 128 grams. The case is not very robust; the 14 mm thickness comes with a height of 107.8 mm and a width of 55.9 mm. One more thing about the materials: plastic and plastic everywhere, they have used that mediocre quality one, which somehow doesn’t match to such a high-class handset.
On top of the front there is the secondary camera used for video calls, while below it there is the light sensor, both are hidden, it’s hard to spot them at first. In the center there is the 3”, 240 x 400 pixel touchscreen display, having a rather soft plexi finish. Its color depth is 18 bits, picture quality is great, sensitivity is medium, it might be rather strange tapping the Renoir after an iPhone. The fron is very shiny, which is the reason why it has some blue tint on these pictures here – this is due to the sky’s reflection, the handset itself is more like silver/grey colored. There are three buttons on the bottom, the ones on the sides are used for call management (well, yeah, for initiating/accepting or denying them), while the center one takes us to the menu.
The back is rather minimalistic, even though this is where we can see the largest “ad” on the phone, the autofocus lens for the 8 megapixel image sensor, manufactured by Schneider-Kreuznach. On its left there is another light sensor and the Xenon flash.
On top of the handset there is the button used for taking off the back, on the right we can see the volume control keys, the keypad lock and the exposure key. There is nothing on the bottom, as the microphone is near the buttons under the screen. On the left there is the microSD slot, the charger/headset/data cable connector and the hook for attaching the stylus/wristband.
Hirdetés
Menu, software
The menu system can be familiar from the Prada/Viewty line, so I won’t write too much about it. On the bottom of the standby screen there are four softkeys, the icons are rather self-explanatory, the one on the left takes us to the dial screen, the two middle ones are for the phonebook and messaging, while the rightmost one pops up the menu. There is a button labeled W above the fourth one, this brings up the Widgets, which can be put anywhere on the Renoir painting wallpaper. It’s a positive thing that if we deploy lots of widgets the screen becomes vertically scrollable, so we can put as many stuff as we want, there is no limit.
The main menu has icons, it has four pages, we can switch between these with the vertical icon bar on the right. The top one is the communication part, here we can access everything that is related to phone calls/messaging – the email client is here too. The second icon opens up the multimedia tab, and this is where we can access the file manager and the games. There are 3 + 2 of these installed, the bonus ones are not really games, but applications based on the built-in gyroscope: wheel of fortune and dice throwing, super. The three real games are Asphalt 3, Bubble Bash and Diamond Twister. It’s important to note that we can find Google Maps too in the games section, which is although similarly fun, it can be much more useful than the trio of games.
The third tab of the menu system is for the applications. This is where we can find the pretty good web browser, Google search, the calendar, the to-do list, the alarm clock, the notepad, the voice recorder (that can record until there is free memory), the basic calculator, the unit- and currency converter, the world clock, the stopwatch and Jogging buddy, which is a kind of personal trainer or what – ok, not completely, it just measures our performance when running, that’s in case we don’t feel sorry for shaking LG’s 8 megapixel wonder to hell.
The last tab is the configuration panel, there’s not much to write about over here, we can access anything we need. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have dedicated icons, so we can turn them on very quickly if we need them.
Phone calls, data transfer
The data communication arsenal is complete. The GSM module is quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), so we can use the phone in any corner of the world. We can use GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and 7.2 megabit HSDPA for data transfer, of course it’s not us who will choose the protocol, the handset will use the fastest network available. We can make video calls with the help of the frontal camera, and for data transfer we can use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well – the first is of course for web browsing, while the second is for transferring files or for connecting headsets, fortunately KC910 has no limitations in this matter, it supports stereo headsets as well. There is a GPS receiver onboard, we cannot use it for navigation, but it can locate us on Google Maps. It does this really fast, as it’s aGPS-compatible.
During phone calls I had no problems at all, sound quality was great, the only strange thing has been that the volume control keys are a bit deep, but I’ve got used to them after a couple of calls, so I had no problem with setting the volume. Strangely the phonebook can store only 1000 names, but these can have an image and a couple of extra infos. We can use scrolling for browsing the names, which works really fine in the whole menu system – if this is not enough, we can quickly access the alphabet letters with the slider on the right, so dialing doesn’t take much time. The call log can display dialed/received/missed calls separately or on the same list, Renoir remembers the last 40 of each type.
I’ve already mentioned messaging, the e-mail client supports attachments up to 1 MB and it had no problems with IMAP servers with authentication. SMS and MMS messages are at the same place, multimedia messages are stored on the 100 MB internal memory, just like emails. We can type texts in three ways: numerical and QWERTY keypad or handwriting recognition. This is not better than solutions from other manufacturers, but the first two are easy to use, as the handset gives shake feedback for every key pressed. In the numerical view the buttons are large enough to be able to use them even when on a mass transport vehicle.
Multimedia
So, the camera’s resolution is 8 megapixels, the highest available resolution is 3264 x 2448 pixels, but if we’d like to save some space we can opt for 5, 3, 2 and 1 megapixel resolution, or VGA/QVGA photo. There are tons of settings, with a bit of an exaggeration we have all the configuration options that are available on a compact digital camera, although there are of course no manual exposure settings. There are, however, preset modes, five of them in total, we will probably use night mode the most. Exposure-correction can be +/- 2 EV, stepping is 0.5. Sensitivity can be set between ISO 100 and ISO 1600, the whole thing is usable until ISO 400, but above that we’ll get a whole lot of noise on the picture, so this is more like marketing bullshit instead of a useful feature. Macro focus has to be set separately, just like face recognition autofocus; there is no exposure on smile. JPEG compression has three levels, we can tamper with white balance, we can enable a grid to help composing the picture and we have a software image stabilizer and “counterlight photo” mode too. I didn’t try this one, as I don’t like these software tricks – it is probably just a contrast balancing after exposure. The flash is Xenon, unfortunately I took no test picture with it, but I can still say that it’s powerful enough and it even has red eye reduction with pre-flashing. Last, but not least, I have to mention that we can imprint GPS coordinates on the phone (Geo-tagging), which means that the phone saves the location where the picture was taken to the EXIF information, so we can pinpoint the location on Google Maps. Oh, I nearly forgot, we have focus touch as well, which means that the camera focuses to the spot where we have tapped on the screen. It’s fun, but it’s not that useful.
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Well, I’m not at all impressed with image quality. Of course you can’t say all negative things about such a high-class device, it’s a fact that Renoir is amongst the best camera phones, but I think it takes lower quality pictures than other phones with the same resolution. The main reason for this is the low dynamics range, if we take a picture of a dark area the sky will surely burn, which is not a really natural effect. Noise level is rather high even at ISO 100 (which is ISO 67 according to EXIF), which has a negative effect on edge sharpness as well – on the other hand I can see why did they name the handset after an impressionist painter, if we push sensitivity high enough we can take photos that look like an oil painting. It’s a positive thing that the colors look great, there is no chromatic aberration and the lens has a rather wide view angle, at least for a mobile phone.
We can record videos at 640 x 480 pixels at most, and we have wide VGA mode at 640 x 384 pixels. We can turn on night mode during recording. You can download a short test video by clicking here. It’s important to note that Renoir supports DivX AVI files and the H.264 codec is implemented as well, so if you have a large enough memory card you can watch tiny movies as well. I would also like to mention the picture browser: it’s an easy to use application that looks really plain at first. It lacks all kinds of “magic” like zooming with a finger and stuff like that, but we can browse pictures with buttons, the only thing that’s automatic is rotation, which is done with the gyroscope.
The handset has an FM radio and a music player as well, this can of course run in the background, although we can’t really control it this way, as the widget can only stop playback, we can’t seek or skip tracks. The software can filter our tracks by ID3 tags, it can display album covers, it can seek, but it has no equalizer. Sound quality is great through handsfree and the default headset as well, but if we don’t like in-ear headsets we can use any headset with a 3.5 mm jack connector, as the lengthener has such an output.
Battery, summary
The battery has a capacity of exactly 1000 mAh, and it can be changed. It keeps the phone online for 1-2 days, based on usage, if you listen to music and make lots of calls you will have to charge it daily, that’s sure. Talk time is three and a half hours, based on factory information.
Summary: LG KC910 is basically not a bad handset at all. Its end-user price is currently about €370 euros. For this money we get a handset with a rather smart touchscreen, an 8 megapixel camera, and the whole thing is made of medium-quality plastics. It’s a fact that the menu system didn’t change much since Viewty, but it’s still a usable solution, not mentioning that currently LG’s phone is the only one to cost less than €390 EUR – it’s of course also true that this is the one that makes the lowest quality pictures of all 8 MP phones. It would be good to have an award for such occasions, one that is exactly halfway between Cool product and Recommended. Ah, what the hell, I’ll round it up:
Our MobileArsenal for culture column can be found after the specifications.
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| LG KC910 Renoir |
Bocha
Translated by Szaszati
LG KC910 has been provided by XXL GSM. The handset can be purchased at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Budapest VI. Teréz körút 18.
On-line at www.xxlgsm.hu.
Specifications
| LG KC910 Renoir | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM/UMTS | |
| Size | 107.8 x 55.9 x 14 mm | |
| Weight | 128 grams | |
| Available colors | Black/grey | |
| Display | ||
| Display diagonal | 3” | |
| Display resolution | 240 x 400 pixels | |
| Display type | TFT | |
| Number of colors | 262.000 | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | 1000 | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | ? / 300 KB | |
| Internal memory | 100 MB | |
| Memory expandability | microSD (SDHC-compatible) | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 850/900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / Class 10 (236.8 kbps) | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | present / 7.2 Mbps | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | none / 2.0 (A2DP too) | |
| WiFi | present (802.11b/g) | |
| USB | 2.0 | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | none / present | |
| GPS receiver | present (aGPS too) | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | present | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | present | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | none / none | |
| Voice recorder | present | |
| Alarm clock | present, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | LG touch controlled | |
| WAP / HTML browser | 2.0 / present | |
| E-mail client | present (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated) | |
| Java | present, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 3 + 2 gyroscope apps | |
| Currency converter | present | |
| Extra software | Google Maps, Muvee Studio | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | 8 megapixels, autofocus, Xenon flash | |
| Secondary camera | present | |
| Video recording | present (640 x 480 pixels) | |
| Music player | present, can run in background | |
| Equalizer | none | |
| FM radio | present | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 1000 mAh Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | 350 hours | |
| Talk time | 3.5 hours | |
| Other | ||
| Gyroscope | ||
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
I am proud to announce that we are launching our MobileArsenal for culture column, whose first part will be presenting the life and times of the renown French painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Our regular readers probably still remember our astronomy talk in the HTC Sedna review - which is in fact the herald of our MobileArsenal for space research column – or those crazy UFO stories we’ve written at the Toshiba G910. We hope that our current summary – which is now a bit more serious – will help you catch a breath of air in the wave of mass-produced phones – it helped me, that’s why I have written it in fact. Ladies and gentleman: Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Limoges, February 25, 1841. – Cagnes, December 3, 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style and a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality
Renoir was born as a child of a working class family, his father was a tailor, his mother a tailor assistant. The family moved to Paris when he turned 3, than they have found accommodation near the Louvre, which hasn’t been only a museum back then, but it has housed offices and homes as well. The artist began studying as a porcelain painter at the age of 13, while at the age of 15 he had such outstanding results that in manufactory he has been assigned demanding tasks, tailored to experienced workers. He made his own living and supported his parents as well. In his spare time he has been visiting the Louvre a lot. At the time when machine painting has been introduced he was 17 and the manufactory was closed down. After this Renoir made a living from occasional jobs, for example he was painting family crests.
Between 1861-1864 he has been studying art under Charles Gleyre, a Swiss painter. He has found other people to follow very soon: he has met Gustave Courbet and Diaz de la Pena by chance, who have encouraged him to look for inspiration in real life. He became friends with Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille and they have been painting together in open air. In 1864 the Salon in Paris has accepted a picture of his. In 1868he became successful at the same place with his picture titled Lisa with parasol, the model of this painting being Renoir’s love between 1865-1871, Lise Tréhot. His experience in open-air painting has proved to have a positive effect on his works made in his studio. Critics have observed the freshness and naturalism of his paintings – he still couldn’t really find people to buy his pictures, until the end of the sixties he has been so poor that sometimes he couldn’t afford even food. During the Prussian-French war of 1870 he has volunteered to the cavalry, but luckily he has been assigned to a unit far from the war theater. In 1871, upon returning to the capital, he has been captured by the Paris Commune. The rebels have declared him liable to military service, he tried to escape, but then he has been captured by the enemy.
After the fall of the commune he got in touch with his friends Monet and Sisley again, in the 1870s he spent lots of summers with them and Edouard Manet. One of his renown pictures has been created in this period: this portrays the Monet family in the garden of their house in Argenteuil. This theme has been painted at the same time by Manet, working one near the other, each on a different canvas. Renoir has gladly portrayed social events, the manifestation of happiness. One of the most famous of these pictures is Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette.
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The Theater Box, 1874, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
As opposed to Monet and other impressionists, Renoir has made all the efforts to be present at the official Salon expo, but besides this, as of 1874, he has been glad to participate on the first expo of the impressionists and later on the 1876 and 1877 editions as well. At this time he managed to sell paintings to art-dealers Paul Durand-Ruel and Père-Martin. Durand-Ruel, a great supporter of the impressionists, gave money to him for renting a studio. Renoir’s income has still been so low that he had a hard time keeping up livelihood. From the mid 1870s his situation turned for the better, since he got to know Victor Cocquet customs officer and Georges Charpentier editor who have charged him to paint portraits and a larger board painting. The influential Madame Charpentier has recommended him to many of her acquaintances and he received so many portrait painting requests that it proved to be too much from time to time. In 1881-1882 he had three longer travels to Alger and Italy. After his travel in 1881, where he examined a book about painting from 1400, he showed great interest in the frescos of Raffaello and the art of Jean-Auguste-Dominique. This was the beginning of the so-called “Ingres-period”, or “dry period”. Renoir turned to a completely new direction in art: from spontaneity to more elaborate shapes. The happiness of life has still remained persistent in his works. He turned from impressionism to classicism, from colors to shapes.
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Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette), 1876, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
At around he has fallen into a crisis. He felt uninterest from critics and his public and he has admitted being in an artistic dead-end. The peak of these years has been the painting entitled The Large Bathers. He studied for years in order to paint this picture. By the end of the 1880s he again finds pleasure in playing with colors, but he has definitely turned away from impressionism. In 1885 his first child, Pierre Renoir, is born, the mother being Aline Charigot, whom he met in the early 1880s. Pierre has later become known as an actor. His second son, Jean Renoir, became a movie director. As of 1892 the first sign of rheumatic asthma appear. The climate of the Mediterranean Sea affects his health positively, so in 1907 he settles in his country home in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nizza, which today functions as a museum. In spite of his illness he continues to paint, he keeps his brimming with life during the course of his sickness, he paints almost every day, until his death. He is gradually forced to use a wheelchair, he has his paintbrush tied to his hand, as he can’t hold it anymore. Pierre-Auguste Renoir died at the age of 78 in 1919, leaving thousands of landscape paintings, still life pictures, portraits, dance- and family acts behind. His grave is in the cemetery of Essoyes, count Aube in Champagne.
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The Large Bathers,, 1887, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa.
In 2008 a mobile phone is named after Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Source: Wikipedia
