LG KF510 - starry, shiny

Foreword, packaging

Nowadays rarely gets such a phone announced that makes my heart beat faster, but it still happens once and a while. For example in Barcelona, at the expo called Mobile World Congress, as at LG’s stand I could tamper with a number of exclusive devices, but I have been waiting for the coming of KF510 at most, as the phone’s design and speed have astonished me. I have been a bit sad when we have received KF600, but it finally turned out that it was worth to be patient, as thanks to XXL GSM I have received one for testing. A red one…


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In the last few years it became quite obvious that LG has to be taken seriously, very seriously. Although there are a few who don’t like the phones of the Lucky Goldstar, but I have a really positive attitude towards them, as most of them combine a great design with nice features and functionality, while bugs and flaws that we could have seen in the beginning are now disappearing. For example I might mention KS20, the PDA-phone that really stirred up the waters of the Pocket PC market. KF510 will probably not do such things, but it’s still worth looking at it in detail.


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So, it’s XXL GSM, mid-sized sleek package, and the usual accessories: charger, data cable, headset. And of course there is the phone itself in shiny red, of which I have been freaked out at first, but I have finally got used to it. And now I am really crying for it, it’s just enough to take a look at this pink, officially not yet announced Nok… I’m sorry, let this be a surprise!

Exterior

Well, the one that has been at me was a red one, but there is a another, black, edition too. To tell the truth this has black too, as the phone has gradient coloring, which looks absolutely great in my opinion – if I don’t want to be subjective then I could say that it’s very special. On top of the reflective front there is a speaker, that is the handsfree speaker too, while below this we can see the 2.2” QVGA display, which is of a great quality. In the bottom we can find touch-sensitive navigation control, which is also unique and easy to use – I will go into details about this on the next page.


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After sliding the 104.5 x 49.5 x 10.9 mm large, 91 gram device open we get to see the numerical keypad. The sliding mechanism isn’t the usual one either, as KF510 works similarly to a Nokia luxury phones: we don’t slide the keypad down, but the display upwards. It’s hard to imagine for those who didn’t see something like this before, but I like this kind of solution. The numerical keys are of an appropriate size, they have a good pressure point and a reticular surface, just like you can see on the picture below.

The metal backside is also gradient colored, there are no special design elements on it. We can take it off by using the button on the bottom. The phone’s camera and microSD slot appear after sliding it open.


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In the top right corner we can find the charger/headset connector, which is protected by a high quality cover. The power button slider is in the center, while under it we can find the camera’s exposure key, which also functions as the music player’s hotkey. We can unlock the keypad with these keys, without sliding the phone open.

The volume control keys are on the opposite side, while on top we can see the neckstrap’s hook. The bottom of the slim handset is completely empty.


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Menu, handling

The menu system is based on a working scheme. It has 12 icons in a grid layout, all of them are accessible via a numeric key, while we can change between the menu items by pressing the horizontal control keys, so we don’t have to reenter the main menu – we could have seen this many times before on LG devices. However, KF510’s touchpad is different.


Kétféle téma

The panel has a backlight in nine spots by default, which are under the following keys: five-way navigation pad, call accept/reject keys, two function keys. There’s no extra about this, but the system works great, firstly because the parts are far enough from each other, while secondly because KF510 gives vibration feedback after every successful keypress – vibration power can be set. The navigation pad, however, cannot be lit only at these spots: there are a number of “stars” (according to LG) on it , which also sense our finger’s motion, and in case of specific events they get lit as a feedback. If for example we save a setting, then a checkmark is drawn in the bottom – this is only design, but it looks really great. Scrolling, however, is much more useful: we just need to stroke the panel vertically or horizontally with our finger. This method works great, as according to stroking speed we can scroll minimum two, maximum four lines/menu items with one scroll. There is quite a large difference between two- and three-line scrolling, but it’s quite hard to scroll four lines at once.

Scrolling was extremely successful during everyday use. I was very comfortable with its use, I was completely satisfied with it. And it even looks cool.

There are three pre-installed themes on the phone, two of these being the same with different color schemes – light blue and orange, but to tell the truth none of these match with the red phone. On the standby screen we can see some basic infos like date, time and signal strength. When pressing the direction keys we can access all kinds of quick menus, like messages, profile changer or the list of favorites created by us.

Software, phone calls, data transfer

We can see that KF510 is a fashion phone, since there are tons of ringtones and wallpapers ready to use, while many of the latter are animated and look great. Organizer functions, however, are not that good, as the calendar has no week view, even though this wouldn’t be too much to ask. Other basic stuff – calculator, sound recorder, alarm clock, world clock, stopwatch, unit and currency converter – are all available in the list of features.

The internal memory is 16 MB large. This is where multimedia files, pictures, MMS messages and emails are stored. There is an email client on the phone, which supports authenticated IMAP servers. The web browser is based on Obigo technology, it doesn’t have many features, so this phone is not the best choice for those who want to surf the web. There is a dedicated memory space reserved for calendar entries and notes, we can store 100 of both of these. There can be 500 SMS messages on the phone, while the phonebook can store 1000 contacts. There are quite a lot of extra fields, but there are some missing, that would be quite basic ones, like title, or work address.

The phone works only on GSM-based networks, it doesn’t support 3G. The GSM module is a tri-band one (900/1800/1900 MHz), and we can use GRPS or EDGE for data transfer. Bluetooth has version number 2.0. I didn’t have any voice quality-related problems during phone calls, and I could use the phone very well in handsfree mode too.

Multimedia

The camera is a 3 megapixel one with autofocus. It’s quality is exceptionally good, it makes pictures with a low noise level. The dynamics range is also higher than the one we could have got used to in cell phones, so it’s not sure that we get a white sky even when taking pictures in bright sunlight. The highest available resolutions are 2048 x 1536 for pictures and 320 x 240 for videos.

The camera can be accessed by keeping the exposure button depressed. The software is very advanced, and what’s even more important: it’s fast. The software picture stabilizer is an extra feature, which unfortunately doesn’t really work in practice. The flash can function in red eye-reduction mode, which means pre-flashing. We can also set white balance, exposure correction in a +/- 3 EV range, there are 20 different steps. JPEG compression can also be set manually: at medium and low levels the phone compresses very much, which might come in handy when there isn’t much free space on the memory card. Pictures have an average size of 600-1500 KB at best quality. Besides these we can also apply effects, use a self timer or image sequencing, but sensitivity cannot be set unfortunately. Let’s see a short video about KF510’s camera’s software, which we have made in Barcelona at MWC:

The musical part is okay. We can find the FM radio and the music player in the Multimedia menu; both of these can run in the background. There is an equalizer with 10 presets, but unfortunately we cannot set new ones. The player can display ID3 tags, accentuated letters, but not the album covers, but instead of these we can stare at a nice visual effect. Sound is of medium quality through the speakers, but it’s quite good on the included headset.

Battery, summary

The battery has a capacity of 800 mAh. According to the specs it provides 400 hours of standby time or 4 hours of talk time, the latter being quite precise. I had to charge the phone at every two day, with heavy usage.


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Summary: KF510 is one of the masterpieces of the fashion phone category. It’s beautiful, it’s high-quality, it’s slim, it’s unique, but it’s not as conceited as a Nokia Prism for example. Its features are enough for the average user. As for the cons I could mention the small internal memory, the lack of 3G and the calendar that has no week view. It has nothing to be ashamed of in other terms, so it deserves a Recommended award.

LG KF510

Bocha

Translated by Szaszati

LG KF510 has been provided by XXL GSM. The phone can be bought at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Budapest VI. Teréz körút 18.
On-line at www.xxlgsm.hu.

Specifications

LG KF510
General
TechnologyGSM
Size104.5 x 49.5 x 10.9 mm
Weight91 grams
Available colorsStardust Dark Grey, Sunset Red
Display
Display diagonal2.2”
Display resolution240 x 320 pixels
Display typeTFT
Number of colors262 thousand
Memory
Phonebook capacity1000 entries
SMS memory / max. MMS size500 / 300 KB
Internal memory16 MB
Memory expandabilitymicroSD
Data transfer
Frequency bands900/1800/1900 MHz
GPRS / EDGEClass 10 (4+1/3+2) / Class 10 (236,8 kbps)
UMTS / HSDPAnone / none
IrDA / Bluetoothnone / 2.0 (A2DP too)
WiFinone
USB2.0
Push-to-talk / RSSnone / none
GPS receivernone
Basic functions
Profilespresent
Vibra functionpresent
Built-in handsfreepresent
Voice dialing / voice commandsnone / none
Sound recorderpresent
Alarm clockpresent, also when turned off
Predictive text entryT9
Software
PlatformLG proprietary
WAP / HTML browser2.0 / present
E-mail clientpresent (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated)
Javapresent, MIDP 2.0
Games2
Currency converterpresent
Extra software-
Multimedia
Main camera3 megapixels, autofocus
Secondary cameranone
Video recordingpresent (max. 320 x 240 pixels)
Music playerpresent, can run in background
Equalizerpresent
FM radiopresent
Battery
Main battery800 mAh Li-Ion
Standby time400 hours
Talk time4 hours
Other
Unique navigation touchpad
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