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I was recently looking for a new cell phone and of course my 10 year old daughter had to approve it first. I wanted a flip phone that is easy to use, a good camera, Bluetooth compatible, GPS, and music. My daughter wanted an MP3 player, a camera and video, easy texting and “something cool looking”.
I decided on the LG 8600. It was a great price and had everything on our wish list. I was replacing my cheap old Motorola; the Chocolate is thinner and has a black shiny shell. That was a great selling feature for my daughter, yes it apparently looks cool. She was also very excited by the music abilities; it has a music player that plays MP3 and WMA songs which is easily accessible with touch-sensitive music keys on the outside. It has quite a nice MP3 music player, my daughter just loves it. I should warn you though it does not come with a USB cable to download MP3s from your computer. Downloading songs from the web onto the phone is a big argument in our home. She wanted to be able to listen to music, understood, but I don't want to pay the ongoing download fees. With a young daughter, I had to really watch the download costs and impose a strict limit. As you guessed it, in the end I bought the LG USB cable to solve any future aggravation.
The screen is nice and big too, a sharp and clear 220 by 176 pixel display. This screen has great resolution and seems clearer than I'm used too. It's not blocky when I watch video, and the sound nicely syncs with the video. It comes with a complimentary game but my daughter has since uploaded a few of her own, she thinks it's easy to use for texting and gaming. Menus and files are easy to open. Telus included a 1GB memory card, a card reader/writer and stereo headsets. It was preloaded with Telus mobile music, Navigator, mobile radio and email.
The phone has a 1.3 mega pixel camera at the top, the camera buttons and rocker volume buttons are on the lower sides. These are easy to reach and very convenient when accessing either device. I love it because it's less fumbling, and my daughter loves it because she can play without anyone noticing.
The phone comes with some great basic applications include Gps, Calculator, Alarm Clock, Scheduler, Notepad, EZ Tip Calculator, World clock, and a Voice Memo. My old phone only had the bare basics. The contacts file has the standard five hundred entry phone book with the options of picture ID, mobile phone unit, home phone, email address, and the home address.
Overall, both my daughter and I are very happy with our new phone. It's sleek and cool with very easy to use buttons and we love the phone and MP3 player. Telus gave us a hot price, along with a great plan for my business that includes lots of text so my daughter can keep in touch with her friends, I can't believe all her friends with their own phones, I guess I will be getting her, her own phone soon. I really like this phone and would recommend it to my friends and any other parents.
Released in November of 2008 - this slider phone still has much to offer, and is available for purchase for use on the O2, T-Mobile and Orange network services. It comes in a variety of colours, and weighing in at 119g, it will fill a space in your pocket or handbag which measures 107mm x 52mm x 13.9mm. Altogether, it is a compact and attractive hand-held device.
With MMS capability, messaging is easy on the large 240 x 320 pixel wide screen LDC display, but without Instant Messaging capability. The number of records it can hold in the phonebook is impressive - 1000 names when fully stocked.
Connectivity is not as fast as is possible in the phone world - it does not support 3G, but this is counterbalanced for the person who likes their phone to be able to take decently sized photographs. The camera is capable of 8 megapixels resolution, with Face and Smile Detection. When set to “face tracking” on the menu, and the camera button is pressed half way, the camera will automatically focus on the face in front of it. Pressing the button again focuses on the ‘in-shot' face, so one is able to refocus as many times as needed for that perfect photograph.
Smile detection is also a feature of the camera - this relies on the movement of the sides of the mouth - when a particular angle of movement is reached - the camera automatically takes the picture - with no need to depress the camera button.
The phone does have EDGE, Bluetooth and an XHTML Browser, but not WiFi or WAP. It has a USB port and a memory card slot, enabling external connectivity and a memory boost, if required. The Bluetooth capability enables the phone's camera to be used as a web cam. Staying within the Bluetooth range allows free movement while talking when using this feature.
The KC780 Reina comes complete with an FM tuner and an MP3 ATRAC Playback facility, thus catering for the person who enjoys listening to music, their favourite FM radio DJ broadcaster or catching up on the news and weather during the day.
The LG KC780 Reina uses a proprietary operating system, and the battery, when fully loaded, allows 3 hours talk time or 250 hours stand by.
The phone offers D1 video recording facilities. The phone games are java based.
What we didn't like:
The LG KC780 Reina does not seem to be able to sync with Outlook. For some this will make it a non-starter. When the memory is full, the user has to elect to swap over to the card memory instead of the phone doing it for you automatically. It is also not very clear how this should be done. It's a bit fatter than other 8 megapixel camera phones on the market.
What we did like:
The LG KC780 Reina makes accessing the internet really easy. When downloading tunes or pictures the handset works really well. The camera pictures and video quality are good, and sharp. Texting is easy due to large screen size and the ease in using the menu. The sound quality is good however the loudspeaker could be pre-set a little louder - this also results in a soft ringtone.