| The Korean mobile phone maker LG has recently | | | | stable to make us of open source application which, as |
| unveiled its first Android smartphone – the LG | | | | Sales and Marketing Director of LG, John Barton, |
| InTouch Max GW620. First announced in September | | | | admits, “signals the end of expensive and exclusive |
| and released in November last year, the new handset | | | | applications and the start of applications for |
| is now available from T-mobile offering a 2-year | | | | everyone.” |
| ₤20 a month contract with unlimited data and from | | | | Hardware-wise, the LG InTouch Max GW620 is a 3G |
| Virgin Media for an 18-month ₤22 a month contract | | | | phone with HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA for high |
| with unlimited text and data. | | | | speed internet access that enhances your surfing and |
| It comes in a choice of body colors – black, gray | | | | social networking experience while on the road. It’s |
| and blue. The new smartphones heralds LG’s first | | | | also your basic quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 2G |
| foray into the emerging platform of choice among the | | | | as well as a dual band UMTS on 3G. |
| latest smartphones. It still uses an older Android 1.5 | | | | There’s WiFi 802.11b/g, A-GPS and the usual |
| “cupcake” but this shouldn’t hinder an | | | | Bluetooth 2.0 and microUSB 2,0 for local data |
| upgrade path to the latest version. This essentially | | | | connectivity. If there’s anyone feature that can lay |
| brings to 4 out of the big 5’s of mobile phones up | | | | claim to being remarkable is its 5-megapixel autofocus |
| on the Android bandwagon with Nokia still taking its | | | | camera with LED flash, image stabilization and face |
| time to join. | | | | detection as well as WVGA video recording as a |
| Upscale Features at a Glance | | | | cinema-grade 30fps frame rate. This puts the Max in |
| The InTouch Max is housed in a full-QWERTY side | | | | the league of upscale camera phones in the market. |
| slider body measuring 109 x 54.5 x 15.9mm and | | | | Its 3-inch QVGA resistive touchscreen display with |
| weighing a hefty 139 grams – something you’d | | | | 256k color support may be disappointing to some who |
| rather put on a holsters than in you pocket. There’s | | | | are now getting used to large Wide-VGA displays and |
| not much of a stand-out as its feature set is mostly a | | | | capacitive touchscreens following the iPhone example. |
| mix of the good and the mediocre we’ve basically | | | | But that won’t be surprising when we consider the |
| come to expect from a decent smartphone. | | | | rather modest contract prices from either T-mobile or |
| Software-wise, it has pretenses to being a social | | | | Virgin Media. Internal memory is modest at 150 MB but |
| networking smartphone like most other recent | | | | you get up to 32 GB of microSD of external memory |
| smartphones on the market. You get instant access to | | | | expandability. Talk times are decent at 8 hours on 2G |
| SNS Facebook and Twitters accounts where updating | | | | as well as 600 hours on its 1500 mAh lithium-polymer |
| is often made easy depending on how well your | | | | battery. |
| fingers type on a QWERTY keyboards at this size. | | | | You can visit Moby1 to compare all the best mobile |
| You get a decent MS office document viewer/editor | | | | phone contracts. There you can compare all the latest |
| as well as motion-sensitive games. And talking about | | | | LG InTouch Max GW620 deals on offer. You can also |
| applications, it has access to around 20,000 online apps | | | | search through the best deals available for PAYG |
| more than half of which are free for downloading. | | | | phones. |
| This makes the Max a first in the LG mobile phone | | | | |