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