19 May 2008
The LG KF600 also called the LG Venus was an innovator and an improvement on the LG KF510 as handsets accepting that some people think touch sensitive and keypad inputs are both useful for different functions. The LG KF600 is a great mobile phone based on a great idea, and is in some ways better than the Samsung U900 Soul that copied its main ideas, but it's not better in every way.

The LG KF510 had a touch navigation pad that had back lighting that responded to user interaction. The responsive lighting did relatively little for functionality except to show that input had been recognised. The LG KF600 went a step further by replacing the touch navigation pad with a touch screen, again sitting below a non touch screen. This InteractPad blends in perfectly with the phone, which is a lot more than can be said for the Magic Touch DaCP on the Samsung U900 Soul. The LG KF600 measures 101.2 x 50.7 x 14.4 mm. and weighs 107g. The thickness is the biggest disappointment especially when compared to the 10.9 mm thickness of the LG KF510 and even the 12.9 mm of the Samsung U900 Soul. But enough moaning, the LG KF600 have put a 2 inch TFT screen and a 1.5 inch touch sensitive screen together on the front of a smart black slider mobile phone. The design of the KF600 is truly seamless.

As you navigate to different areas of the menu on the LG KF600, the menu options displayed on the InteractPad change. So when you're in the music player, the music controls are displayed, and when you're in the camera mode, you use it to change the different camera settings. But like on full touch screen phones, you aren't looking to find which button corresponds to which feature on the screen. The touch screen is quick and responsive and the icons it displays are easy to understand. The screen also extends the full width of the normal screen above it, making it much faster to scroll left and right unlike the Samsung U900. And like the LG KF700, there is a slight reactive vibration you can switch on to acknowledge each time you press a button. We also like having a normal keypad that slides out despite having a touch screen for menu navigation. What becomes harder is seeing anything except for a price advantage of the KF600 over the LG KF700 that has one large touch screen in place of the KF600's two separate screens.

The LG KF600 has a very good 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and 4x digital zoom. It is extremely fast and responsive like that of the KF510. However, we would have liked to have seen a high resolution camera as it is a higher grade of phone. The digital camera has an LED flash and a superb image stabiliser that makes a noticeable different on the KF600's photos. The video recording is surprisingly good for a mobile phone, and the fast updating viewfinder makes life a whole lot easier.

Featuring the same media player as the KF510 the LG KF600 can play the same wide range of video, MP3 and other music formats. The volume of music played over the phone's speaker was low, but as fans of public transport we'd consider that a good thing. Just use the provided earphones or a bluetooth headset and you can listen to all your music at a better volume. The internal memory of 40MB doesn't go a long way towards replacing your MP3 player so the LG KF600 has a Micro-SD slot for the standard Micro-SD cards up to 2GB in size. Again, with the jump in model, we'd have liked to see a feature improvement to take Micro-SDHC cards up to 8GB in size.

The KF600 is a triband phone but it is not 3G and certainly doesn't have HSDPA. It's speed maximum is that supported by the EDGE network standard, faster than standard GPRS but not matching up to 3G phones. It's a shame because the web browser is great to use with the InteractPad, and for that same reason we'd have loved to have seen Wi-Fi. The talk time battery life is quoted as a low figure of "more than 2.5 hours" but we definitely succeeded in talking for longer on this handset, so why LG quoted the battery life this way is beyond our comprehension.

There's a lot about the LG KF600 that we don't quite get. It's really good, but it suffers from middle child syndrome, being stuck between the KF510 and LG KF700 that were announced and released at a similar time. Looking at the LG KF700 it appears so much easier for it to be better, and looking at the LG KF510 the question is whether LG have put anything extra into the additional thickness other than the touch screen. If it weren't for the LG KF700, we'd probably love the KF600 without question, but that's just going to be the LG KF600's place in life.

Find out more about the LG Venus at uk.lge.com
Read other reviews at ecoustics.com