LG GW620 Android Smartphone

 

LG's affordable slide-out QWERTY phone with Android doesn't live up to its spec-sheet

 

 

Decent hardware QWERTY keyboard, Android OS, decent camera, value for money

Unsatisfactory display sunlight legibility, phone hanged on a few occasions, slightly laggy interface, call quality not up to the mark, resistive touch-screen not as responsive as capacitive ones on competitors, low battery life on heavy use 

Google Android OS is picking up steam in the smartphone race. The fairly competent OS is tempting all major manufacturers to churn out Android-based smartphones of their own. While HTC has a few good phones in the Rs. 20k+ tier, Samsung is dominating the sub. Rs. 20k range with their Galaxy and Spica models.

Joining this clan is LG's GW620. The USP of this product is its slide-out hardware QWERTY keyboard, which is not seen till date in any model in the under Rs. 20,000 range. The spec sheet of this phone is appealing with Wi-fi, 3G (HSDPA) support, the 5 mega-pixel autofocus camera. But a good spec sheet doesn't necessarily translate into the phone being good as well, right? We put the GW620 through its paces to find out if its actually worth your time and money.

Design and Build
If it were for looks, LG's GW620 would be rated as satisfactory. It's not jaw-dropping, nor is it super-sleek. The metallic border surrounding the phone and the grey-black color combo at the back adds some character to this otherwise typical-looking phone. The build quality is good; the phone feels fairly solid and should survive quite a few drops. The sliding mechanism is pretty smooth as well. The phone does feel a little bulky in the pocket because of its thickness. But the overall dimensions are acceptable -- at least it doesn't feel like a brick when placed to the ear!

The front is covered by a 3-inch touchscreen. Unlike most Android phones that have the finger-friendly capacitive screen, the GW620 rather implements the older resistive type. The picture quality is good and the maximum brightness is adequate. The touch response, to me, was a mixed bag. At first, it seems OK to use. The surface covering the screen isn't super-smooth, which obstructs finger-swiping maneuvers at times.

One soon realizes the considerable difference between this and the capacitive screens on phones like the HTC Legend. You'll see how you have to press the screen a little harder to register an input on the GW620's resistive screen. On a capacitive screen though, touch input is smooth.

Bottom line: I didn't really walk away satisfied. Second, the readability of this display under bright sunlight is bad. I could barely make out what was on the screen when standing out on a sunny day.

There are touch-sensitive buttons for Home and Back underneath the screen -- which are actually nice to operate. The Menu button at the center oddly, is a typical push-button. We have a microUSB slot (now found on most cell-phones) and volume control buttons to the left. A power/keylock button and 3.5mm headphone jack lies on top. The microSD card slot, a camera shutter key and a music-player shortcut button lie to the right. The camera sensor is paired with a single LED photo assist light at the back. There's also an ambient light and proximity sensor right next to the earpiece.

Coming to the slide-out QWERTY, the five-row keyboard has well-sized keys. Their tactility is pretty decent. With some practice, I was able to type at a decent pace. The hardware QWERTY is good for people who aren't still comfortable typing on a touchscreen.

User Interface

The LG GW620 comes with Android Version 1.5 (Cupcake). This is two steps behind the latest major release, Android 2.1. Nonetheless, it has all the basic Google applications like Gmail, Gtalk, Google Maps, Youtube etc. built-in. Unlike HTC's heavy-duty skinning (a.k.a the Sense UI) on Android phones, LG keeps modifications to a minimum.

Their "S-Class" UI offers a slightly redesigned home-screen and a categorically arranged menu (which is nifty). The default dialer does not support smart-dialing, a feature that lets you quickly search for contacts by typing their name out on the num-pad. Fortunately, third party apps can take care of that. In portrait mode, you can type only with an on-screen numeric pad. This is mainly because it would've been difficult to fit a usable QWERTY board in that small screen width. When you turn the phone around, there's no virtual QWERTY board there either. So, for data input you can either use the on-screen num-pad (when in portrait mode) or the slide-out QWERTY keyboard (in landscape). 

In portrait mode, you can type only with an on-screen numeric pad. This is mainly because it would've been difficult to fit a usable QWERTY board in that small screen width. Nonetheless, the numeric keypad is handy to quickly type without sliding the keyboard out.

It comes with QuickOffice that lets you only read MS Office files, not edit them. The GW620 advertises about its DivX playback capability. But while it may support the popular video format, it can't read the typical 600x300 something resolution files we generally use. So one can't just drag and drop videos onto the phone and expect them to play. One has to probably downscale the resolution, which renders the concept of "plug and play" kinda useless. This is disappointing, and unlike phones from Samsung (like the Jet), which play DivX files without need for any conversion. There is an application by the name of SNS that connects to your Facebook and Twitter account. But it's not as functional as dedicated clients for FB/Twitter.

The overall operation of the UI is not very smooth. This is especially evident when you have a couple of widgets on your home-screen. The lag is also noticeable while browsing content-heavy websites (ours included). Secondly, the phone managed to hang around five times during our usage. There was no other way but to pull out the battery in order to restart the phone. The overall usability experience was mediocre. We weren't too happy with these shortcomings.

 

Performance

Call quality
Phones these days are a feature-galore. But what's the point if the calling functionality isn't up to the mark, right? The call quality on the LG GW620 is unsatisfactory. The caller's voice didn't sound very clear at our end, while our voice wasn't sent across to them with good clarity. We're not sure if this is a problem with our test unit, or a general issue with this model. Hopefully, GW620 owners will help us out here by sounding off in the comments section below.

Multimedia

The bundled in-earphones deliver average audio output. They would definitely be incapable of satisfying an audio connoisseur's ears. Thankfully, the 3.5mm jack allows the user to connect a better quality set for superior audio quality. However, after connecting our Creative EP-630's, we were able to get decent clarity on it. The FM radio reception was pretty clear.

The camera sensor delivers acceptable quality. The photo light sensor does help brighten up dark environments, provided the object is in close range. Other than the typical White balance, ISO and scene settings, it's also got a couple of interesting modes like Beauty shot, face tracking and smile shot. The macro mode works fine. You can geotag photos as well. The video recording output is smooth but slightly pixillated, and a little under acceptable quality.

Data transferred from our PC to the microSD card in the phone over USB at an average rate of 5-6 MB/s.

Battery Life
The 1500 mAh battery made us feel that the phone would deliver decent battery life. But our expectations were marred when the phone didn't even last a single day with heavy usage. When we say heavy usage, we are referring to the use of push Gmail, Google talk, Google maps, Wi-fi, a couple of hours of phone calls and heavy fiddling around. Under such circumstances, it lasted for barely half a day on a full charge.

So the phone could probably survive a full day if you were using it in moderation.  

Price and Verdict

The LG GW620 sells for a wallet-friendly price of Rs. 15,000. Considering the feature set, the pricing is fair. If you're looking for an Android phone with a hardware QWERTY keyboard under Rs. 20,000, this phone is (unfortunately) your only choice right now. The LG GW620 is a mediocre phone overall. While we acknowledge what LG was trying to create, they have a few unplugged holes in their product that one can't ignore.

We wouldn't recommend this phone. If you want an Android phone for under Rs. 20,000, take a look at the Samsung Spica/Galaxy brothers, or the HTC Hero (if it's still in stock). If you want one with a QWERTY board, your only choice right now is to extend your budget by at least Rs. 10,000 and get the Motorola Milestone.