LG KE970-Shine Review - Features

Shine boasts a solid feature set, and being an unlocked/unbranded handset, it ships without any "carrier deck" items (Cingular Music, Sprint TV, Verizon VCast, etc.).  This is either a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective.  From my point of view, it makes for a clean look and feel without a bunch of unwanted carrier logos.  Most WAP-based carrier services can still be accessed by setting up browser bookmarks.  Additionally, you can install certain Java applications - including Opera mini - to augment the handset's functionality. 

LG built shine with a basic but very serviceable music player capable of handling mp3, aac, aac +/++, and wave file formats.  Shine comes packaged with a 3.5mm headphone adapter with an in-line remote control and integrated mic.  The remote allows access to high-quality headphones for music playback, handsfree calling, and remote navigation of music files and contacts. 

Contact and personal information applications on Shine are fairly standard, but very pleasant to use thanks to the handset's lush display and LG's design sense.  Out of the box, menu fonts on Shine are just a bit classier than those on most carrier-branded phones, and both list and icon-driven menus are clear and easy to understand.  I did find certain tasks - navigating contacts, for instance - required a click or two more than I thought they should have, though it wasn't a huge deal. 

Shine also features a document viewer that supports .doc, .ppt, .xls, .txt., and .pdf files, which is a handy addition for fashion-forward executives.  Documents, music, images, and other files can be stored in the phone's 50MB of internal memory or to a microSD card.  The handset also supports USB mass storage mode for file transfers to/from computers.

The 2.0 megapixel auto focus camera with Schneider Kreuznach lens and LED assist light takes pretty good snapshots though they do suffer from some noise problems. Images aren't quite on par with 2 or 3mp cameraphones from Sony Ericsson and Nokia, but shots taken in good lighting conditions are suitable for use on the phone (in MMS messages, as wallpapers, or caller ID photos) as well as transferring to a computer display or printing in smaller sizes.  That being said, the LED light doesn't do much to help in poor lighting conditions, and it can only be set to "always on" or "always off," as no auto-flash mode is to be found.  A standard range of color, white balance, and quality settings is available, and a rapid shot mode adds to the fun.  Then again, noticeable shutter lag and delay while the phone saves your image to memory detract somewhat from the fun. 

The camcorder can shoot 3g2 format video with sound at 176x144 resolution and 15 frames per second.   Clips can go as long as you want, provided you have sufficient memory available in the phone or on a memory card.  Cameraphone videos came out decently, but you're not going to want to shoot videos regularly with this phone.  One oddity about Shine's camera is that digital zoom is available when shooting video, but not for still image capture.   Next: Display & Audio »