L G was founded in 1958 by the name of Goldstar and in November 1962 the first Goldstar telephone was launched in Korea followed by a refrigerator and a black and white television. In March 1968 the first overseas company was founded in New York. And the 13th of April 1978 Goldstar became the first company in electronics that reached an export figure of 100 million dollars. They changed their name from Goldstar to LG Electronics in March 1995. LG Electronics are currently market leader on the field of electronics in Korea and claim a considerable market share in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and England where they have been active for some years now. This year, in January 2007 to be precise, LG introduced the LG KE970 Shine. The slogan LG has brought into this world together with the LG Shine is: “Born to shine” which it certainly does! LG will undoubtedly try to make the LG Shine equally successful as the LG Chocolate or even to surpass the latter’s success. The LG Shine surely has its appearance speaking for itself but what will we find in its interior? How the LG KE970 Shine performed in practice can be read in our LG Shine review.
LG KE970 Shine - Design
The first thing that strikes you when you hold the LG Shine is its gleam but of course that is exactly LG’s intention! The telephone feels like it’s of high quality and the battery cover of the telephone confirms this, as it is made of metal. It is the right finishing touch. On the right side of the phone the buttons for the volume and the MP3 player have been placed next to the button for the digital camera. The numerical buttons are made of plastic and of a nice size. At first sight these buttons appear to be made of metal. On the front of the LG KE970 Shine the scroll dial is positioned that lets you scroll through the menu.
LG KE970 Shine - Menu
Pressing the multi-functional scroll dial of the LG Shine brings you into the menu. The menu is innovative and easy to work with so you will soon be able to find all the main functions. There are two options that you can choose from as to how you want the menu to appear on your screen: as a list or as grid reproduction. In order to get the most out of the scroll dial I consider the list the best choice. The menu items are then reproduced in text, one right below the other, including a tiny icon. Once used to the list reproduction and the scroll dial, you will scroll through the menu in no-time at all and you will be able to quickly find a setting or function and confirm it.
LG KE970 Shine - Camera
Like most modern telephones of today; the LG Shine is also equipped with a digital auto focus camera. This camera offers 2 Megapixel and a Schneider-Kreuznach lens. If you want to use the camera, all you have to do is press the release button and the camera will be activated. In addition, the LG Shine features a small flash that you can turn on and off. In on mode, the flash will be on continuously. A pity LG didn’t equip the LG Shine with an automatic flash because now you have to turn the flash on and off which makes you miss the photographic moment.
LG KE970 Shine - Shutter lag
The camera suffers from shutter lag, which is not surprising. When pressing the release button completely down, it still takes a while before the camera actually makes the picture. Writing the picture onto the memory card of the camera also takes some time and that was rather annoying at times when I wanted to take pictures sequentially. Despite the flash the LG’s camera encounters some problems taking pictures in bad light conditions. The effective range of such a small flash is obviously rather limited. And due to the fact that it takes a while before a picture is taken, they suffer from blur as a result of jitter in badly lit circumstances.
LG Shine - Camera quality
In general pictures taken by the digital camera of the LG KE970 Shine are fine, certainly when you take them outdoors in broad daylight. You can select various qualities and resolution settings. The lowest resolution is 320×240 and the highest is 1600×1200 pixels. Besides that you can choose from the following quality settings: normal, fine and superfine. Pictures made in the highest resolution and in good light circumstances are sharp and their colours are vivid. In larger rooms, badly lit, it is kind of hard to take pictures. Unfortunately they do suffer from digital noise. The white balance settings work well. When a picture turns out a bit yellowish or bluish, just adjust the white balance setting and the image will go back to its normal colour.
LG KE970 - Camera settings
The digital camera of the LG Shine offers many setting possibilities. Besides the quality settings it offers the possibility of setting the self-timer, a macro function, exposure metering values, a multi-shot mode and adjusting colour settings. The multi-shot mode is very convenient when you want to capture subjects that move fast. This mode does not solve every problem, for example shutter lag, but it will enable you to at least catch your subject, if you press the shutter button on time. For colour effects, black/white, sepia, negative and normal are available.
LG Shine - microSD memory
You can enhance the LG Shine’s memory capacity by using a microSD memory card. There is a choice from many cards with different capacities and speeds. We chose the SanDisk 2GB microSD memory card because of the stability and speed of the SanDisk memory cards. You could also choose to purchase the 2GB micro SD Memory Kit. Not only will this give you a microSD but also a miniSD and an SD card. There are various possibilities of transferring files from the microSD memory card to a computer. A good choice would be the SanDisk Mobile Mate SD + 5 in 1 card reader. It is a very small card reader and therefore easy to carry with you.
LG KE970 - MP3 player
LG have placed a button on the outside of the LG Shine for activating the MP3 player. It saves you going into the menu and search for the activation mode. The MP3 player is easy to use and operation of it is straightforward. Pressing the MP3 player button immediately shows a list of all the songs that are on the phone. The selected song can be played by pressing the scroll dial. LG deliver a headset with the LG KE970. The cable is divided in two which is very convenient. The first part functions also as an adapter which enables connecting a normal headset.
LG KE970 Shine - Monitor
When extending the telephone in order to open it, the mirror-like surface of the monitor of the LG Shine changes. That needs getting used to when using the phone for the first time. In the beginning you don’t see the menu but only the reflection of yourself. After a while you will see through that and it won’t bother you anymore. Rendering on the screen is fine, very clear and the colours are bright. Unfortunately, in sunny weather it is almost impossible to see anything on the monitor. You will have to go through a lot of trouble to get some shade on the monitor to be able to see what you are doing.
LG KE970 - Battery
The battery used for the LG Shine is a 3.7 Volt, 800mAh Lithium Ion battery that performs really well. I have left the telephone alone for eleven days after which it had to be recharged again. That comes down to approximately 260 hours which is close to the 280 hours LG claim. Also the talk time is quite accurate. I have made phone calls for about 1 hour 55 minutes before having to recharge the battery again. The calls themselves were rather short but I also made a lot of use of all the functions the telephone offers at the same time. So the three hours the manufacturer claims seems to be the correct estimation.
LG KE970 Shine - Numerical buttons
The numerical buttons of the LG Shine are hidden underneath the slide. Their size is fine and they feel great. Even those people among us with broader fingers won’t encounter any problems operating them. Below the screen the true innovation of this apparatus is placed: the scroll dial. This multi-functional scroll dial makes operating the LG KE970 extremely easy and quick. When you turn the scroll dial up, the menu function goes up, when you turn it down, the menu function goes down. As you can see; a very intuitive and easy operation. During writing short text messages (using T9) you can even choose the words by turning the scroll dial, very clever!
LG Shine KE970 Conclusion
T he LG KE970 Shine is a mobile phone that will appeal not only to the trendy man or woman but also to the gadget freak. It has an easy operable MP3 player and operating the menu functions is just as quick and easy. Of course it can do with improvement on some points, for example an auto flash. It is very inconvenient having to turn on and off the flash every time you want to use it or stop using it. The monitor is excellent, although rather difficult to use in bright sunlight, which I more or less expected when I saw this phone for the first time. All in all LG have put a remarkable high quality telephone in the market, with solid exterior and a trendy appearance. The LG Shine is easy to operate which will be to the benefit of the novices among us who are just starting to use a mobile phone. In short the LG Shine is a real must!
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