Interface, features and conclusion
Interface
We have to say that Android is a pretty good effort. Believe it or not this reviewer's first experience with Android was the Nexus One, but it was snatched away before a review was possible. Nonetheless, the lasting impression it left on us was of being intuitive and easy to use, and that has clearly been the case for a while.
The LG GW620 runs Android 1.5, whereas the Nexus One was designed with Android 2.1 in mind. But, to be honest, we didn't find ourselves clamouring for all the additional features found in the newer Android.
All the important stuff is there: easy syncing with Google cloud services like Gmail; the easy, intuitive settings section; Google Maps navigation (although the GPS seemed to have accuracy issues), etc. Some of the stuff takes some getting used to, like adding/removing shortcuts from the homescreen (press and hold screen to open add menu, press and hold icon to reveal trash icon), but once you've sussed them out they seem obvious in retrospect.
There isn't s special social networking-friendly UI like HTC sense or Motoblur, but there is an app called SNS (social networking service) that allows you to add Facebook, Twitter and Bebo accounts to the phone. This SNS is relatively rudimentary compared to other such social networking assistants but, while you don't get a ‘push' feed, you can set it to auto-update every 30 mins and there's always manual refresh. We like the fact that it warns you about the data charge implications of all this voyeurism too.
Camera
There's apparently an auto face-tagging feature that allows you to link a face to a name and then, in principle, the phone ‘recognises' the person whenever you take a photo of them in future. To be honest we struggled to get to grips with this - not helped by the fact that the micro SD card kept becoming ‘unmounted'.
Talking about the camera - 5 MP seems perfectly adequate and there are quite a few cute photo and video editing options. But the sharing menu only offers email and Picasa/YouTube, not Facebook, etc, so this is another shortcoming of the social networking offering.
As well as Gmail and Moxier Mail, there is a push email option, and it is pretty straightforward to set up for Exchange. You get an audio alert and a discrete on-screen notification when email arrives, but some kind of little flashing light is always handy for push email, and none were forthcoming. The software is perfectly adequate, although the only way to get to the inbox from an individual message by using the ‘back' button. An on-screen option would've been nice too.
Battery life
The LG GW620 runs a good,old Qualcomm MSM7200 processor, which is an order of magnitude lower power than Snapdragon. With that lower multimedia performance comes lower power requirements, and we found both the standby and in-use battery life of this phone to be good. There was no need to recharge every night, as is the case with most high-end smartphones.
Conclusion
There's nothing about the LG GW620 that makes it stand out - everything is just adequate - but that's the point. You can do pretty much anything you might want to do with a smartphone on this, and easily. It has to be said: Android is a good OS, especially when it comes to ease of use and intuitive interface.
Probably the only thing that is outstanding about this phone is the QWERTY keyboard but, perhaps more importantly, nothing pissed us off about it - it just worked. If you've yet to upgrade to a smartphone, this one is perfectly adequate and, at the very least, is a great stepping-stone before you take the plunge with a top-end one - especially since you can get one for about half the price, or less, of an iPhone or Nexus One.
The good
Top QWERTY keyboard
Relatively affordable
It just works
The not so good
Rather old version of Android
Social networking is a bit rudimentary
UI still has room for improvement
HEXUS Rating
LG LW620
HEXUS Where2Buy
T-Mobile is offering the LG GW620 for ‘free' on tariffs starting at £20 per month for 2 years.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
