LG KG320

Although the candy-bar LG KG320 is neither the slimmest nor the smallest cellular on the market, it’s an affordable phone with good multimedia features. Interestingly, the KG320’s display takes up a good half of the real estate. Combined with a streamlined keypad design, the overall effect is to make the LG seem more like an MP3 player than a phone. The numbers on the keypad are huge and prove responsive and comfortable to the touch. The navigation pad is intuitive and easy enough to access, with our only gripe being the center button. This is simply too flushed with the navi-pad to offer any tactile feedback when pressed. The KG320 had no problems at all in terms of reception. Audio quality over the ear piece lacked bass, but was still acceptable. Unfortunately, voice dial and voice command are not supported. Battery life was average, with the KG320 lasting just three days with average use. However, LG also includes a second battery with the phone. The KG320 includes wireless connectivity options, from Bluetooth and USB to triband GSM support, although there is no Infrared port. The included browser supports WAP 2.0 compliant pages, but with the low-resolution screen, browsing is quite limited, and you will probably do best to stick to your carrier’s portal. The SMS and MMS system worked well, although it may not be fast enough to keep up with a user’s typing, though new words can be added to the built-in T9 dictionary.

The KG320’s music player is compatible with most of the common audio file formats including MP3, AAC, AAC+, M4A, WMA. It also comes with onboard support for MPEG-4 video playback. What’s missing, though, is an FM tuner. One drawback is that the music player can’t work in the background. Listening with the provided ear buds, the KG320 sounded tinny and lacked bass. The LG KG320’s 1.3 megapixel camera is capable of capturing images in five different resolutions, and provides quite an impressive range of settings for users to tweak. A big letdown here is the time the camera takes to activate - the user is left waiting for three seconds before the camera starts, and shutter lag is an agonizing three seconds on top of that. The KG320 is also capable of recording video clips. Though the KG320 does not have an external memory card slot, it provides 128MB of on board memory, which is adequate for most casual multimedia users. The LG KG320 is a very stylish phone, but those looking for major multimedia features may want to explore other models.