LG Viewty KU990 Review

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With todays camera phones, its not uncommon for people to think that the device they are seeing is a camera inside a cell phone. Of course, what with the high-tech features and the different camera functions, you feel as if you are really holding a stand-alone digital camera.

With the LG Viewty KU990, you get all these. A 5 Megapixel digital camera integrated into a mobile phone. A lot of manufacturers has had this combo already, like Nokia with the N82, Samsung with their G800 handset and the Sony Ericsson with the K850i. But these phones differ when we talk of image quality.

The Viewty KU990 is the first 5-megapixel phone produced by LG. The LG Viewty is up there with the leading camera phone makers with its large touchscreen, 5 Megapixel digital camera and multimedia player.

The Viewty is the successor of the LG Prada phone. LG already made a big leap when it comes to phone design. The Viewty comes in with near curves, elegant black colour and some silver-colored accents evidently present. The LG Viewty is the spitting image of a digital compact camera. An outsider will not recognize the mobile phone in it.

The LG Viewty has been equipped with a 3-inch 262,144 color touchscreen monitor. However, color reproductions can be labeled as only average. Also colorS are not well rendered on the monitor at times. In bright sunlight it is difficult to see clearly what is on the monitor. The touchscreen, on the other hand, responds very well. It is an improvement from the LG Prada with faster response time and you get a slight vibration whenever you use the touchscreen interface. Its a great way of giving a signal that you pressed hard enough. The pen for the touchscreen monitor comes with the Viewty and can be attached to the handset by a cord.

The 5-megapixel camera is the Viewty’s selling point. It comes in with an auto-focus function and equipped with a flash and an auto focus assist lamp. The digital camera is found on the back of the cell phone. Around the lens the scroll-wheel is placed for zooming in or out when photo mode is activated.

The flash has an effective range of 2.5 meters and enables shooting in bad light circumstances providing the flash is used within the effective range. The flash is not capable of exposing large rooms. Photographing of larger groups therefore is not possible because of the limited flash range. In situations with insufficient light for the camera to focus, the auto focus assist lamp will help. A red beam will expose the object in order for the camera to focus correctly.

A downside to the KU990 however is the shutter lag. When the release button is completely pressed down, it takes a while before the picture is actually taken. This makes it almost impossible to capture moving objects.

The LG Viewty has been equipped with an image stabilizer but unfortunately this is not an optical image stabilizer. ISO value will increase as soon as the image stabilizer is activated in order to enable faster shutter speeds. Regrettably noise will be significantly visible on the picture due to the higher ISO value.

But other than this, the camera performs brilliantly in well-lit situations. The camera supports up to ISO 800. It even offers a lot of settings that you can tool around with. You have the white balance, the file size, macro mode and picture quality. Additional functions like Multi-shot mode and self-timer are available. Black & White, sepia and negative can be set through the effect menu. The flash also offers red eye reduction feature.

And, when all your pictures are taken, you can store it on an external memory as the Viewty supports microSD memory cards.

Aside from its camera, the Viewty also boasts its music and movie capabilities. Its built-in media player can play most standard music formats out there. Operating the multimedia player is easy. The buttons are properly indicated as for which function they serve. The scroll wheel around the camera lens can be used to adjust the volume. The sound quality of the standard LG headset is fine; bass as well as high tones sound natural.

All in all, the LG Viewty is a compact camera phone - or you can call it a camera with a built-in phone if you want it the other way around. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement especially with the quality of pictures produced. Other features however are good enough. Someone experienced with the LG Prada before will like this phone indeed.

The LG Viewty is perfectly suited for everybody who wants a mobile phone with integrated high resolution camera, innovative techniques and neat design.

Sources:
http://www.phonearena.com
http://tech.propeller.com
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk