LG Arena Review
I suppose you know LG KM900 Arena in the amount of times. Presented last February at the MWC in Barcelona, the phone caused a big media impact and first impressions were quite positive, his main complaint was the premiere of a user interface S-Class 3D of considerable fluidity, original design and an apparent simplicity of use.I have no doubt that this is one of the most interesting phones of this season, no shortage of reasons.
We start the analysis with the idea that the LG Arena is an exceptionally well-equipped phone with almost all the features that are demanded in the market, a powerful hardware, 3G connectivity (HSDPA), WiFi, GPS, FM transmitter and receiver, plus a generous 8GB of internal memory.:
Design, construction and display
The first thing that draws attention to meet physically, which is the small size presents a phone that has a 3 inch screen, its weight, not exceeding 105 grams also helps create this feeling. The exact dimensions are 105.9 × 55.3 × 12 mm, smaller than his brother LG Renoir, or an iPhone.
For taste, colors, but in this case I do not think anyone dislike the design of the LG KM900 Arena, simple lines (not too original), has a metal frame around the screen at the front, so which gives an elegant touch. Discuss that some European operators will sell a version dark gray metallic (Titan Black), which for now we have no record of appearing in the Spanish market.
The rear is easier if it is made with aluminum-like material. In general I like the quality of its construction, materials used and their design, which revolves around the main protagonist, the touch screen.
One type of capacitive touch screen with 3-inch, 16 million colors, made with TFT technology, which delivers great image quality, high brightness and contrast, and a resolution of 800 × 480 pixels (WVGA), with a density pixels phones that boast more than this, such as the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1.
With these specifications there is more to be said that the screen looks great but I like some aspects OLED option chosen by Samsung, I had the opportunity to test the recently analyzed S8300, since the LG screen is quite complicated see the light of day, an evil which also is present in almost all terminals LG.
The response of the screen is quite good, it acknowledges the light touches with movements, so the sensitivity of it has left me quite happy to comment, that the technology can not use a stylus on it.
Other elements in the front of the camera phone is video-calls at the top, and the three function buttons on the touch screen. The centerpiece is a shortcut to the hub interface and on each side of the typical functions and call hang up.
We continue reviewing the terminal, and we find that we have left in your USB port, properly covered with a slide, but unfortunately it is a proprietary LG.
At the top we have a useful 3.5mm jack connector, the power key and a button to open the back cover. While the right to have the volume keys and camera. By the way all of a size quite content, too much for my taste.
We arrived at the rear of the arena, there are a 5 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens and LED flash, which you will talk later. One downside is that no details have been agreed to design a cover for the lens.
Before opening the lid covering the battery, saying that the terminal has a second microphone for sound recording in video capture. Once inside we find a 1000 mAh battery, and microSD card slot (up to 32GB, interchangeable without shutting down the device).
The battery is not one of the strengths of the terminal, but frankly longer than I expected, given the size of the screen, and gives a fairly complete, we might last a couple of days
According to the manufacturer of their autonomy is 300 hours standby time, 4 hours talk and 30 hours playing music. If it is interesting to recall that the battery is removable.
S-Class 3D, an interface to match
With an excellent screen and a hardware at the same time, the Korean company has bases in order to present a user interface to match, perhaps the most important feature on a phone today.
The interface consists of 4 different desktops: widgets, contacts, shortcuts, and multimedia. As we can see in the video accompanying the analysis, move between them is quite simple with simple gestures or movements with the center key which gives us access to what might be called “the cube”, a three-dimensional image in which each side is one of the desks.
Firstly, we display the shortcut, which appears initially empty, and it can put up to nine icons, I’ve actually found this little utility to desktop first, considering that the main menu is prepared in an excellent manner, giving access to all the mobile options.
The next screen allows populate it with widgets, small applications floating on the desktop, which are an analog clock, a calendar, world time, time, FM radio or a calculator, among others. If we do not have enough space, we can use the vertical scroll on the screen to place or view more widgets.
Interesting to notice that the widget appears at the top, which also serves as a shortcut to the calls, messages or emails.
The third face of the cube can be defined as a shortcut to our main contacts are displayed in a carousel of images held in a beautiful 3D rotated and optimized for touch. For those who do not want much flourish, it is also possible to view these contacts in a more traditional.
Finally we have the multimedia desktop, similar in concept to the contacts, but with two carousels, one for music and another for images. As for contacts everything flows smoothly with a decent three-dimensional effect.
Having reviewed the 4 desktops I would comment that we have under the same 4 main menu options, including the last which gives us access to the main menu with all options on the phone, and as I said before turning the phone us all the options on screen at once, once familiar, access them very fast.
The LG Arena is a multi-manager, through a menu you can switch to another active application or close it does not interest us. How to access this manager is to hold the center button.
Multitasking is limited, only two applications can run at once and when we talk about Java, we have to live with other problems, for example with a Java background can not connect to the radio.
Discuss that we have another menu in the top bar, where we meet signs of battery cover, so if we click on it (this is the only way to access this menu) to access different functions quickly as you can be activating the Bluetooth or WiFi connectivity, switch profiles, or view appointments pending.
Remarkable results as a phone
The capabilities of the LG Arena as telephone remarkable levels of reception, quality and the speaker itself is above average, a point that for some secondary and now seems that LG has managed to give importance.
Once this point note, we wonder whether the administration of the main agenda of options, calls and messaging are optimized interface to your touch and I am able to say that once adapted to the screen, the options are with ease, as much as could be done in an iPhone.
We have two opportunities to write on the screen, use the alphanumeric keypad, or turn the screen and use the QWERTY keyboard. Our presses both respond without delay, but in the case of full-size keyboard keys could have been greater.
I liked the easy to set up email, at least in my case with the Gmail account, we also support for POP3 and IMAP4 protocols. The management is quite complete, once downloaded can search through the emails, sort or filter by any criteria.
A less interesting detail is that the attachments have a 1MB limit, a restriction that we limit the duration or quality of our photos or videos, for example.
To my taste the calendar and contact management is great, optimized for touchscreen use, attractive design, the contacts are displayed alongside a picture and a call button. We can access this from a more information on contacts and tasks.
The connectivity of the Arena are excellent, we are faced with a terminal Quad Band GSM / GPRS (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps), we also have WiFi connectivity and Bluetooth (2.1 with A2DP stereo).
The terminal uses the same connector to charge the battery, such as USB, or television outlet, in particular I like to use the phone as an external drive via this connector, accessing both the phone’s memory as to the microSD card.
Average Camera phone
We have already spoken on many occasions and mobile cameras, the famous and the megapixel race, in this case, LG has decided to raise in 5, an amount which on paper seems to be sufficient to accompany the new terminal.
Optics is signed by Schneider-Kreuznach, and the choice for the flash LED has been the technology, which together can not get good results too.
The quality of the images displayed on the terminal display look great, but once transported to the computer see more noise in the phones come with similar sensors.
The interface used is new, completely touch obviously, we can configure the settings and typical as you can see in the second video that accompanies the publication is quite attractive.
Multimedia, a star point
On the basis that the LG Arena comes with 8GB internal memory, and it is also expandable via microSD slot, we have an ideal platform for transporting information.
To facilitate the multimedia aspects, the phone has a standard jack connector 3.5 mm, the ability to listen in stereo sound via Bluetooth. As you can see in the pictures the phone with Dolby Mobile certification.
Multimedia files are accessible from the menu or from one side of the cube, the first we have access to the files themselves (in folder structure), while in the second we are elected in our files a three-dimensional carousel . I liked that the files in main memory and microSD not appear together on the navigate them.
To view images and videos LG Arena has two modes depending on the orientation of the phone. In vertical mode, so they are sorted by date, type or name, while in landscape mode are shown in perfect 3D Master File and the next / previous to each side.
We have the option to mark files with a star, which will appear on the face of the cube. Once you have chosen an image can be zoomed in on her way multitáctil.
Regarding the music, we have access also from the cube in a faster way but basically (again the carousel), or from the menu, we have the complete player, who appears according to the orientation of the phone.
Another aspect is the transmitter / FM radio receiver, it has RDS (two lines of information), and we also have a widget to place in the bucket.
Otherwise fairly achieved, is the video playback, thanks in part to the generous screen size and resolution (800 × 480 pixels), it can play files in format DivX / Xvid, both vertically with the screen rotated, the phone will automatically detect their position. No I forgot to comment that has TV output.
The Arena features to YouTube integration, and we can upload videos from the terminal, but it is curious that we can not do it via WiFi, but through our connection to the operator, an incomprehensible detail.
Web Browser
It is not an element that highlights over other terminals, most would say is that the browser is merely decent, despite having chances to do multitáctiles striking (but less fluid than a iPhone), the loading speed is slow.
The browser works on guidance to give you the phone and the only way to put it into full screen landscape mode, so if I find a detail that is negative does not have Flash support.
If I want to emphasize that history will keep the pages visited, in order to view them offline also interesting that while browsing can be searched by keywords.
Frankly, I preferred to install Opera Mini, I find it more comfortable working with him, despite not having a full-screen mode.
Conclusions
LG has complied with the progress needed to place the sand in front in the world of mobile telephony, at least cover my expectations in terms of interface and multimedia issues, especially if we use as reference the Apple iPhone.
Ultimately we found a nice-to-use terminal, which highlights the screen multitáctil, a considerable internal memory (expandable microSD), a fairly complete connectivity (WiFi, GPS …), to which we add a decent camera or details as Certification Dolby Mobile.
It seems as if they had developed the Arena, taking as reference the iPhone, and adding just what is missing in this, but it is a pity that in such a deployment LG has not tried to copy Apple’s terminal in the most interesting applications of his shop, because if the weather is not cure, compared with the competition, we face a fairly closed system.
If you are interested, you have more information on their availability in the various operations on the site.
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3 Responses to “LG Arena Review”
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I got my LG Arena, still getting to grips with it; creating menu short cuts and fiddling with the ring tones and things but it’s the email that I find the most tricky to sort out. It can be a pain in the neck to set up, in my humble opinion, and always takes the longest of all the features in your phone to organise.
If you’re looking for some tips on how to sync up your email accounts on your KM900, check out LG-Arena.org They’ve got an all-encompassing, how-to on the subject.
You’ll be able to have your server and web based email trussed up in their relative accounts in no time.
LG arena is an excellent phone. Screen is wonderful, very responsive to touch. The only problem is with the divx, since often it doesn’t work.
Hi, I own an arena, in general I’m very happy. Just I feel that the contact manager is really very poor. And I can’nt find any JAVa or LG… soft for this pourpose, similar to other mobs…
Any idea?.
Thnks & bst rgds
Jesus