LG Optimus 7: Windows Phone 7 meets DLNA

Expected Q4 2010
6th September 2010

The launch of Windows Phone 7 is still a little way off, but LG have given a further preview of the LG Optimus 7 range of handsets that will run Microsoft's new operating system. The preview handset shown this week at the IFA show is almost identical to the one seen earlier this year, although presumably there have been a lot of developments under the hood.

We believe that this handset is the LG E900, and it will form just part of a range of handsets.. although presumably not a very big range and Windows Phone 7 devices all have to be pretty high end.

The point with LG's preview was to show the integration between Optimus 7 and DLNA. Most readers will probably have heard something about DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), and it's basically a mechanism to share data between compatible devices over WiFi. Typical applications might be printing, or transferring music files to and from different devices, or playing a video clip from a phone onto a flatscreen TV. LG's idea is that the Optimus 7 range will form a key part of the DLNA network and work seamlessly with other compatible devices.

LG are big players in the home entertainment market, so they are more ideally placed than many rivals to work on DLNA, although the technology is designed to work seamlessly across compatible devices from all manufacturers.

This is all fairly advanced stuff though - most of the hardware in your home is probably not capable of this, so at the moment the Optimus 7's DLNA integration is probably going to appeal to a small number of "early adopters" only. However, Windows Phone 7 is a product desperately in need of some sort of unique selling proposition to attract interest, and perhaps this is it.

We can't tell you much about the LG E900 (or whatever the handset is) except that it has an 800 x 480 pixel display, 3G and WiFi and obviously a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. We're not even sure if this is the phone that LG will launch with, but we expect that more details will emerge from LG soon.

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