LG KS360
Discontinued 13th July 2008
A fairly unremarkable looking phone
at first glance, the LG KS360 looks like a pretty
standard slider phone when you first see it. But the
unique selling proposition here is that the slide-out
keypad has a full QWERTY arrangement rather than a standard
number pad.
Yes, we have seen plenty of QWERTY keyboards
on phones before, but rarely on a device as compact
and as affordable as the LG KS360. At 102 x 51 x 17mm
in size, the KS360 is about the same size as a typical
"candy bar" monoblock phone. And although
we don't know the exact pricing of the KS360, LG state
that it is aimed at young consumers which indicates
that it won't be too expensive.
The keyboard on the KS360 is interesting for a couple
of reasons. On the positive side, the key spacing is
very good which should help when composing messages.
On the negative side, the layout is a little more creative
than usual - the space bar is where the V and B keys
usually are, so the bottom row of keys is split. It's
perhaps not as bad as the Dell
Vostro keyboard because you won't be expecting to
touch type on the KS360, but it still might take
a little getting used to.
The
screen is a 2.4" 240 x 320 pixel panel that can
display in either wide or tall orientations, switching
automatically when the phone is rotated. LG also say
that the KS360 has "touch screen dialling",
so presumably there is some sort of touchscreen technology
built in too.
On the back is a basic 2 megapixel fixed
focus camera, and the LG KS360 also supports microSD
expandable memory (there is 15MB available internally),
USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 and it comes with a multimedia
player, web browser, email client and instant messaging
support.
The KS360 lacks 3G or WiFi support,
but then it does look like it is going to be quite an
inexpensive handset. At the time of going to press exact
pricing is not known. There are four possible colour
schemes (depending on carrier) - titanium/blue, white/pink,
black/red and black/silver.
This is a good looking phone, and clearly
the main selling point is the slightly quirky QWERTY
keyboard. We expect to see it out some time during the
summer.
|
LG
KS360 at a glance
|
Available:
|
2008
|
Network:
|
GSM
900 / 1800 / 1900
|
Data:
|
GPRS
+ EDGE
|
Screen:
|
240
x 320 pixels, 262k colours
|
Camera:
|
2
megapixels
|
Size:
|
Medium
slider 102 x 51 x 17mm
/ Weight n/a
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
microSD
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
|
Yes
|
GPS:
|
No
|
Battery
life:
|
Not
specified
|
|
|