LG’s “Secret” to beating the iPhone?

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 25 June 2008 19:23

Mobility

On the same day that HTC unveiled its Touch Diamond, LG unveiled the “Secret” at a rip-roaring party that saw Sex and the City’s Mr Big (Chris Noth) dubbed a new LG phone ambassador, with former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins another celebrity star. So what’s the phone like?

Slim, svelte and fashionable, the LG Secret KF750 is the model it hopes will be the success secret to beating the iPhone 3G.

Well, it’s one of the models, LG has launched more than one touch screen phone this year which also looks iPhone-esque, but the Secret is the big fashion phone that is positioned as the successor to the LG Chocolate and the LG Shine.

It’s packed with features such as a 5 megapixel camera, a 2.4-inch touchscreen with haptic (vibrating feedback), auto-image rotation display, video calling, 3.6Mbps HSDPA, Bluetooth 2.0, a physical slide-down keypad for dialling and text entry, a Google package of different services, a tempered glass highly scratch resistant screen, video recording, the ability to upload videos direct to YouTube and more.

Only 11.8mm thin, it’s billed as the thinnest camera phone out there, and the camera comes with a couple of tricks we’ve seen before but are nevertheless welcome. It’s 5 megapixels, it has an auto-focusing mechanism and it also has face tracking.

The camera also lets you record videos – VGA (640x480) at 30fps, or a “slow-mo” 120fps 320x240 QVGA video recording mode. You also get a “Morphing” (facial editing) program to have a bit of fun with the photo you’ve taken, and a “SmartLight” feature “that automatically adjusts the picture’s light settings”.

A video editing package in the form of inbuilt “Movie Maker” software lets you create you “own music videos”.

Carli Wilson, Marketing Manager of LG Electronics Mobile Communications said: “The success of the previous models in the Black Label Series confirmed that consumers are looking for timeless elegance, personal style and digital sophistication with their mobile phones. LG Secret is designed to diversify the way users interact with their handsets.”
 
The phone is made with carbon fibre, which LG reminds us is “one of the strongest composite materials used in aerospace and high-performance automotives [and] adds to the handset's durability without compromising its sleek design”.

The screen itself is tempered glass, which LG says adds “sheen and strength, shields the front LCD with a polished simplicity and enhances the quality of multimedia experience” – as well as giving LG the ability to use nice adjectives to describe shiny glass.

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