Mobile Phone Review

The  LG CU500 is an  HSDPA phone that’s exclusive available on the  Cingular network in the United States. Running on the back of  Cingular’s UMTS network, the  LG CU500 is one of only a handful of  HSDPA high-speed  3.5G phones on the market anywhere in the world.

The first thing to note is that UMTS in the US is not the same as UMTS everywhere else in the world - it’s an 850/1900 MHz UMTS device rather than the UMTS 2100 MHz standard that pretty much everyone else uses. It does have quad-band GSM and EDGE support though, so you can still continue to use the  LG CU500 more-or-less anywhere in the world.

It looks a little like the European LG U880 and LG U890 UMTS phones, with a squarish clamshell design and rotating camera - in other words, it’s basically an existing UMTS device adapted for the  Cingular network and  HSPDA. It weights 3.7 ounces (105 grams) and measures 3.80 x 1.95 x 0.75 inches (97x50x19mm). As with the European UMTS phones, the  LG CU500 has a 176x220 pixel display, microSD (TransFlash) expandable memory, 1.3 megapixel rotating camera, stereo Bluetooth, a pretty versatile multimedia player and external media controls.

The maximum download speed of the  LG CU500 is 1.8Mbps. Where the  CU500 can’t pick up an  HSDPA signal, it will fall back to UMTS 850/1900, EDGE or GPRS. It’s pretty much the same speed as you’ll get from a EVDO handset though, but the  LG CU500 has the advantage that it can be used worldwide as well as in the US.

It’s a nice looking device with a neat design and internal antenna which gives it an somewhat distinctive look when compared to many other phones in the US. Cingular say that the  LG CU500 is available now.

Expected Summer 2006Originally announced back in February, the LG KG920 handset has had a second outing at this week’s Communicasia exhibition in Singapore.

The unique feature of the KG920 is the camera - it’s a 5 megapixel camera phone, which would make it the highest resolution camera phone when it is launched in Germany in the summer.

It’s an impressive looking device, even if it’s just because of the seemingly random way that the buttons are arranged on the front. The camera is mounted on the back of the LG KG920’s keypad, and the whole assembly swivels around in a really quite impressive way. The KG920 certainly isn’t a pretty phone - and it’s also quite heavy at 138 grams. At the risk of being a little sexist, the LG KG920 is a man’s phone.

As you can see, the KG920 looks exactly like a digital camera from the back.. from the front it does look a little strange, but all the usual buttons are there.. somewhere. The 5 megapixel camera has autofocus and a strobe flash, but no optical zoom. It can take VGA quality video clips though (at 30 fps), and save everything onto miniSD cards, although internal memory is a pretty decent 128Mb,

It’s not a huge device, measuring 108x50x18mm, but at 138 grams it’s fairly heavy.. and the KG920 isn’t even a 3G phone. There is a large 240x320 pixel display, and the LG KG920 also packs an MP3 player, web browser and email client.

We haven’t seen the KG920’s camera in action, but megapixels aren’t everything. A lot depends on the quality of the lens, but the initial reports of the KG920’s camera indicate that the camera is pretty good but perhaps not as sharp as a dedicate digital camera.

The LG KG920 will be released in Germany and some other European countries in the Summer of 2006.