Touchpads are no longer revolutionary. But they are still not flawless either. The ones we've managed to test so far have all fallen seriously short of being the best thing since sliced bread. However, our experience with LG KF600 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona revealed a huge step forward for touchpad-navigated devices. You can imagine we were more than eager to make a full review of the handset. Luckily, the pre-release unit we got was good enough for that purpose. So, here we go.

2" 256K-color TFT LCD display of QVGA resolution

1.49" 256K-color TFT 176 x 240 pixel InteractPad

3.15 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash

Tri-band GSM/EDGE support

Bluetooth and USB v2.0

Cool additional themes by Keith Haring

FM radio

Cool games

No 3G support

2-inch display is small for a multimedia handset

Front panel is a fingerprint nightmare

Uncomfortable keypad

The haptic feedback on the InteractPad has a delay

Non-hot-swappable memory card

The KF600 was one of the highlights at the LG booth at the MWC and, as we see it, it has enough good reasons for that. There's a great youthful feel about the handset, which can hardly go unnoticed. Of course the new InteractPad interface has its downsides, so you might just want to read a little more before you fork out the cash. This certainly is not everybody's phone.

Clearly, LG KF600 is not inventing the wheel with its InteractPad. We still can't forget the hard time the touchpad of Samsung E950 gave us. However, the KF600 seems to have more odds of achieving market success. The lower touch-sensitive display is now far more responsive and boasts much greater image quality. Sounds like a good start for this little fella.

The dimensions of LG KF600 are 101.2 x 50.7 x 14.1 mm. Definitely not the smallest phone around, but it's about what you'd expect in a slider. In all fairness, squeezing that second display in has made it rather tall but the fair 14.1 mm thickness do make up for that. The weight of 107g is nothing special either. A size comparison between LG KF600 and Samsung E950 would be in favor of the latter but, after all, its touch pad is obviously smaller.

Thanks to the InteractPad navigation, there are no hardware keys on the front panel of LG KF600. Its surface is completely smooth and, in the rare moments when it's not smudged with fingerprints, it looks really nice. Hate to break the bad news, but the glossy front is a real smudge magnet. Endless hours cleaning your KF600 guaranteed.

The earpiece is placed dead center at the top of the front panel. Below it is the 2" display that we'll come back to a little later. The InteractPad completes the list on the handset's front.

The left side of the handset hosts two keys. The volume rocker is placed right above the dedicated music key. Music fans will most likely appreciate the MP3 player shortcut, which is another indication of the young target audience of LG KF600.

Moving on to the right side of LG KF600, we find the USB port, also used for connecting the charger, and the dedicated camera key. Unluckily, the USB connector is the well-known proprietary LG version that works with LG supplied accessories only. The more popular miniUSB could have saved users some hassle, but that's not that big of an issue.

The top and bottom of the phone are both quite simple. The only thing to find on the top is the lanyard eyelet. The mouthpiece is all you get at the bottom.

The material used on the back panel of LG KF600 is excellent. It feels nice to the touch and won't get any fingerprints. In addition, it provides for a good enough grip, so the phone won't slip off your hand.

The 3 megapixel camera is the most important thing you will find on the back panel. It has the LED flash on one of its sides and the loudspeaker on the other. The final thing to find here is the external antenna plug. Unfortunately, there is no protection for the lens against scratches.

Opening the battery cover reveals the 800 mAh Li-ion battery. It's quoted at 480 hours of standby and 4 hours of talk time. In reality it turned out to be enough for about two days of moderate use. Probably here is the place to warn you that although the SIM card may be ejected without removing the battery this in fact is not a good idea. The phone automatically turns off upon such an action and prompts a restart when SIM is inserted.

The big disappointment with the hardware of KF600 is the memory card slot placed under the battery. Every time you need to insert or remove your memory card, you will have to switch off the phone and take the battery out - the same holds true for the LG Viewty. We are not quite sure what LG engineers were thinking but this is by no means comfortable. If you frequently change cards or use a card reader for transferring data this can be quite a nuisance.

 

All in all we're pleased with the construction quality of the phone - some good quality materials have been used and it shows. What we are not particularly happy about is the fact that the slider doesn't actually lock in neither position. Any time pressure is applied on the edges it moves and gives that cheap wobbly feeling that no one really likes.

The keypad of LG KF600 is not among the best we've seen. It has ample keys and enough space under the slider so you can easily reach even the top row. However touch orientation is almost non-existent. You will probably need to look at the keys all the time to avoid typos.

Users will probably get that the hang of it in time and will speed up through their text messages but nonetheless the keypad is far from perfect. Besides, the somewhat strange location of the Call and End keys may seem uncomfortable to some people. As far as we're concerned, it's not a big deal. After all, you can handle your calls with the InteractPad without any problems.

The backlighting is strong enough and even. The labels of the keys are also large enough, so working with the LG KF600 in the dark is by no means harder than operating it in brighter environments.

LG KF600 has a 2" TFT LCD display. It supports 262K colors and QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) resolution. The picture quality is quite nice with adequate contrast and brightness. However, size is what fails it, as there are already a number of phones in this price range with larger displays.

Another disturbing fact is that legibility is greatly reduced under direct sunlight. It is quite a challenge to find a proper angle for working with the phone when you are outside on a sunny day.

All of this holds true for the secondary touchscreen too. Except maybe the fact that the InteractPad is on the large side (we remind you that the touch pad on Samsung E950 was only 1.14").

Fingerprints are also to worry about, as they really affect legibility. Not that cleaning is such a chore but, again, you will need to do it once too often with this phone.

When it comes to the most essential element of a phone, the LG KF600 offers good reception and in-call sound. Voice quality is good on both ends of a call. Besides, the phone has nice interface and dialing a number or a contact from the phonebook is easy and pleasant.

Flash UI like the one in LG KF600 are nothing revolutionary. The KF600 interface is visually appealing and easy to work with. It partially compensates for the lack of smartphone capabilities with user-friendliness and speed.

The standby screen has information about the current time and date, as well as the typical status readings. It shows signal strength, the active profile and the battery status. In standby mode the InteractPad features 6 shortcuts to the most frequently used phone features. Four of them can be changed and reordered to the user liking. These are also large enough and no problem to click.

Overall, the menu structure of LG KF600 is straightforward and easy to work with. You may occasionally wonder where some of the settings are but this is easy to get used to.

The InteractPad is the main option for navigating the menus. You can also use keypad shortcuts, with alphanumeric keys linked to icons on the screen (depending on the menu). The haptic feedback has three different modes and can be switched off too, if not needed, to save some battery power. The feedback itself reacts with a certain delay thus ruining the good impression. Vibration strength can also be adjusted but you will probably end up using it at maximum level at most times.

There are two main menu modes available - a standard 3 x 3 grid or a list of 4 icons with labels. The latter is better looking and interacts nicely with the selected theme but is not as easy to work with. We ended up using the grid view far more often. The menu font and dialing style are also customizable.

If you get bored with your LG KF600 try changing the theme. The 8 preinstalled themes really won our appreciation with the nice animations on the standby screen. Furthermore, the InteractPad is also involved and the animations flow across screens producing simple and yet quite amusing screen savers. They really are a breath of fresh air.

Some of the themes are made by the designer Keith Haring and follow a somewhat graffiti style.

Another thing that can be customized is the slider sound, for which the user has some interesting options.

The phonebook in LG KF600 is somewhat missing on features but at least is really user friendly. It displays the numbers on both the SIM card and the phone simultaneously. Showing only one set is no option. The capacity of 1000 entries should be enough for most users. The contacts appear as a list and you can opt for displaying the picture of the currently selected name.

The available fields when editing a contact are 11, which may seem a lot in most cases but is still short of what some other brands have to offer. You can save up to 4 phone numbers for each contact, along with a personal photo and ringtone.

Contacts can be further organized in groups for easier management. They can also be searched by gradual typing. However, the phonebook offers only one name field, so you can set a family name.

The LG KF600 is handling all of the most common type of messages: SMS, EMS, MMS and email; Bluetooth messaging is supported too.

We are not particularly fond of the SMS editor and its rather basic looks. It also needs one extra step than most message editors in order to send a message. The input however is where the InteractPad scores a point. It offers handwriting recognition and, as we managed to confirm, it works quite well. The only problem is that there is no stylus in KF600, so you need to find something suitable for that purpose. You can also use your fingers of course, but this makes it quite more difficult to write correctly.

The MMS and Bluetooth message editors are very similar to the one we just described. The MMS editor even requires one more step to go before you actually send and that's one thing we don't like. As far as most common user messaging needs are concerned the KF600 is doing alright.

Naturally, you can also activate a delivery report for the network-based massages. The email client is quite easy to work with and mailboxes can be set up in no time. Unfortunately there is no SSL protocol support.

MMS and emails are saved in the reserved part of the phone memory, so you can have quite a number of them stored in you device. Normally there is about 10MB of free storage allocated but this depends on quite a number of factors. SMS storage has a fixed capacity of 500 items.

The music player of LG KF600 performs decently. It shows album art, offers creating playlists and has ten equalizers. Unfortunately, new equalizer presets cannot be be created. There is also no way of grouping your tracks by some criteria (like artist or album for example).

If you get bored with the preloaded music on you LG KF600 you can always turn the FM radio on. The FM radio interface is rather simplified and generally very easy to work with. There is an auto scan feature that locates every radio station in your area and offers to save it. The only thing we miss here is RDS.

The video player is also quite nice. Videos can be played in fullscreen and can easily be fast-forwarded or rewound. Thanks to the InteractPad videos can be enjoyed without irritating captions, as all the controls are labeled on the pad itself.

Audio quality

The audio quality of LG KF600 is commendable. Except for the rather high stereo crosstalk values all the other readings are good. It is surely one of the best attempts by LG. Although we've seen better results by other brands, the LG KF600 is at least comparable to some of the best performers out there.

File manager is a no-go

File management in LG KF600 is disastrous. It's almost unable to handle user-created folders and the files in them simply don't get displayed. Basically you will need to place every file in its designated folder if you want to use it. If you have misplaced a file you will have to use a card reader to sort it out. And as the memory isn't hot-swappable it really gets on you, big time. We've come across quite a mixed bag of file managers, and the one on LG KF600 is undoubtedly among the worst.

Gallery is good

The gallery of the LG KF600 leaves a nice overall impression. It is accessed through the My stuff icon in the main menu and offers two view modes. The thumbnail view can show 9 thumbs at a time, while the list view can fit only 7 items on the screen. It's no surprise we liked the first one better.

Single pictures can be viewed in both landscape and portrait mode and can also be displayed fullscreen. You can also zoom in to see further detail on the photos. Be warned that the first zooming step is a little slow. However the following zoom steps complete in an instant and panning is also very fast.

The InteractPad is also enhancing the gallery experience greatly. When you zoom in on a picture a mini map appears on it and you can see what part of the picture you are looking at. You can also use it for panning and, as it turns out, it's the best panning solution we've seen so far. Besides, it is admirably fast.

The final extras of the gallery include picture sorting (by name, date or type) and slide show, along with deleting multiple files at a time. Truth be told, we weren't particularly fond of the slide show in LG KF600.

Camera is nice

Obviously LG KF600 is a phone aimed at the young. That makes a good camera essential and LG have got it right. The 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash sounds more than decent at least on paper.

The camera interface has rich settings, from white balance and effects to quality settings. It's not a match for the best 5 megapixel shooters in terms of features but it has most of the stuff it needs. The interface itself manages a decent level of user-friendliness.

The picture quality is also quite good. The images have enough sharpness and precise colors and, overall, the KF600 camera stays on the better side of 3 megapixel shooters. There is still a significant amount of noise here and there but we've seen far worse.

In terms of speed, the camera of LG KF600 failed to impress us. It is not the slowest we've seen but it does take about 5 seconds to save a photo, which is not a dream achievement by any means.

As far as video recording is concerned the handset supports QVGA resolution. Not much of a boast but videos might occasionally turn usable. Zooming is also available and so are white balance and exposure settings. Videos are saved in 3gp format and can use the LED flash for better results in darker environments. The LG KF600 is still short of being a serious video recording device.

Connectivity: 3G would have been good

LG KF600 features USB v2.0 support and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support. The phone also supports mass storage mode in USB connections. We are also pleased with the Bluetooth connectivity as we had no problems pairing with any of the devices at hand.

As far as network connectivity is concerned, the phone features GPRS and EDGE. We are definitely missing 3G support for faster data transfers. This leaves us with EDGE as the best option here.

Finally, we've got the memory card slot but lack of hot-swap ruins it all. Having to power down your phone every time you want to access the memory card is a nuisance.

Great browsing

The web browser on LG KF600 is really nice. It renders the pages very well and even the most complicated web sites cause no trouble. They look almost exactly like on a PC. and, if it wasn't for the irritating mouse pointer, we would've been in love with the browser.

Now don't get us wrong - we like mouse pointers. It's just that the one on LF KF600 jumps links following such an illogical pattern that you can rarely guess where its next stop will be. And this can really become annoying to use.

Otherwise the phone is doing great. There is an optimized rendering mode that makes even the most complicated sites fit the screen very well. Besides, you can disable images to save on traffic - and time - browsing with EDGE does require patience.

Organizer does the job

LG KF600 has a good number of organizing applications but some of them probably need improvement. Nonetheless, all the basics are covered and that is good enough for most people.

The calendar offers daily and monthly view and event setting. However, there are no different types of events so you will have to customize every entry by yourself. You can also set up an alarm to remind you of the event at a given time.

Other organizing features include text notes and an alarm clock. The latter is really nice allowing you to set up to 5 different alarms, each with its own name, ringtone and repeat interval. There is also a voice recorder that can come in handy for making voice memos.

The calculator offers an enormous amount of options and functions. This however comes at the price of rather complicated navigation. You might need some training with the InteractPad before you are able to make full use of the calculator functionality.

The World Clock application is a nice little helper that can tell you the current time in any time zone. In terms of layout and graphics, it's the best we've seen on a feature phone and it has quite a large database of cities for each time zone - the same World clock was used in LG Shine and LG Viewty. The only thing missing here is the search that can make finding your place easier but this is something we are willing to forgive.

Applications are limited in number

We can't really say that we are impressed with the number of the preinstalled applications (outside the organizer) on our LG KF600. However at the time this review was written the phone wasn't officially released, so this might not hold true for every region of the world.

All we found in addition to the document reader was a stopwatch application and a unit converter. The document reader handles all kinds of popular document formats - .xls, .doc .pdf. It also maintains a decent level of user-friendliness and functionality.

As far as the stopwatch and unit converter are concerned - they are both very nicely controlled with the InteractPad but the unit converter isn't as rich in conversion types as we've seen elsewhere. On the other hand, it has all the most commonly used ones (temperature, volume, velocity etc.), so most users probably won't even notice the difference.

Games are very entertaining

We enjoyed the two preinstalled games on LG KF600. Both basically consist of a few mini-games each that as it seems were specially designed for the InteractPad. Although somewhat childish and oversimplified, we enjoyed them.

Try before you buy

For the time of testing LG KF600 proved a great pleasure to use and we got to really like the user interface of the handset. It's fun to work with but we feel a fair warning is due. The interface is so different that you'd be better off testing it before forking out the cash.

The lack of 3G support, the wobbly sliding mechanism and the sometimes unreliable InteractPad response are also drawbacks that need be taken into consideration.

The LG KF600 is a recommended purchase for the young and all those who want to have a handset with unique features. After all, one thing you have to give LG KF600 - getting noticed is its line of business.