If you liked the LG Prada or are considering an iPhone, then the LG Viewty should definitely be top of your list of phones to check out first. Touchscreen phones are the hot product of 2007/2008 and LG have a proven track record in this area with the LG Prada. The Viewty is basically a souped-up Prada without the designer logo, and it’s a very accomplished product. We loved the Prada’s touchscreen user interface, and the Viewty retains the best features of the Prada, but with the addition of 3G, a 5 megapixel camera, an uprated video camera, more memory and longer battery life.

For the benefit of those who haven’t seen a Prada or iPhone, let’s recap the touchscreen concept. Not to be confused with touch-sensitive buttons (e.g. the LG Chocolate or Samsung U600), the Viewty has a touch-sensitive screen. This means that icons and menus appear on the screen itself, and you touch the screen to activate the “buttons”. The Viewty uses subtle vibration feedback to confirm when you’ve pressed a button, and you’ll very quickly get used to the concept. There are real buttons below the screen for making and ending calls, a jog wheel, and also side buttons for controlling volume, the camera and the music player. We liked the touchscreen interface very much, and the technology now seems to be mature enough for touchscreens to enter the mainstream. If you’re a fast texter you might find that the touchscreen slows you down a little, but the sheer pleasure of using the on-screen menus more than compensates for this. T9 predictive text is supported too. A stylus pen is provided if you find the interface too slow using your finger. The Viewty also supports handwriting recognition, so you should be able to find an input method that you’re comfortable with.
Adigital camera inside a cell phone is not exceptional these days. It becomes a different case when a 5 Megapixel digital camera is integrated in a mobile phone. And although there are more handsets equipped with a 5 Megapixel digital camera, for example the Nokia N82, Samsung G800 and the Sony Ericsson K850i, there is a vast difference in the quality of the camera. The KU990 is the first 5 Megapixel cell phone of LG. It looks like LG is starting to take mobile photography seriously. The Viewty is the successor to the LG Prada. The latter was introduced in the beginning of 2007. The LG Viewty is up to date with its large touchscreen, 5 Megapixel digital camera and multimedia player. The LG Viewty comes in a compact black box including a headphone, charger, CD-ROM and USB cable. We were able to test the LG Viewty extensively and our findings of this digital camera with cell phone function can be read in our LG Viewty review.
The user interface has been fairly well thought through. Four tappable icons at the bottom of the Home screen let you get to messaging, contacts, the dialpad and the main menu of the phone.

There is also a ‘swipe’ mode. Run a finger along the bottom edge of the home screen and a bank of nine icons pops up giving you quick access to features like the Web browser, games and apps, alarms, calendar and Bluetooth settings. If you want more than is on offer here, the main menu provides full access.

More impressively, you can use a finger to drag images you have zoomed so that only a part of them shows on screen. It is a smooth and easy process.This is a fairly large phone at 103.5mm tall, 54mm wide and 14.8mm thick. At 112g it is approaching the weight and girth of a proper smartphone.

The 3.0 inch touchscreen occupies pretty much all of the front of the Viewty. It displays 262 thousand colours and 240 x 400 pixels. It can be configured with one of three themes: ‘Black’ is a simple black background theme. ‘Silver’ offers a lighter grey background with some graphics that whizz onto the home screen for no apparent reason. But ‘Fish’, aaah ‘Fish’ is delightful. On the home screen a goldfish swims against a blue background. Put a fingertip on the screen and the fish swims towards it. Yes it is silly, yes it is trite, but I like it.

Whatever theme you choose, the home screen has a set of animated arrows running along its bottom edge. Sweep a fingertip along them and a 3×3 bank of icons pops up offering tap-access to Web browser, messaging, profiles, games and apps, memo, alarms, my stuff, calendar and Bluetooth settings. Sweep again and this menu disappears. The sensitive area is wide enough that you hit it right every time, and so, crucially, this part of the touch screen element works well enough to use intuitively and regularly.