LG Dynamite KG300

These days, people just want every possible feature in their phone. The LG Dynamite KG300 boasts of having everything – a camera, Bluetooth, FM radio, memory card support, a good screen, etc. But does it end up being a jack of all and master of none? Does it actually blow up the table when you keep it down? Let’s find out. Design Let’s start off with its size - It's small, compact and light weight. It only comes in black and the whole phone has a very glossy look, without being too ostentatious. It’s quite a simple looking phone. It has silver trims on the side and all the slots (for headphones, USB, memory card) are covered with flaps, makes the phone a more look something something. Display The phone has a brilliant, vibrant QVGA (240x320 pixel) display. The color reproduction is superb and wallpapers look just fabulous on it. Even photos taken with the camera look excellent and crisp. Even the size of the screen is quite large, considering the size of the phone. In sunlight, the display did go a bit dull, but it wasn’t completely unreadable. User Interface The KG300 has a fairly commonly styled main menu with icons. The submenus are simpler, being a flat list of items. All items have numbers. Nokia users won’t easily get around the menu, but it’s not as bad as some Sagems we had used a while ago. When it comes to deleting messages, for a while I thought I couldn't, till I realized that I needed to open a message and then it gives me options to delete one or all. When you’re in the phonebook, a little girl’s voice will read out the number for you. This is probably useful for the visually impaired, but how about reading out the name when the phone rings? The phone doesn’t do that! It does offer video caller ID, so you can see a video of the person who’s calling or any other video, when you get a call. The interface doesn't have any themes, nor can any be downloaded. There’s a sound for almost everything the phone does. The default alert sound in case of a Yes/No prompt is highly irritating – it sounds like an old rickshaw horn being banged upon. You should turn this off, if you can figure out how to do it. The interface is not terrific fast most of the time. There isn’t too much lag when you’re typing out an SMS, which is a good thing, but there are certain quirks, such as not being able to hold down a key for one second to directly input the digit. The extra functions like World clock and currency converter are easy to use tools for you frequent travelers. Even the Calculator is user friendly. Keypad The keypad is rather small so all you guys with large thumbs will need to be careful as you could end up hitting 2 keys at once. There’s a 4-way navigation pad present, but, in my opinion, a 5-way navigation pad would have been better. It also has dedicated keys for the music player, volume and for the camera, but the camera key has to be depressed for more than one second, which isn’t good when you need to take shots in a hurry. That key also becomes the shutter key in camera mode. Tech The phone is equipped with tri-band GSM network support and GPRS, but not EDGE. The web browser tries to render the full web instead of WAP, but it often chokes on JavaScript and excessive CSS. It has Bluetooth 1.2. There is no support for A2DP stereo. It has no Infrared support. When connected to the PC via USB for data storage, the phone switches off. Though transferring data is as simple as drag and drop, I'd still prefer it if I was able to make or receive a call while transferring information to the phone. Where this phone seriously lacks is not having software to help back-up your phonebook and settings. Neither does the phone come with any software, nor was I able to find any this purpose. The phone has 60MB of internal memory and it supports a microSD cards upto 1GB. The boxed piece doesn’t come with any card, but this can be forgiven, given the price of the phone. 500 contacts can be filled into the phone itself. Multimedia Mediawise the phone is equipped with your regular 3GP-capable Real Player that plays video files in Landscape mode, video and still capture Camera, and an MP3 player. The MP3 player however is average. The 'ergonomic' headset looks great but the output is too low. Let’s be honest here, we live in a noisy city and need a player that drowns out excess noise. The KG300 earphones don’t cut it. On the other hand, the loudspeaker is quite loud and clear. Quality of the music files can be adjusted to your liking using the EQ presets; however it would have been a lot better if it had a customizable eq. The phone has a 2.5mm headset socket, so even though you can’t directly plug in your normal headphones, you can do it if you get a converter. The phone is also equipped with a melody composer to make your own tones. As mentioned before, you can assign a video file (or a picture) to a contact so it personalizes your incoming calls. It only has a small view on the main screen, but its still quite cool for a built-in feature. Camera The KG300 has a 2-megapixel camera, which is one of the best you can get at this price point. Actually, I think this *is* the best you can get at this price! The downsides to the camera are the lack of an LED flash and optical zoom, but once again, you can’t complain, given the price! The phone manages to focus on the object in the center of the frame at a short distance, while long distance shots appear blurred. On the plus side it does have plenty of creative modes with which you can take snaps. For example, a blue and copper carving mode, blackboard and white board and much more. It also has settings for cloudy days, or even if you would like to capture multiple images consecutively. There are settings for 5 and 9 snaps. For all you snap-happy photographers out there this is a real treat. Battery Life Battery-wise, it’s nothing to write home about really. It’ll run for around two days provided you’re not using its functions to the max. Too much of camera and loudspeaker usage might reduce it to less than that, but if you just use it as a phone, you should be able to get three days without any problems. It has a regular USB slot and it recharges directly when connected to the PC. Conclusion This phone boasts of having every feature possible out there. It does have most of the relevant features, but it does lack some key features such as an LED flash for the camera and EDGE network support for faster connectivity. But even so, when you consider the price of Rs. 8,800, the phone gives an amazing set of features such as a high resolution display, MP3 player, FM radio, a 2 megapixel camera etc. This is the lowest price phone to offer a 2 megapixel camera! I think the LG KG300 is well worth the price. There’s also a lower end model available – the KG200 – for around Rs. 6,400. The KG200 does not have Bluetooth and it’s camera is 1.3 megapixels. Even that’s a pretty good deal for it’s price.