Product Listing

First Looks: LG GM730 Preview

By Sutlej Soin - 23 Jul 2009

A Worthy Smartphone?

A Worthy Smartphone?

Microsoft must be deliriously happy with all the love that manufacturers are showering on the Windows Mobile platform. For starters, during Mobile World Congress, LG promised to bring in more Windows Mobile handsets and the vendor has started the ball rolling with its latest offering, the GM730.

Prior to this, we have only seen the KS20 come out of LG's camp as of last year but thanks to the new partnership, it looks like LG will be raining Windows Mobile handsets soon. Since this is a preview of a pre-production unit, the opinions expressed here may not paint a full picture of the phone's eventual capabilities.

Familiar Looks

Decked with a mixture of black and silver for its exterior and graced with a 3-inch, 400 x 240 pixel WQVGA screen, the GM730 won't win many design awards in our books. With a design typical of many touchscreen phones out there, the GM730 is likely to go unnoticed among them.

The more we look at it, the more it appears similar to the Renoir, LG's 8-megapixel offering. Its saving grace lies in its slim body. At 109.8 x 56.5 x 11.9mm and approximately 105 grams, the phone felt snug in our hands and navigating the buttons was comfortable.

A Different Interface

What really makes this phone stand out from its other siblings is its operating system (OS). Sitting on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional is LG's proprietary S-Class 3D User Interface, which is what you'll find on the LG Arena and the LG GD900 Crystal phones.

What's special about the 3D S-Class User Interface is its uber user-friendly cube layout, which lets you rotates each of the five faces with a single finger flick. Although the GM730 also comes with a full suite of connectivity features like GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, these features are commonplace for most smartphones in the market today.

New to the table however, is the LG Application Store, which recently opened its doors to consumers. Much like the Apple App Store, you can purchase all kinds of apps to flood your LG device with, which increases the usefulness of the phone (or depending on your inclinations, reduces your productivity).

Currently, only the LG GM730 and KS20 support this service, while other devices will follow suit shortly. Multimedia lovers will be happy to note that this phone flaunts advanced multimedia features such as a 5-megapixel camera with auto focus. Although the camera has not been fully finalized yet, we are glad that the images shot so far hint at a reliable shooter.

Battery capacity is rated at 1000mAh and based on our previous experiences, daily charging will be a mandatory affair. It's something that quite a few smartphones in the market these days are unable to avoid.

Final Say

Frankly, we felt that the KS20 looks better than the GM730 and while this is nonetheless a pre-production unit, we are not exactly thrilled about its performance, as it was slow when multi-tasking between applications.

The GM730 may not be a revolutionary product but priced right, we could see it being an affordable Windows Mobile smartphone for the masses. The good news for LG fans is that when Windows Mobile 6.5 rolls out, the GM730 will naturally get a few upgrades, so you don't have to worry about your device becoming obsolete any time soon.

You will be hearing more from us when we have a proper retail set in our hands. The LG GM730 is slated for release in Q3 and pricing information is still unavailable.

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