It's not every day that you come across a cell phone that meets expectations consistently. In that regard, the LG KM900 Arena is something special - a handset that, in many ways, does live up to its hype.
Right out of the box, it feels like the high-end feature phone it was designed to be - both the form and the build are very impressive. Under its brushed and anodized metal frame, however, lies what really makes the KM900 a great device. It's a complete phone that left no stone unturned.
Display is 3-inch touchscreen with 480 x 800 resolution, which results in very good-looking images. Making the touchscreen all the more special though is LG's S-Class UI, which sends the phone right up there in the high-end of usability, along with HTC and the iPhone. It's not perfect, however, with occasional glitches on the touch recognition and the accelerometer sensitivity, both of which I think are software-based issues.
The homepage offers four customizable pages laid out in a cube, offering shortcuts, widgets, contacts and media by default. There aren't a lot of icons to add (this isn't a smartphone with thousands of apps, after all), however, which makes the customizing feature hardly life-changing. The main menu was lifted directly off the iPhone with a few added tweaks. Suffice to say, you'll love the interface and navigation available on this handset - doing most everything is a breeze.
Web browsing is pretty good, although hitting links will require you to zoom because of the size (for regular HTML pages). Onboard apps include Picsel (which can handle Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files) and several games. You can also install other Java MIDP 2.0 games and applications. Zooming in on the browser and apps, by the way, can be done via pinch-zooming, iPhone-style.
Text entry using the touchscreen, is a breeze. Oddly enough, I found myself drawn to the standard alphanumeric/T9 keypad more than the QWERTY for some reason. It just seemed easier to use for some functions, like texting and entering contacts. On the multimedia end, the Arena doesn't hold back either: you get full support for XviD/DivX, Dolby Mobile onboard and a very good playback application built-in. I was very impressed with the integrated speakers (one of the best I've heard on a phone). Add in the TV-out functionality and you can't really ask for much more.
The rest of the phone is pretty souped-up: 3G, Wi-Fi, 5MP camera, 8GB onboard storage, hot-swapping microSD slot, USB external storage support and Bluetooth. Hands down, this is probably the best feature phone available today, with a very good price point (around $450, depending on where you're located). Smartphone functionality is the only thing missing and, really, the only excuse you can give not to choose it over any other touchscreen devices.
Photo Credit: TechShout
[...] to my liking (too much going on), but has definitely improved from previous versions (like from the KM900 Arena, for instance). While portrait viewing isn’t the best (it’s very narrow) for some applications [...]