Our LG Viewty GT Review

LG handsets have certainly come on in leaps and bounds in design terms in recent times, and the LG Viewty GT continues this upward trend. Available on the 3 network, there are a range of deals available from around £15 per month (at the time of writing).

Aimed at social networkers, the Viewty GT has two switchable home screens – one for your phone’s usual home stuff and a second dedicated to networking and communication, including support for Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live, plus a Skype application for increasingly popular Skype-to-Skype free calls. There’s are also built-in Facebook and Twitter applications and internet browsing through Google search.

At the heart of the phone, its 3-inch touchscreen has a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. This works just fine and on-screen menus are easy to navigate. No matter what a phone looks like, most of the time you want to actually use it, not just look at it. The menu key is brilliant, allowing you to see all open apps and navigate quickly and easily.

The Viewty GT is also supplied with a stylus, which again works well and speeds up navigation.

But the LG Viewty GT looks pretty good, anyway. Available in sleek black or silver-grey casing, it measures 107mm x 545mm x 118mm, weighing just 98 grams, including fitted battery. Almost the entire front of the phone is taken up with its 3-inch screen, and why not? If it’s a touchscreen phone, you don’t need hundreds of buttons as well.

The 5 megapixel camera and video are mounted on the rear and the Viewty GT also offers a camera capture key, located at the top of the casing. Once you’ve taken your pictures, the phone has photo editing software to clean up your snaps, plus there’s the cute little Muvee application, where you can turn pictures into a slideshow with musical accompaniment. The camera has a wide range of options, including a very effective sepia mode.

Connection to other devices is accessed by either Bluetooth or through its USB port, with fast data transfer using GPRS or EDGE. The Viewty GT comes with 60mb of internal memory, which can be upgraded to up to 8Gb with a MicroSD memory card.

As for the Viewty GT’s other features, the music player is competent enough. Sound is good, the controls are clear and well laid out and there’s a nifty equaliser that is pleasantly responsive. Of course, there’s a calendar and all the other little helpers you would expect.

Overall, its features are simple to use and won’t disappoint.

What We Liked

The Viewty’s ease of use is its main strength. Some touchscreens can be fiddly and annoying, but, especially when using the stylus, the Viewty GT is delightfully simple to use.

What We Disliked

Unfortunately, some of its web applications worked painfully slowly, especially Twitter and Facebook. This a great letdown, as the handset is clearly aimed at the social network market.

Our Final Verdict

Apart from the slowness of browsing, the Viewty GT is a pleasure to use and compares very favourably with other models in this class.

Compare Handsets

	Read Review
	LG Viewty GT
General
Form Factor	Candybar
Dimensions	107 x 54.5 x 11.8 (mm)
Talk Time	210 mins
Standby Time	260 hours
Weight	98 g
Quad Band	Yes
Photo and Video
Integrated Camera	Yes
Camera	5.00 megapixels
Video Player	Yes
Phone
Polyphonic Ringtones	Yes
Internal Memory	60MB
Memory Card Type	microSD
Messaging
Instant Messaging (IM)	Yes
Photo Messaging	Yes
Screen
Colour Screen	Yes
Touch Screen	Yes
Connectivity
3G	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Email	Yes
HSDPA	Yes
WAP	Yes
Music and Radio
MP3 Player	Yes
Additional Content
Downloadable Content	Yes
Downloadable Games	Yes
Downloadable Ringtones	Yes

LG Viewty GT Full Specification

General

Photo and Video

Phone

Messaging

Screen

Connectivity

Music and Radio

Additional Content