LG did well with the Viewty smartphone, and it aims to do even better with its successor, the Viewty Smart GC900. It’s a tough act to follow, but the company has made changes for this latest mobile phone. So how does this new handset fare?
In theory, at least, the Viewty Smart GC900 sounds very tasty. It boasts an eight megapixel camera, a good size three-inch touchscreen, 3.5G and Wi-Fi. Mobile phone reviews have been generous in their praise of the capacitive screen, which is sensitive to the lightest touch.
The features of the camera are among the mobile phone’s strongest points, able to take rapid-fire shots, with adjustments for lighting conditions, and straightforward between the macro and normal modes. Like its predecessor, it’s also good with video, even slow motion.
The Wi-Fi and 3.5G mean very fast connections for browsing, uploading and downloading. The screen is very efficient, and navigation is exceptionally easy. So what’s the downside?
Perhaps surprisingly, the camera is one of the worst offenders. It promises a lot, but the picture quality just doesn’t deliver. The onscreen QWERTY keyboard is remarkably slow (the same is true for the onscreen phone keypad), making for an annoying experience when typing.
Remarkably, although this is a failure that’s all too common even in the newest mobile phones, there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack for listening to music.
So it’s a bit of a curate’s egg – good in parts. The touchscreen is a dream, but elsewhere LG needs to do more work on this model to make it really deliver for consumers. As it stands, the experience falls far short of what it could be.
