My beloved Siemens CX65, after numerous jumps and dives from beds and desks and you-name-it, decided to die on me. Its battery had to be recharged daily and when I removed it one day to check if everything was ok, it had a nasty bump on it. Ouch.
The thing is, it’s not exactly the best time for me to spend money on a new mobile phone. Planning to buy a car and a huge iMac this December does not help. And that’s where my other half intervened: all too conveniently, he had a brand new LG KG800 to spare. Well how about that!
After using this touch-screen thingie for a few days, I have some things to share with you.
First of all, this thing is sexy. Believe it or not, I like sexy gadgets, and this black, sleek piece of sex is.. well, that. I have issues with almost every single one of the new cell phones out there, which in my uneducated eyes, look like over polished pieces of metal with absolutely no sign of harmony. LG KG800 excels in this field : it’s all black and red and the lack of buttons when closed makes it look really cool.
In terms of functionality, don’t expect much more than the run-of-the-mill features: an okayish camera, a really good mp3 player and the occasional java game or app on top. Nothing to write home about.
In terms of usability though… Sigh. I have many issues with it, I admit it. Maybe it’s because I’m really old school as far as cell phones are concerned, I don’t know. But this thing sometimes looks like it defies every single conceptual model of mobile phones UI.
First of all, when it’s in closed lid mode, you can still use it, but to unlock it, you have to press twice the button at the left side that lowers the speaker volume. Uhm, say what?
Now let’s say you unlocked the phone and you navigate through the menus, always in closed lid mode. If you accidentally press back or you make a mistake and for some reason you’re back in the main screen, tada, the phone is locked again and you have to unlock it once more using the method described above. Add this to its ultra-sensitive touch buttons that make mistakes a simple thing and there you are! You have yourself a fine usability nightmare.
Apart from that, it seems to me that this phone has its features hidden in all the wrong places: why do my contacts reside into its Organizer folder? I can see the basic idea behind this implementation, but I really hate this one.
I don’t say that my Siemens was a piece of art usability-wise, I guess it all needs time to get used to. But I see some obvious errors (?) in this thingie and I wonder why. All in all, Sony-Ericssons must be the most user-friendly phones I’ve used, what’s your opinion?
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