I’ve got to hand it to the guy from LG’s stand at The Gadget Show Live, if it wasn’t for his genuinely enthusiastic pitch for the company’s new ‘Arena’ KM900 touch screen phone, I might too easily have dismissed it as just the latest iPhone wannabe. He talked up the Arena’s 3 inch WVGA (480 x 800) screen, 8GB of on-board storage (expandable to 40GB via MicroSD), “S-Class” User Interface, and FM transmitter functionality – a feature that I recently suggested all portable media players should carry. Having said that, the Arena does take a number of design cues from the iPhone; the industrial design and the UI’s art work borrows more than a little from Apple’s iconic device.
Admittedly, the Arena does have some UI ideas of its own, which are potential improvements – my iPhone-touting designer buddy certainly thought so – such as the 3D cube effect when switching application screens, and the ability to view a grid of 32 icons (up from 16) when accessing the launcher in landscape mode. The camera also beats the iPhone – 5 megapixels and 30 frames-per-second video recording – although there’s strangely no flash (Update: there is a single LED flash). The inclusion of Dolby Mobile should also ensure excellent sound quality when listening through ear buds. Again, I hope to source a loan unit soon for a full hands-on review.
Video of the LG Arena from The Gadget Show Live after the jump…
