Touch Screen Gadget

Short review LG-KF600

Posted by admin | Category: MP3 Player, Mobile Phone

The first thing to mention about the KF600 is the unusual touch-screen interface. This is clearly the unique selling point of this phone, and whether you enjoy using it will depend on how much you like this feature.

Put simply, around a third of the screen (a section that LG is calling the ‘InteractPad’) is touch-sensitive, displaying a set of up to six virtual buttons. These are context-sensitive and change depending on what features of the phone you are using at the time. When not displaying the full six buttons, the pad displays only four buttons (one in each corner) with a set of directional buttons set in between them. This is an innovative use of screen space and is very easy to understand without any reference to the manual. The phone vibrates slightly when a button is pressed on the pad, giving a good sense of physical feedback – no wondering whether or not the button-press registered.

In conclusion, the KF600 is a solid, if somewhat unimpressive phone. It does what it does well, but it doesn’t offer anything inspirational. The InteractPad – the only really innovative feature - works well, but it is still hard to resist the temptation to try touching other parts of the screen when menu items appear, and it’s frustrating to realize that this doesn’t work. The slide-out keypad gives the phone a less cutting-edge feel.

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Full Keypad LG-KF700 launched

Posted by admin | Category: MP3 Player, Mobile Phone

In order to cut out lots of fiddling with menu’s and to create a simple but sophisticated navigation system, LG has launched the KF700 multimedia phone which allows you to input text on a touch screen and on a keypad as well as having a Shortcut Dial. These functions are quickly accessible and allow the user to instantly get to the function that they require without scrolling through endless menu options.

The LG KF700

The 3” touch screen displays its features perfectly and provides a generous screen for watching movies or music videos. With a familiar look and feel to the Apple iPhone, the LG KF700 allows you to flip through the menu with a swipe of your finger and easily access features such as the calendar, scheduler and memo pad. The alpha numeric keyboard slides out from the bottom of the handset for those who would prefer to type texts with the buttons rather than on the touch screen. The Shortcut Dial is located on the back of the phone and quickly accesses six user-selected features by controlling a virtual dial on screen. The shortcut dial wheel can also be used for scrolling through web pages and adjusting volume for example, functions for which a wheel is naturally best.

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More iPhone killer from LG

Posted by admin | Category: Mobile Phone, Trend Watch & News

After Nokia’s unofficial announcement of the Tube 5800, LG Electronics said it will also try to challenge the iPhone by releasing new handsets with touch-screen user interface.

The South Korean firm, considered as the worlds number 5 handset maker, made the pronouncement after the success of its Prada KE850 handset, which has sometimes been described as an ‘iPhone clone’ even though it was announced two months before Apple’s product.

Earlier, LG Electronics has entered the touch-screen phone arena, which is dominated by Apple’s iPhone, with the launch of LG-KF510 also known as “Touch Lighting Phone”.    

The “Touch Lighting Phone” is a 3-megapixel touch-screen phone that is 10.9 millimeters in width. The phone also adopts the “Interactive Touch Lighting’’  technology on the surface, enabling users to change images.  The handset also features an “Auto Luminance Control’’ function in a full light-emitting diode touch-pad on the front to save energy.  

The latest model made its first international debut at the “GSMA Mobile World Congress 2008’’  - formerly 3GSM World Congress - the mobile industry’s biggest event, that took place Feb. 11-24 in Barcelona, Spain. It is priced at $300 to $350.

Popularity: 1% [?]

A Verizon LG Voyager VX100000 test drive

Posted by admin | Category: Mobile Phone

The Voyager was billed as Verizon’s answer to the iPhone. That’s largely because of the touch screen. The Voyager, which sells for about $299, offers a few features that the iPhone doesn’t.

The sleek clamshell design offers a brilliant touch screen on the front. Though it’s not quite as smooth as the iPhone, it is easily navigated and the screen vibrates when you touch an icon. The touch screen is fun to navigate and allows access to contacts, a message menu, call logs, the camera, and the TV and music players. The Voyager offers other options for those who aren’t comfortable with that application.

When you open the phone, you see a smaller display screen and a QWERTY keyboard, which is tremendous for sending text messages and e-mail.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Marketing gimmick woes potential customers

Posted by admin | Category: Trend Watch & News

In devastating attempts to dominate the growing touch-phone market, Samsung and LG are trying to get closer to customers to let them recognize the outstanding features of touch-sense phones.

Samsung opened Haptic Zone at Anycall Studio in Shinchon, western Seoul, where visitors can try out the touch screen and advanced user interface (UI) of Samsung touch-screen phones.

LG chose COEX, one of the busiest places in Seoul and bustling with young people, for Cyon Planet. The company will run the place as a permanent event hall where people can come and join various activities such as drawing pictures on a touch screen and emailing them (touch canvas), making video calls over a large screen, writing on visitors’ photo book and participating in the cinema event.

LG Electronics says, "Consumers may find touch phone uncomfortable at first because of unfamiliar sense of touch and UI. Therefore we will have as many opportunities to invite them to try out touch phones as possible to boost our market share."

[telekomskorea]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Qualcomm MediaFLO powers AT&T Mobile TV

Posted by admin | Category: Mobile Phone, Smartphone

AT&T announced today that the nation’s largest wireless carrier will offer subscribers ten channels of live, mobile TV on at least two new phones starting in May.

AT&T Mobile TV uses Qualcomm’s MediaFLO system, which we reviewed last year with two Verizon phones. The MediaFLO system allows for at least 14 channels. AT&T and Verizon will share eight: CBS, Comedy Central, ESPN , FOX, MTV, NBC, NBC News, and Nickelodeon. AT&T will get two exclusive channels of their own, which Verizon customers won’t have access to.

Verizon, for its part, added two exclusive channels this week: ESPN Radio and a Latino-focused MTV spinoff, "MTV Tr3s".

MediaFLO channels aren’t simulcasts of broadcast TV. Rather, they’re rearrangements of the TV schedule to play popular programs several times a day. Late night talk shows pop up during morning commuting hours, for instance, and the NBC channel mixes in both NBC network programs and popular shows from NBC’s Bravo cable channel.

Since AT&T uses the exact same mobile TV network as Verizon, we expect quality to be the same (excellent, just like ‘regular’ TV) and pricing plans to be the same (around $15/month.)

The Samsung Access will be AT&T’s more conventional, and presumably more affordable, TV phone. The Access is a small, slim candy-bar phone with a 2.3-inch screen and 1.3-megapixel camera. Like several other Samsung phones on AT&T, it features the Video Share service which lets you beam live video to people you’re calling. Using the 850/1900 Mhz 3G bands and quad-band EDGE, it can hit AT&T’s high-speed network here in the US and it roams to Europe at lower data speeds.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Android on the run

Posted by admin | Category: Mobile Phone, Smartphone, Software, Trend Watch & News

Where’s Android?

Google’s Android was the star at the mobile industry’s last big conference, February’s Mobile World Congress. Now, during the first week of April, as the industry gears up for CTIA Wireless, its major U.S. event, Android is a no-show. High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC), the Taiwan-based maker that says it will roll out an Android phone later this year, will be at the show, but is keeping its Android plans under wraps.

Android is part of the company’s broader strategy to increase its sales and brand recognition in North America. To achieve that, HTC, which has manufactured cellphones and portable devices since 2002 but often sold them under other brands, like Palm ,is launching its first U.S. ad campaign, investing in high-end touch-screen phones, and moving into ultra-mobile computers.

As a founding member of Google’s Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a group of companies dedicated to promoting Android, HTC has been working on the project since last year.

That doesn’t make HTC a shoo-in, however. Other OHA members, including Samsung and LG, are also gunning for the honor of making the first Android-based phone. Jason Mackenzie, vice president of HTC America, believes his firm is still in the lead. "I believe we’ll be first to market. We feel very comfortable in that claim," he says.

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Korea phone maker aiming stronger market

Posted by admin | Category: Mobile Phone, Trend Watch & News

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics plan to use the CTIA (Cellular Telecommunication Industry Association) wireless industry trade show as a springboard to boost their mobile sales in the United States, where saturation and competition have been the norm.
The show, North America’s largest wireless event, will be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, April 1-3.
Samsung Electronics said Monday that it will unveil this year’s strategic “Soul’’ phone in the world’s largest consumer electronics market. The slider-type handset with a touch panel will feature Bluetooth 2.0 and 5-megapixel camera functions.
The phone is being marketed to European customers and will be available in mid-April.
Samsung electronics, the world’s No. 2 handset manufacturer after Finland-based Nokia, also plans to introduce customized products aiming for larger U.S. wireless operators such as “Flipshot’’ (Verizon), “Blackjack2’’ (AT& T), “Katalyst’’ (T-Mobile) and “m520’’ (Sprint).

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Popularity: 2% [?]

TELUS brings LG Touch Phone to Canada

Posted by admin | Category: Mobile Phone, Trend Watch & News

TELUS today announced that it will be the firstCanadian carrier to bring the next generation of the cell phone interface tolife with the LG VENUS touchscreen phone. The LG Venus is the first in aseries of LG Electronics touch screen phones TELUS will bring to Canadiansthis year. Touch screen user interfaces are typically reserved for high-endentertainment and productivity tools such as Smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) and this marks the first time that Canadians will be able toown a touch screen phone.

"Today’s cell phones are incredibly powerful communications and entertainment devices. To better utilize the capabilities of these devices, we believe the touchscreen interface is the future," said Rizwan Jamal, senior vice-president of TELUS Consumer Solutions. "We are very excited to introduce  the LG VENUS, the first of the LG Touch series. The LG VENUS will be followed by additional touchscreen phones later in the year to help keep our customers entertained and connected whenever they want, wherever they are."

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New feeling’s touch sensor for iPhone

Posted by admin | Category: Trend Watch & News

The technology that makes cell phones vibrate when people make a mistake while typing may help cut typing errors in touch-screen phones like the iPhone that lack the tactile feedback provided by a keyboard.
Researchers at the University of Glasgow in the UK claim that they can expel complications in touch-screen phones by using actuators like the ones used in cell phones to give a feeling of a keyboard.
Software called VibeTonz made by Immersion of San Jose, California, can get an actuator to move in different ways such as smoothly or jerkily.
Corporations like — Samsung and LG, which make touch-screen phones, use this to provide rudimentary ‘haptic’ feedback when a button is pressed, but according to Stephen Brewster, the study’s lead author, phones can do much more.
"The actuators are there, but people aren’t using them in the most effective way," New Scientist quoted Brewster as saying.
In order to create more sophisticated sensations, the research team strung together combinations of different VibeTonz.
A single pulse 30 milliseconds long gives the feeling of a button being clicked, while sliding a finger from one button to another prompts a half-second long buzz, providing a ‘rough’ feeling that tells the user they have strayed to another key.
Sliding the finger across a button causes the buzz to be ramped up and then down, giving the feel of a round button.
The team found that users typing speed and accuracy were significantly closer to results they achieved using a real keyboard, compared with when the haptics were disabled.

[infotech]

Popularity: 1% [?]

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