LG Viewty
The LG-KU990 or LG-KE990 (known and marketed as the LG Viewty) is a high-end mobile phone manufactured by LG Electronics, released in August 2007. It has a resistive touchscreen and was specially marketed for its camera, being the first touchscreen phone with a powerful camera.[1] It was succeeded by the LG Renoir and later LG Viewty Smart.
 | |
| Manufacturer | LG Electronics |
|---|---|
| Compatible networks | HSDPA, GSM / GPRS / EDGE Tri-Band (900/1800/1900) |
| Availability by region | 2007 |
| Form factor | Candybar |
| Dimensions | 103.5 × 54.4 × 14.8 mm (L × W × D) |
| Mass | 112 grams |
| Memory | 100 MB |
| Removable storage | MicroSD |
| Display | 262K colour TFT touchscreen, 3", 240 × 400 (WQVGA) |
| Rear camera | 5.0(sony cam module) megapixel, video 30 frame/s or slow-motion video 120 frame/s, Strobe Flash |
| Front camera | VGA Video call (Front) |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 1.2, USB 2.0 |
Features
Camera
The phone's main selling point was its 5-megapixel digital camera with Schneider Kreuznach optics, Xenon flash, autofocus, and a digital image stabilizer. It featured an ISO 800-equivalent High-Sensitivity mode for night scenery shots and "Smart Light" for bright and clear images in the dark. It allowed capturing DivX VGA video at 30fps, and QVGA at 120fps for slow-motion playback. According to the manufacturer, the camera's frame rate was high enough to film a balloon bursting.[2]
Applications
The device supported Flash Lite 2 and MIDP Java 2.0. There were a few built-in system applications like Office and a PDF document viewer, movie and photo editor, and Obigo web browser.
Later Releases
An updated model, the KU990i, was later released. It features a new camera module, the strobe flash is replaced by a LED, it has no image stabilization nor Schneider Kreuznach optics, although it features always-on flash mode and automatic smile and face detection. Physically, the inner camera lens seemed to be slightly smaller.
Limitations
The organizer in the phone could only store 100 calendar events[3] and isn't officially listed on the compatible list with the popular GooSync,[4] which helps sync phone calendars with Google Calendar (though it does work by using instructions for LG Arena). Also some public customer reviews of the LG Viewty stated concerns over poor battery life, mainly due to the large touchscreen. Also released was a variant without 3g called the KE990.
Sales
LG reported sales of 310,000 units in Europe in the first five weeks.[5] A blog entry by UK mobile phone reseller Dial-A-Phone suggested that the Viewty may be outselling the Apple iPhone in the region, citing anecdotal reports of sluggish sales and Apple's reluctance to publish figures for the iPhone in the region as evidence. The pricing and featuresets of the two phones were used as an explanation.[6] This story was picked up and widely reported by technology news sites and blogs, however without official sales figures for the iPhone, it could not be confirmed or refuted at the time.
The phone was never released in the United States.
Specification sheet
| Feature | Specification |
|---|---|
| Form factor | Candybar |
| Operating System | LG Proprietary OS, with Adobe Flash user interface, Java MIDP 2.0 |
| Network | HSDPA, GPRS, EDGE, GSM 900/1800/1900, WCDMA 2100 |
| Dimensions | 103.5 × 54.4 × 14.8 mm |
| Weight | 112 g |
| Display | 262K colour TFT Touchscreen, 3.0", 400x240 pixels (Dot pitch: 0.1634mm) with Mobile XD Engine |
| Camera | Frontal VGA video call and rear Sony 5.1 Megapixels camera module with Schneider Kreuznach optics, zoom 16x, xenon flash, AF, MF, Image Stabilizer, ISO (100-800), Smart Light |
| Baseband | Qualcomm 3G baseband |
| Video recording | VGA (640×480 or 640x384 cropped to wide) up to 30 frame/s, QVGA (320×240) up to 120 frame/s for slow motion playback, QCIF (176x144) up to 15 frame/s |
| Ringtone | MP3, AAC, WMA files, video ringtones, WAV and AMR voice, 72-chord/voice polyphonic |
| Internal Memory | 120 MB |
| CPU | 140 MHz ARM9 |
| Multimedia Processor | Zoran APPROACH 5C (268 MHz) |
| Memory card slot | Supports up to 4 GB microSD |
| SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 (SSL is not supported), and APOP | |
| Bluetooth | 1.2 + A2DP |
| Data cable support | USB 2.0 |
| Radio Stereo | Philips stereo FM radio with RDS |
| Audio Player | AAC, eAAC, MP3, WMA, m4a, WAV |
| Video Player | 3GP, MP4, DivX(Up to 720x480), AVI(Up to 640x480), H.263, H.264/AVC |
| Battery | LGIP-580A (1000 mAh) |
| Talk time | up to 200 min (WCDMA), up to 160 min (GSM) |
| Standby time | up to 330 hours (WCDMA), up to 270 hours (GSM) |
| Additional | Google Services (includes YouTube, Google Map, Gmail, Blogger and Google Search), Handwriting Recognition/Handwriting Editing, DivX mobile profile, TV out, Document viewer |