LG GW620 review: Start-up package

A good web browser, but lacking Flash

Great web browsing has been an undoubted Android strength since day one. The LG GW620 is hardly an exception here and even benefits further from the hardware QWERTY keyboard.

You don’t need to click anything to enter an address - just hit a key when you are not filling a web form and you can start typing.

Browsing GSMArena.com on the LG GW620

The user interface is pretty minimalist. You get the address bar, which is docked at the top of you screen so scrolling down and hiding it isn’t an option and a small arrow at the right side of the screen. Tapping this arrow reveals the LG custom interface for the browser, which is actually a bar with six shortcuts.

LG have added a touch of their own to the browser user interface

Those let you reload a page, go back and forward, access your bookmarks, open a new tab or check the browser settings.

Hitting the menu key reveals six more shortcuts. You can start typing an address, search and select text, check out your downloads or exit the web browser from here. The final button reveals even more options (bookmarks, window overview, settings etc.).

The rest of the options appear when you hit the menu key

Unfortunately you don’t get double-tap or one-finger zooming on the GW620. And since pinch-zooming isn’t even an option you only get to use the on-screen controls for that purpose. There is also no text reflow so LG’s first Android handset is a rather poor performer in terms of zooming.

At least panning offers two options – both sweep gestures across the screen and the hardware arrows on the QWERTY keyboard can do the job.

Unfortunately, there is no Flash support on the LG GW620. Neither Flash games nor Flash videos are an option. You do get to watch YouTube but it uses the preinstalled YouTube application rather than the web browser itself.

The preinstalled YouTube app partially compensates for the missing Flash support

Organizer well stocked, office document reader preinstalled

The LG GW620 comes with the usual set of organizing apps. We are starting to see a positive trend among recent Android-running handsets to have a document viewer preinstalled, rather than making the user download one.

The app in question is Quickoffice and it supports viewing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and PDF but only their Office 2003 versions. This time you don’t need a dedicated PDF reader but you still have to get the paid app for editing.

The Quickoffice app handles most document files but doesn’t support editing unless you pay to upgrade

The doc viewer integrates with the Gmail app, which makes viewing attachments a cinch. You can’t download them to the phone’s internal memory however. Attaching saved files (and we mean all kind of files) is possible though.

The calendar has four different types of view - daily, weekly, monthly and agenda. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to act as a reminder.

The calendar has the usual good functionality

The Agenda view shows a list of all the calendar entries from the recent past to the near future. It’s a very handy tool when you need to check your appointments for the next few days.

Agenda view

The LG GW620 features an alarm clock application, which allows a lot of alarms to be set, each with its own start time and repeat pattern.

You can easily set up multiple alarms with this one

The organizer package also includes a voice recorder, which might be pretty useful for making audio notes and a nicely touch-optimized calculator.

The voice recorder and the calculator

Finally, clicking the SNS icon in the main menu gives you an app designed to help you update your Facebook and Twitter profiles. You can also keep track of your friends’ activities in this app.

The SNS Manager puts your Facebook and Twitter accounts a click away