LG KE970 Shine review: High-gloss, high-class

More on usability

The LG Shine display provided for a nice experience – whether outside or indoors. The legibility remained tolerable under direct sunlight – something that we didn’t expect having in mind its mirror-like finish. The QVGA resolution is pretty adequate and the images shown on the display were fine and wonderful colors. The brightness levels are user configurable but they provided enough flexibility to allow using the handset with an ease both under strong light and in complete darkness.

LG KE970 Shine display in the dark

When it comes to the keypad, we would no longer comment on the navigation part, but we would concentrate on the alphanumeric part. Typing messages was not the easiest thing to do since there are no tactile differences between neighboring keys. Other than that the individual keys themselves have a nice feedback and typing phone numbers was a pleasant thing to do. It’s got to be noted that as with most sliders, the upper row of the keypad wasn’t easily accessible. The green receiver key proved especially hard to get to.

The keys pad has a nice but somewhat uneven blue backlighting as you may see from the pictures taken in total darkness.

LG KE970 keypad in the dark

Integrated dual ringer

The LG KE970 Shine does great at making and receiving calls. The sound volume is satisfactory. Much like the KG800 the KE970 doesn’t have a dedicated loud speaker and instead uses the in-call speaker on the front panel for the ringing melodies. The vibration is not that strong too. Having in mind that dual purpose of the speaker it comes as no surprise that the sound during conversations is really loud and clear. That provides for pleasant conversations even in noisy streets. The MP3 ringing is also nice and clear but really lacks bass elements.

Calling our friend Dexter

LG interface doesn’t bring any surprises

The standby screen of the handset displays info about the battery status and signal strength. The carrier’s name can be turned off and we find that a really pleasant feature that should be seen in other phones too. In standby the two soft keys correspond to the Main Menu and the Contacts list.

Standby screen

The main menu is a 3 x 3 grid of icons which get animated when you select them. The graphic icons are different as opposed to those used in the LG Chocolate lineup. Each icon is marked with a number so you can use the corresponding numeric keys as shortcuts for the menu items.

Main menu

The submenus are viewed as a list. Once you open a menu item you can scroll to the other menu items with the navigation roller without the need for returning to the main menu. Here are the nice wallpapers that come preinstalled with the handset.

Some of the preset wallpapers

There are no themes available for customizing the looks of the interface, but there is the option to change the menu style. Beside the regular 3x3 grid you are given the opportunity to use the list style menu. Unfortunately the highly attractive Arc style we saw in LG KE800 Platinum is not among the available options.

List style menu

In standby the four ways of the navigation roller each has a predefined shortcut function. If you wish you could visualize the respective assigned functions of the standby screen in order to make your life easier. We found it a preferred option in the first couple of days we used the phone.

The LG Shine display provided for a nice experience – whether outside or indoors. The legibility remained tolerable under direct sunlight – something that we didn’t expect having in mind its mirror-like finish.

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Pressing the LEFT key takes you to the Contacts list. Scrolling DOWN key takes you to the Profiles list. Pressing the RIGHT key takes you to a Favorites menu which is a list of shortcuts which is user-configurable. Scrolling UP key opens the message Inbox.

Standby screen shortcut menu • Favorites menu

It’s a good thing that all the submenu items have numeric shortcuts assigned to them. You can see those in front of every menu item while browsing the menu.

Numeric shortcut icons in the beginning of each row

There’s also an interesting option to colorize the phone numbers when dialing in order to distinguish the individual numbers more easily. Or you can choose the other dialing graphics mode that is also interesting. Whether you would like one of those is entirely up to your taste, of course.

Dialing a colorful number