LG KF600 review: Twice the fun

Keypad could've been better

The keypad of LG KF600 is not among the best we've seen. It has ample keys and enough space under the slider so you can easily reach even the top row. However touch orientation is almost non-existent. You will probably need to look at the keys all the time to avoid typos.

The keys are large enough but tactility is critically low

Users will probably get that the hang of it in time and will speed up through their text messages but nonetheless the keypad is far from perfect. Besides, the somewhat strange location of the Call and End keys may seem uncomfortable to some people. As far as we're concerned, it's not a big deal. After all, you can handle your calls with the InteractPad without any problems.

The backlighting is strong enough and even. The labels of the keys are also large enough, so working with the LG KF600 in the dark is by no means harder than operating it in brighter environments.

The backlighting is really strong and even

Smallish display of decent picture quality

LG KF600 has a 2" TFT LCD display. It supports 262K colors and QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) resolution. The picture quality is quite nice with adequate contrast and brightness. However, size is what fails it, as there are already a number of phones in this price range with larger displays.

Another disturbing fact is that legibility is greatly reduced under direct sunlight. It is quite a challenge to find a proper angle for working with the phone when you are outside on a sunny day.

The display has good picture quality but disastrous legibility under direct sunlight

All of this holds true for the secondary touchscreen too. Except maybe the fact that the InteractPad is on the large side (we remind you that the touch pad on Samsung E950 was only 1.14").

The InteractPad has the same picture quality as the main display, which is quite an achievement

Fingerprints are also to worry about, as they really affect legibility. Not that cleaning is such a chore but, again, you will need to do it once too often with this phone.

Telephony

When it comes to the most essential element of a phone, the LG KF600 offers good reception and in-call sound. Voice quality is good on both ends of a call. Besides, the phone has nice interface and dialing a number or a contact from the phonebook is easy and pleasant.

Dialing a number on LG KF600

We also put the little fella to our traditional loudspeaker test. Here is how it ranks against some of the other handsets exposed to the same challenge. As you can see, it performs adequately, stacking just above the middle of our table. You can find more information about the test itself and the whole list of tested devices here.

The new user interface has its ups and downs

Flash UI like the one in LG KF600 are nothing revolutionary. The KF600 interface is visually appealing and easy to work with. It partially compensates for the lack of smartphone capabilities with user-friendliness and speed.

The flash user interface is nice and user-friendly

The standby screen has information about the current time and date, as well as the typical status readings. It shows signal strength, the active profile and the battery status. In standby mode the InteractPad features 6 shortcuts to the most frequently used phone features. Four of them can be changed and reordered to the user liking. These are also large enough and no problem to click.

The standby screen with and without screensaver

Overall, the menu structure of LG KF600 is straightforward and easy to work with. You may occasionally wonder where some of the settings are but this is easy to get used to.

The InteractPad is the main option for navigating the menus. You can also use keypad shortcuts, with alphanumeric keys linked to icons on the screen (depending on the menu). The haptic feedback has three different modes and can be switched off too, if not needed, to save some battery power. The feedback itself reacts with a certain delay thus ruining the good impression. Vibration strength can also be adjusted but you will probably end up using it at maximum level at most times.

"...Overall, the menu structure of LG KF600 is straightforward and easy to work with. You may occasionally wonder where some of the settings are but this is easy to get used to..."

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There are two main menu modes available - a standard 3 x 3 grid or a list of 4 icons with labels. The latter is better looking and interacts nicely with the selected theme but is not as easy to work with. We ended up using the grid view far more often. The menu font and dialing style are also customizable.

The two main menu view modes

Customization options are great

If you get bored with your LG KF600 try changing the theme. The 8 preinstalled themes really won our appreciation with the nice animations on the standby screen. Furthermore, the InteractPad is also involved and the animations flow across screens producing simple and yet quite amusing screen savers. They really are a breath of fresh air.

Some of the themes are made by the designer Keith Haring and follow a somewhat graffiti style.

Some of the available themes - the animations quite amusingly jump across screens

Another thing that can be customized is the slider sound, for which the user has some interesting options.

A video of some of the available themes