LG KM900 Arena review: A touch of class

Design and construction (continued)

The left side of LG KM900 Arena features the USB port. It's hidden under a nice sliding lid that should prevent it from getting filled with dirt and grime.

Unfortunately, LG are still using their proprietary connectivity port for the Arena and not a more standard solution - microUSB or miniUSB. We certainly hope that the microUSB standard will find its way on more and more handsets from various manufacturers until eventually you will only need one cable no matter how many different phones you possess.

LG chose to stick to their proprietary USB port for the Arena

On the right-hand side of the Arena are the volume rocker and the camera keys. Those keys are definitely too thin for our taste they are obviously designed with looks rather than usability in mind. And great looks they are, blending seamlessly in with the sides of the handset. Using them however is a whole other story and involves quite a period of adjustment.

The volume rocker and the camera key aren't the most comfortable controls around

The bottom part of the LG Arena is perfectly plain, featuring no controls whatsoever.

There is nothing at the bottom

The top hosts the 3.5mm standard audio jack, the power key and the back panel release button. The audio jack hasn't received the same treatment as the USB port and isn't covered at all. This will probably make it easier to access and use, but it will eventually fill up with dirt and grime.

The power key is again a bit too small, but this time it isn't a big problem as it slightly juts out.

The 3.5mm jack is on top, along with the tiny power key

The back side of the LG KM900 Arena hosts the 5 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach optics and the LED flash. There is no protection for the lenses meaning that scratches are pretty much guaranteed in the long run.

The 5 megapixel camera lenses are prone to scratches as there is no protective cover

The single other thing on the back that might be of interest is the second microphone pinhole at the bottom. That second microphone is used for recording sound during video capture.

The second microphone is used when capturing video

We can't talk about the Arena's design without mentioning that the back panel looks quite similar to the one on the first-gen Apple iPhone - the matte surface, the camera location and shape as well as the cut-off bottom section - they all add up for an eerie iPhonish look.

The 1000 mAh Li-Ion battery is located under the aluminum battery cover. It is quoted at 300 hours of stand-by, 3 hours and 50 minutes of talk time or 30 hours of music playback. In reality it can last for about two days under some pretty extensive usage and to be honest we expected less. The huge number of pixels to be refreshed and the other power consuming features such as GPS and Wi-Fi are known to usually drain this kind of battery in a day.

The 1000 mAh battery performs pretty decently

The microSD card slot is also located under the battery cover but luckily it is hot-swappable. As we managed to confirm the LG KM900 Arena can easily handle a 16GB microSD card, which is the largest capacity currently available on the market. LG also promise that the Arena will be able to accommodate the 32GB cards once they become available.

The general build quality of the KM900 Arena is of a high quality and the materials used seem pretty durable. The positive initial impression left by its compact size never left us throughout the reviewing week.

LG KM900 Arena feels nicely in hand