Whoever designed the LG M4410 probably did so after watching the US Formula 1 Grand Prix. It was a big farce, but I am not trying to suggest this phone is. It doesn’t have an OS, but is nothing short of brilliant when it comes to the installed software. But it’s pretty much like a robber who left a load of evidence after a robbery. Want to know more? Read on then.
Looks and Build Quality.
These Koreans, I tell you, are pretty much copy cats. Look at Hyundai cars, the older Sonata for instance, looked as though a Mercedes and Jaguar were badly mixed by a bar-tender. The new one too looks like an Accord and Audi A8. This phone too , looks like a D500 from the sides(yes, they even copy from kith and kin. Sibling rivalry?!?!). But is pretty pleasing to look at from the front. With it’s so called “F1 inspired design” it does manage to look a bit like a spruced up go kart. Otherwise it looks and feels solid and chunky from the other sides. It tips the scales at a 110gms. Light enough for a clamshell phone of this size. Manages to turn heads quite easily with its aluminum front (no, no it’s just cheap Chinese plastic). Should be comfortable to use in large hands.
The left of the phone holds a coupled volume button, at the same time the right side is equipped with a camera button and an earphone connector. It is closed with a plastic shutter fixed to the body. The slot itself is miniUSB identical to those used in Samsung's phones. So, the devices are headset compatible. This very side has a miniSD expansion slot. The latch has a hollow; however it's hard to lock the shutter with a hand, since it's sunk into the body. As a rule, that is easier to do with a paper-clip or something like that. Hot swapping of the memory card is supported, which is an undoubted advantage and characterizes the device as up-to-date. Thankfully so.
The keypad next
It’s nice and wide. SMS junkies should be happy. Ah… the many pleasures of having a clamshell phone! Good tactile feel but it’s a bit flat and you can’t exactly type in without seeing. But nonetheless, it’s good. Many controls are accessible from the outside itself, like the camera, the music player etc. There is no navigational stick but the four directional keys are good enough. And then there is this large OK button for you to finalize your decision after much head scratching.
The Display
“Awesome” is usually the first word when someone props open the display. Seriously, its 176*220 256k display is sharp and manages to reproduce the smoothest of shades with immaculate ease. It is pretty readable in bright sunlight too. There is also an external 65k OLED display. Exposes some functionality like the MP3 player, camera and the usual stuff external displays umm… well display. The menu is animated and bright too. Produces loads of sounds for different menu options. Good for poseurs. Thankfully, you can turn it off too. LG have also tried their best to ape Nokia as far as menu controls go. And that is a big plus. It’s easier than some Nokia phones to use. First timers won’t find it that difficult to get along.
The Phonebook too, stores all of 250 names with all the teeny-weeny details like e-mail address, second phone number, a picture of them, which group they are to be placed in. Then there is also the SIM memory to store just the name and number.
Performance
Holy mother of all God! I get network reception in my dungeon of a Chemistry lab. Let me explain. Our college Chemistry lab is underground and my older Nokia never managed to get some network over there. Orange doesn’t have proper service over there, you see. But this phone is unbelievable. It shows 75% network strength! Amazing!
Battery and Connectivity
The battery too is rock solid. On paper as well as real world tests. A 1000mAh Li-Ion battery is used as a standard for the phone. Works fine for me. It does so for an average of 2 and half days. That includes 30 minutes of EDGe(Class 10 GPRS, just for the record) usage. 30 minutes of camera usage and 2 hours of banging on with the Mp3 player. Bluetooth too doesn’t drain battery life. And there are no connectivity issues. It connects with any phone on the fly and data transfer is nice and fast.
Music Playback
Now comes the part with which the phone is being marketed. The MP3 player. Its crap. There, I said it straight of. Maybe it’s the quality of the headsets, but low and high bit rate media sound pretty similar on the phone. Plus you cannot do anything else except change the playlists, fiddle with the equalizer, change some visualizations (there are 2 of them). Yeah, that’s about it. You have to turn of the music player before you do anything else. Well, you can answer a call, but this is not what I expect from LG after the Nokia 6670 allows you to play music in the background while you carry on with your work.
camera
The camera is also no great shakes when it comes to image quality. But it’s got a load of presets to choose from. The phone camera is 1.3 MP and the following resolutions are supported - 1280x960, 640x480, 320x240, main screen, external screen, contact(for displaying in the phone book). Three compression types - Super Fine, Fine, Normal. Photo brightness is adjusted (from -2 to +2, a step of 0.5), white balance (auto, sunny, cloudy, indoors), a timer and a night mode are present. The effects to mention are Sepia and BW. You can choose the type of memory where the photos will be saved. The flash may work both automatically or you can control it manually.
Voice Clarity too is exceptionally good.Every syllable can usually be heard quite clearly. And you dont have to scream into the phone to get yourself heard at the other end. Didnt expect this from LG.
Memory
You have 8MB of onboard memory and a 64MB miniSD card with a SD card expansion slot. So, the memory can be bumped right up to 1GB.But its rather pointless. Now why do I have to say that? That, my friends is the main drawback of this phone. It treats them both very separately. For example an image has more settings to it when in the phone memory than in the external. Also a MP3 can be set as ringtone only if it’s on the handset memory. Also you cannot move multiple files at once. It’s one by one. So when I feel a particular teacher is getting boring, I know I have “card” maintenance to carry out. Yes Mr. LG M4410, you will stand out in the crowd, but like a sore thumb. (As far as this aspect goes)
Games and Software
The phone supports Java (J2ME only, J2SE apps won’t run). And that should in a significant way fill up for the lack of an Operating System (miss u).The phone comes pre-installed with only one game. Mr.Crane. A cross breed of Tetris and a logic game. Good way to kill time. Lots of apps and games can be downloaded from the WowLG site.Must say, the content available exceeds expectations. At least in India, they have a tie-up with MTV for ringtones and wallpapers. Googling yields a fair amount of results too.
The phone has a HTML supporting browser which is a bit heavy on the processor. But it’s nice and fast once it has started. The History option is available too.
Pluses
+Sturdy Build Quality
+Brilliant color display
+Large Keypad
+Useful Exernal Controls
+miniSD support
+MP3 playback
+Seamless connectivity with Bluetooth
+Good bundled software
Minuses
-Average Camera
-Average Sound Quality
-20 second "Silent Movie" recording
-Integration issues with External Memory
Contents of standard package
>Handset
>Battery( 1000mAh Li-Ion)
>Users Guide
>LG Mobile Agent v1
>64MB miniSD card(with SD card slot)
>USB cable
>Stereo Handsfree Kit
Freebie available In India
>LG AVHB04 Bluetooth Headset
Price
Rs 13.5k to 15k(varies from state to state)
Conclusion
Good value for money. More than enough features for the average user. Some small niggles, but not very significant. Maybe LG has an update to this phone. I do not know. Could have been categorized as a smartphone, if it had an OS. Its a wrap. Satish signing out.
Overall Rating 7/10
P.S. I am only 17 years old. This is my first ever review of anything. Please do not flame me if you dont like the review. Instead give suggestions. that will help me write my next review even better.
LG M4410 Review
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