LG Cookie Pep

Full Review

The LG Cookie Pep is the latest touchscreen phone to hit the market that remains within the confines of the budget phone category.

Features

As expected the Pep has shed a number of features that you would come to expect from more expensive phones. It doesn’t support Wi-Fi or 3G and cannot be used as a GPS device. It has 42MB of internal memory but a microSD card can be used to expand that up to 16GB. A nice addition is the 2GB card that was bundled along with the phone. The Pep has a 3 inch screen that displays a resolution of 240x400 and has an output of 256K colors. It also has a 3.15MP camera but no flash.  It uses a microSD port but inexplicably LG have left out the ubiquitous 3.5mm headphones jack.

The Pep is sleek and in comparison, the Nokia 5233 looks positively obese.

The Pep uses a mix of the S-Class UI found on the Crystal and the original Cookie. It has a decent set of pre-installed apps that let you organize your schedule or just waste time using the accelerometer and the phone’s sensors. Overall, the Pep offers what you would expect in terms of features.

Design & Usability

The Cookie Pep might not cost the earth but that hasn’t stopped LG from giving it good looks. The Pep is sleek and in comparison, the Nokia 5233 looks positively obese. We got a model that was gun-metal grey in color which made the phone look elegant and understated. The phone is also very light and its build quality is solid.

The Pep’s 3 inch display is nothing special. The display quality is average and direct sunlight does not do it any favors. Below the screen is a context sensitive button that serves as different things depending on which menu has been opened (for e.g. you can receive calls with it and also jump back to the homescreen). Another button on the left also serves different purposes; a short press brings up the task manager while a longer one launches the camera.

I haven’t had the best experience with LG’s S-Class UI but the Pep surprised me. The Touch UI was responsive and quick and the haptic feedback worked quite well. My only complaint is regarding the touchscreen’s accuracy which falls somewhat short of very good. This can be noticed especially while using the virtual QWERTY keyboard.

Browsing, Multimedia etc.

Since the Pep doesn’t support Wi-Fi, I was compelled to browse the Web over regular GPRS. Except for the usual slow speeds that you can expect, the browser worked decently. The browser works better when displaying pages specially designed to be viewed on phones and has some problems rendering full webpages.

The Pep’s camera is also fair: it does some things really well but is also very average on other counts. Outdoor shots looked particularly sharp and good and the camera also let in less noise. Indoor pictures were not as good and I noticed more than acceptable levels of noise. The camera also does not allow focusing; whether manual or auto. However, the Pep managed to capture natural colors. The video recording was also quite average and there were some noise and frame-rate issues. At this resolution, the Apple iPhone 3GS’ camera worked much, much better.

A picture taken outdoors and a close-up picture taken indoors (click the images to enlarge)

The Pep, like most LG phones, does not disappoint when it comes to music playback. The audio quality is loud and clear and therefore it is even more annoying that the phone doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack. The Pep’s screen isn’t meant to watch movies on and it shows. Videos looked dull and for some reason, the LG software suite refused to recognize the Pep leaving me no easy way to convert videos for the phone.

The Pep has an excellent battery that will easily give you two days of normal usage. It also offers a nice FM radio that is easy to program and sounds good.

Bottom Line

LG knows exactly what it’s doing with the Cookie Pep. It is an affordable, smart looking touchscreen phone that does not aim to exceed your expectations but is content with meeting them.