LG GW550

Full Review

From a phone-maker like LG whose repertoire mainly comprises of flashy phones with noteworthy multimedia features, the LG GW550 is a strange launch. The phone has an understated look and runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard Edition. Let’s see if the LG GW550 impresses in spite of existing without any bells and whistles.

Features

Although, the GW550 may attract a couple of feature-phone users, it seems to be aimed quite directly at business users looking for an inexpensive option. It boasts of Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS support. It has a microSD card that can accept cards up to 16GB. Imaging is taken care of by a barebones 3.2MP camera without a flash or autofocus. The LG GW550 has a 2.4 inch display that can show 65K colors at a resolution of 320x240. Apart from the camera, the phone’s back also sports twin speakers set in a steel bar.

The LG GW550 looks alright, albeit it does look uncannily like a host of Windows Mobile 6.1 phones from 2008.

Productivity

The LG GW550 comes with the Office Mobile suite that lets you view and edit Word documents and Excel sheets while letting you view PowerPoint presentations and PDF documents. The organizer/scheduler application, like in other WinMo phones is quite useful.  You can create new tasks, set priorities for different tasks and decide how many times you should get alerts for a particular task. Alternatively, you can just access the calendar and set a task for any given day.

For e-mail, the LG GW550 supports Microsoft Exchange Active Sync, allowing you to keep your contacts and e-mails synchronized. I set up a Gmail account on the phone and it worked very well. You can setup the phone to automatically receive/send e-mails according to a schedule and the entire process of setting up and using the e-mail feature was simple.

The LG GW550 has two repositories of apps that it can dig into- one being the Windows Mobile Marketplace and the second being LG’s own Application Store. While LG means well with its App Store, it’s woefully under-populated. Windows Marketplace is a better option but even that needs a lot more free, useful apps to reach the heights that Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market have reached.

Design & Usability

The LG GW550 looks alright, albeit it does look uncannily like a host of Windows Mobile 6.1 phones from 2008. However, I’m sure there will be many people out there who wouldn’t mind the simple design. I have no complaints with the GW550’s build quality. The phone feels solid in the hand and it uses a combination of regular plastic and rubberized plastic. The keyboard comprises of large rounded keys that are excellent to type on.

If there is one thing that accentuates the fact that the LG GW550 would have fit in better in 2008 is its interface. Although, it uses WinMo 6.5, the Standard edition means that it’s stuck with an interface that looks exactly like WinMo 6.1. As a result, I found the interface confusing and unwieldy and rife with inconsistencies. One of the really irritating aspects is that in some apps, the right navigation key can be used to exit the app, while in some it pops up a menu where you need to select the exit option and then press the central d-pad. And again in some apps, the dedicated back button works fine to get you back one level, while in some others it doesn’t. Yes, the WinMo OS does bring with a bunch of powerful features aimed at business users but its interface really feels archaic. Another problem that I faced with the LG was that the interface regularly slowed down and sometimes even froze for a couple of seconds.

Browsing, Multimedia, etc.

The LG GW550 uses Internet Explorer as its default browser and although its functional, I wouldn’t really recommend it as a browser to use if you intend to spend a large amount of time on the Web mainly due to the phone’s small screen and navigation follies.

The LG GW550 isn’t a powerful multimedia device either. Its 3.2MP camera captured average pictures with fewer details and above average noise levels. However, the camera’s color reproduction is decent and colors on the images captured looked sharp. The videos I recorded were terribly grainy with low frame-rates.

The LG doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack so I was forced to use the bundled earphones. Predictably, the output wasn’t up to mark with music sounding really bright with no mids and absolutely no bass. At least, the volume levels were high and the twin external speakers loud and clear.

Call quality on the LG GW550 was good, although there was some echoing and static audible. Call quality using the hands-free was better and the hands-free mic was very sensitive. The GW550’s battery was average and just about managed to last more than a day of regular usage.

Bottom Line

One good thing about the LG GW550 is its price- Rs. 12,300 in India. At that price, a device that supports Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G and also with good productivity features seems like a good deal. However, what really spoils the deal, is its unrefined interface, an OS that stutters and poor multimedia capabilities. At about Rs. 14,000, the Blackberry Curve 8520 is an all round better deal as a business phone. Another excellent deal is the Nokia E63 at Rs. 8,600. Both the Blackberry and the Nokia don’t support 3G but I would recommend them over the LG.