LG KF310 Review

Introduction:

The slider LG KF310, presented by the manufacturer as Internet oriented phone, falls in the upper part of the entry level and targets the con mass consumer, which wants to have a good functionality without having to fully redistribute the monthly finances. The more attractive options offered by the model are multitasking, which is not even present in some upper class devices, a 2-megapixel camera and 3G support.

Design:

KF310’s design is not impressive, but more average and modest. Overall, its size is not very compact, but at least the weight of 3.4 oz (95 grams) is acceptable. It is made of plastic, which when touched reminds of the low class the phone belongs to.



Naturally, the 2 ” TFT display with resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and 262k color support is located on the front. Under artificial lighting, the picture looks colorless, and in direct sunlight, the display is totally useless because nothing can be seen.

Below it, we find the soft buttons, the two receivers and 5 navigational keys. The last ones resemble a D-pad, but are separated from each other. When pressing all buttons they are very firm, which makes them hard to operate.

The sliding mechanism is stable and looks dependable, and is easily operated. Pushing it up, it reveals a keyboard with a blue backlight. The first raw consists of the multitasking button (we’ll discuss that in Interface), Clear and the camera dedicated one. None of them are protruding and they are hard to press. These keys are not easy to distinguish by touch either.

On the left, we have relieved and user-friendly volume controls and the microSD slot. On the opposite side is located the universal charger/handsfree/data cable port.

Interface:

As a whole, the interface is the typical for the manufacturer, but here, it is simpler compared to the version seen in the top models. The homescreen houses the standard indicators and you can add an animated GIF picture. The main menu icons come in the standard 3x4 grid and are not animated, but you can also view them as a vertical list. In both cases, there is a symbol right next to each icon, corresponding to a button on the keyboard for easier navigation. Unfortunately, there are only a few options to change the way the menus are visualized, including 2 themes and 2 different fonts.

The most interesting option offered by KF310 is the multitasking. It is executed by using a button from the keyboard. There are almost no limitations as per the choice of menus and applications activated simultaneously. Their total number can be 22, but unfortunately, you’ll have to close them separately. That is so, because the multitasking menu is illogically deactivated from the Clear indicated on the screen. However, considering the class of the phone, this option is quite impressive.

Phonebook:

Here you can store up to 500 contacts, with 5 numbers for each, 2 e-mails, a picture (avatar or photograph), ringtone or a video, 2 addresses and groups. Looking through the list, if there are names with multiple numbers or emails, a line appears in the bottom of the screen, giving you the option to choose one.


The LG model continues to surprise us, after we figured out that it can search through the contacts by second name. In addition, when dialing a number, you can search for matches in the contacts (selected manually from the options).

Organizer:

In this menu, you will find Calendar, To-do, Notes, Secret notes and Search by date.

The Calendar can be viewed as a month or week. The second one appears as a daily schedule where you have the option to automatically set a day off. From the settings, you can also send your entire schedule and To-dos to another device via Bluetooth or to backup the info, if you have a microSD card in place.

The To-Do notes can only have a set date, a short text, and priority. The notes are intended for larger texts, but they are limited to 1000 symbols.


The secret notes share a password and no one will even see their titles unless they enter the correct code.

In the Tools menu, you’ll find the Quick menu, Alarms, Calculator, Timer, Unit converter and World clock. Using the first one, you can add up to 10 shortcuts of your choice, including almost all options offered by the phone.


The rest of the functions are standard for the organizer and nothing will surprise you.
 
Unfortunately, the phone doesn’t offer voice commands, which is not such a big drawback.

If you think that the 75 MB built-in memory is not enough, there is a microSD expansion slot.

Messaging:

From this menu, you can create SMS, MMS and email messages. The last option allows you to send and receive large files, not suitable for MMS. However, you’ll have to manually setup even the accounts for the largest web mail servers. Text input is assisted by the T9 system, and using the user-preset templates saves more time.



Connectivity:

LG KF310 is a tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz), which makes it fully usable only on the territory of Europe and Asia. In addition, there, you’ll be able to take advantage of the 3G UMTS (2100 MHz) support.

For local connectivity, the phone is equipped with Bluetooth 1.2. You can also connect your phone to a computer as a mass storage or a data device, by using a USB cable.

Internet:

The Obigo WAP 2.0 browser performed excellent, considering the class of the phone. The heavy www.phonearena.com opened trouble free. There was a delay in the reactions while navigating and the lack of options (zoom in/out, pan view) was very noticeable. Nevertheless, this didn’t ruin the KF310’s performance.

Camera:

The 2-megapixel camera has a quite modest interface, but on the otherhand, it offers many options, including even burs shot (9 picturesmax). The overall photographs quality is low, but we didn’t expect morefrom a device of this class.




You also have a camcorder, but the videos you can shoot are lowquality ones (176 x 144) and a few fps . Do not expect to use it foranything else but MMS messages.

Multimedia:

The music player lets you sort the tracks by recently played, all tracks, artists, albums, genres, playlists  or shuffle. Playing a tune, you will see the album cover, track info, the progression bar with the control buttons below it. Aside this theme however, there is another one, which has an animated visualization display on the bigger part of the screen. It doesn’t correspond to the sound, but it is a good alternative.

The video player has no separate icon in the menus and is activated by selecting a file. The interface is simple and very easy to use and it offers quite some options (it even has screen capture). Maximum resolution of the videos that you can play is less or equal to the screens resolution. You’ll get the best results if you format in 3GP format with h263 codec and about 20 fps.

Performance:

The operational speed is very good without any lag during navigation through the menus, even with various applications being active. With 22 programs running, we expected the phone to block, but to our great surprise that didn’t happen.

The sound quality during a talk is also on a good level. The voices on both ends are heard loud and clear, but monotonous and sharp at times. Unfortunately, the loudspeaker did an awful job and you should avoid using it.

According to the official data, the 900 mAh Li-Ion battery will provide 5 hours of talks and 450 hours in standby mode.

Conclusion:

Considering the class it fits in, the LG KF310 slider offers a truly notable functionality. Since everything has a price, the design has suffered. However, if you are looking for a budget multifunctional phone, then this one is just for you.