LG KF510 Review

Introduction:

In the last years, many of the models LG has put on the market have an elegant vision, attracting the eyes of the crowd. LG KF510 is one of the fashion sliders of the company and it has been created as impressive as possible. LG is touting the model as the first one with gradient colors on the panel and a monolith look as if it didn’t open.

What’s in the box?

• User Guide
• Software CD
• Battery
• Charger
• Stereo Portable Handsfree
• USB Data Cable

Design:

The first thing that came to our heads when we saw the LG KF510 was: „Oh, another elegant and beautiful model in the company’s product line”. And it really is, because at 0.4” (10.9 mm) it is quite slim and has pleasantly gradating colors. In our case, they go from black to grey, but the other version, which is red, is even a bigger attraction.



The weight of 3.9 oz (110 g) is justified by the materials (metal and scratchproof) used to make the phone. Unfortunately, the KF510 is a fingerprint magnet and in order to keep it clean and shiny, you’ll have to carry a handkerchief.


You can compare the LG KF510 to many other phones, using PhoneArena's Visual Size Compare tool

The entire front of the LG phone is encircled by a metal edge and is covered in scratchproof glass, which protects the 2.2” TFT, able to reproduce 262K colors. Indoors, the picture is beautiful, but once you try to use it in broad daylight, you get the annoying mirror-like effect, which makes the display almost unusable. Over it, we have its automatic light/brightness sensor and the speaker.


The navigation zone is separated from the upper part of the front with a slightly protruding chrome line, which helps to open the phone. Instead of buttons or a color display, like in KF600, here we see a touch sensitive area with LEDs, where we have the soft keys, the green receiver, and the “Clear” button. There are no arrows and you’ll have to either run a finger in or just touch the area, pointing at the direction desired in order to scroll. This system is actually pretty convenient, but as any innovation, it takes time to get used to it. However, you can only go vertical/horizontal. There’s also an option for a vibration feedback (three levels) or a sound, to confirm commands, in case you have difficulties understanding when it happens.


Opening the phone is easy and thanks to the monolith construction, it is more stable than most other sliders. Doing that, reveals the 12-button numeric keypad. Its design resembles a chessboard (like in Chocolate) and all buttons are in a similar square pattern, making them very pleasant to press. Their relief is slightly expressed and they are hard to distinguish, unless you are looking at them.

On the right side of the KF510, on the metal edge, are located the charger/handsfree connector, the camera/multimedia button and the closing one. Both have a well-expressed relief and are easy to find by touch. One untypical solution is that the red receiver is a sliding key. In order to reject a call, you have to slide and release it, which activates the touch pad so you can confirm. The first action can also be used to switch off the phone, so do not hold it for too long.

On the same side, the phone has a slot for a microSD card, but in order to see it, you’ll have to open the slider. It would have been better if there were indications in the front.


The top and bottom parts are free from any elements and on the left, we have the volume rocker and the strap hole.

On the back, is the back lid, covering the battery and a 3-megapixel camera with a small LED flash and a tiny mirror. Changing the SIM card is pretty hard since its house doesn’t come out completely and you’d have to push it in/out at an angle.

Interface:

LG KG510’s interface resembles the LG Shine’s, but is slightly updated and looks better. The home screen is standard with the system indicators and the clock in the upper part. In its bottom, we see the functions of the two soft buttons. In KF510, the user is able to personalize the phone’s appearance, by using the various themes. The phone comes preloaded with three of those, animated wallpapers, and the choice of few font types.



There are two ways of visualizing the main menu: as a 3 x 4 grid or as a list. Unfortunately, the order of the icons cannot be changed. There is a number indication before every single option, which corresponds to the numeric keys. This lets you get to the most frequently used functions, by just a few clicks.

All sub-menus are visualized as a vertical list, preceded by numbers as well. Similar to earlier models, by using the left/right arrow you are able to jump to the previous/next one, no matter the sub-menu you are in.

Phonebook:

The phonebook’s capacity is 1000 contacts with the ability to add up to four numbers and an e-mail for each. Other options include group association, ringtone, picture, date of birth, and a short note. Unfortunately, the phone doesn’t let you search by second name or to choose a few contacts, which to copy (from-to the SIM or another phone). You can at least delete all contacts at once if you want to.



Dialer:

You have the choice of three themes for the dialing field: Music book, Lawn and Digital. Only the last one was appropriate for us, since the other ones do not fit the vision of the interface. Similar to the products of other manufacturers, here, when inputting a number from the key board, the phone will also try to predict the number you are dialing, by matching it with any contacts, outgoing, incoming or missed calls. In contrast to other phones, in order to start searching for a match in KF510, you have to press the D-pad and it is not activated automatically.



Organizer:

As far as the organizer goes, KF510 doesn’t offer many functions. The options are divided in the Organizer and Tools menus. The first has reminder notes and a calendar, which can be viewed only as an entire month or a given day. You can fill in your daily schedule and setup a corresponding alarm. Unfortunately, you cannot choose the type of event, such as a holiday, meeting, birthday etc.

The menu Tools houses Alarms, Calculator, Chronometer, Unit converterand World Clock. These are standard and nothing will surprise you.Voice command options are not present at all.

Messaging:

Writing a message is done via the keyboard and in combination with the T9 text predictive input, it is fast and easy. In the menu, you can choose between an SMS, e-mail or Bluetooth messages. The phone unites the messages from its own memory with those, from the SIM card. An interesting option available is the ability to send a Bluetooth messages. Using it, you are able to send text to the close by devices, employing the same wireless technology. This really is a quite interesting and free way to flirt in a bar or a club, for example.


The phone offers support for POP3/IMAPmail, but sadly, there is no option for automatic configuration, like in some phones and you’ll have to do it manually. The automatic mail check is on at all times and you can only set the intervals at which it is executed – one, three, or six hours. There also is an option to add an electronic signature.

Connectivity:

The tri-band GSM LG KF510 is offered not only in two color schemes, but in two frequency variants – one for Europe and Asia (900/1800/1900 MHz) and one for the U.S. (850/1800/1900 MHz). We are disappointed that there is no 3G support, but only GPRS/EDGE, which offers speeds, considered low for the modern standards.

Internet:

LG has entered into an agreement with another big search engine – Yahoo. That’s why we have the Yahoo! option in the browser. It offers you four more sub-options, which are Yahoo! oneSearch, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, and Yahoo! Address Book.

Using those applications is heavily limited by the slow Internet and the low quality browser. As soon as it faces a heavier site (like PhoneArena.com), it gives up, stating „Content Too Large!”. Overall, KF510 has not been designed for surfing the Internet.

Camera:
The LG phones are notorious for the quality of the pictures made by their cameras. That’s why we were quite reserved when approaching the KF510’s camera. Its interface is rather well designed and is easy to use. In the upper part, we have the shooting mode indicators, the autofocus, the flash, the picture stabilizer, and the battery indicator. The bottom shows you the resolution chosen, the storage location, and how many more pictures you can take. The right side of the viewfinder is taken by a shortcut to the Album and a fast access menu to the flash, the countdown timer, the multi shot option, the white balance, the color effects and the exposure compensation.

However, not all is as user-friendly as it looks. The flash is unpractical, since it doesn’t remain in the same mode, once you have turned it on, and you’ll have to activate it again during the next time you start the interface.

For a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus, the quality of the pictures made outdoors, is quite low. The colors are monotonous and unreal, and typically for a phone, when seen in real size the images are slightly blurry, due to the noise reduction system. The results from the pictures taken indoors are not much different. The only thing, which didn’t disappoint us, was the flash – it is bright enough and illuminates the objects photographed very well.


The videos made with the camera have a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, but overall, are low quality as well.

In general, we are disappointed from this element of the phone. Currently, there are many mid-range mobile devices on the market, which offer a much better quality. The pictures made with KF510 can be used to show where and whom you’ve been with, to record the image of a loved one or a memorable moment, but do not expect them to be of high quality.

Multimedia:

In the Multimedia sub-menu, you will find the music player, the Camera and the Camcorder, the FM radio and the Dictaphone. The MP3 player can be activated by pressing its dedicated button, which is located on the right side of the KF510. Then, you can sort tracks by My playlist, Artists, Albums, Genres or just play All songs. The interface of the player is nothing impressive, but is user friendly. In the bottom part of the screen are visualized the options, belonging to the touch pad keys with the time bar and the track information over them. There is an animated visualization of the frequencies, which is quite unreal and as if shows everything with a very big delay. You also have the options to play the tracks shuffled, in order, with an equalizer or in the background. In contrast to other models, in the last mode, there is no option to control the player from the main screen.



The video player has no separate icon in the menu and it is started when you choose a video. Its interface is similar to the one of the music player. Naturally, you are able to watch your favorite videos on the entire screen, but they have to be in MPEG4 or H.263 format and their resolution has to be equal or lower than the one of the screen (320 x 240).



Software:

This LG phone is equipped with software, which opens Word files, Excel tables, PowerPoint presentations (as long as they are not made with Microsoft Office 2007) and PDF documents. Unfortunately, you are not able to smoothly scroll as in the menus, and the zooming in is performed at a slow speed.

Since LG KF510 supports JAVA MIDP 2.0, you are capable of using applications, made for that platform.

Performance:

During the rest of the time we used the LG KF510, it came out that it is not just another beautiful entry in the company’s product catalogue. The quality of the sound while talking is above average. The voices are loud, but not real and sharp. In contrast, on the other end of the line, the sound is loud, and the voices are clear and easy to understand. The loud speaker doesn’t have the same good qualities – the sound is very weak and the collocutor will think he is talking to a robot.

According to the official data provided, the 800 mAh battery has to be able to let you talk for 4 hours or give you 400 hours in a stand-by mode. In reality, it lasts 2 hours of talks and the same amount of time of abusing the preloaded games.

Conclusion:

The fashion phone fans will mainly like KF510 because of the gradating colors on the front and back panels. Most people will most likely hate it since it doesn’t bring any innovation, and is just another beautiful entry in LG’s product line. You could easily think of it as a downsized version of the Shine, but with a modified navigation.

”Love it or hate it”. We leave that up to you.