LG Cookie Review

Demand for mobile phones with touch-sensitive screens has increased a lot during the last year and all kinds of models appeared on the market. However, only a small number of them are intended for the common user, who is not looking for a lot of extras, such as an 8-megapixel camera and GPS, he’d rather want a reasonable price and a modern appearance. LG is trying to reach exactly this group of users with its budget model, which has been given the nice and 'tasty' name Cookie, also known as KP500. According to the company, it offers features inherent in the high-end models, but at an affordable price. In addition, in the package you will find a small box of milk to eat it with - we are just kidding.

If you've seen the 8-megapixel LG Renoir you can find some similarities in the appearance, but Cookie is not as shiny and looks much more unpretentious. The phone is made of plastic, which feels like rubber and creates a pleasant sensation in your hand. A very good balance has been achieved in its size and weight so that the LG is comfortable to hold and very light - only 3.14 OZ. At first we even thought that we had forgotten to put the battery. The large 3-inch TFT display has a resolution of 240x400 pixels, 262k colors, which, just as many screens with such features, ensures a good image at artificial light. The situation is not as good at sunlight and just as in the case with Renoir, if you do not look directly at the KP500, the screen looks almost like a mirror.

The manufacturer boasts that the touchscreen uses the latest technology, which improves sensitivity. After we’ve spent some time with the Cookie, we were convinced that this was really true. Furthermore, there is an option to play different sounds and vibrations when pressing the screen, which contributes to the tangibility. We are very pleased with the screen and can only say "Bravo!". Well, it can eventually become a fingerprint mess, but you’ll be able to use it for a decent period of time before you feel the need to clean it.




You can compare the LG Cookie with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Below the display there are three buttons, which are similar to those of the Renoir and are easy to feel and press and in the lower right corner there is a telescopic stylus. The latter is removed horizontally and at first this seemed strange to us, because in most phones it is pulled downwards or upwards, but you get used to this after you pull it out 2-3 times. What is interesting on the sides is the key for turning the volume down, because by holding it down the silent profile gets switched on and off. 

Interface:

If you want to win the heart of the common user you should make sure the interface is nice and also convenient and intuitive to use, so that people can get used to it quickly. At least those are our impressions. This is not an easy task, but the LG Cookie definitely did very well on it.

Compared to previous LG models, the home screen has went through a slight evolution here. It has 7 Widgets: calendar, notes, clock, world clock showing 2 cities; music player; FM radio; Slideshow with pictures. Unfortunately there is no option to add more Widgets. In addition, the ones displayed on the screen can be aligned by shaking the phone, which is due to the accelerometer. Besides this new feature, there is something much more interesting. With a horizontal slip of the finger from one end of the display to the other you can switch to a different home screen (figuratively speaking), as in the LG PRADA II. Instead of Widgets you can set up to 9 contacts for speed dial. We must admit that we like this novelty quite a lot because it saves time and is easy to use. By pressing the middle button below the display, the familiar menu with two tabs appears. In the first one you can put up to 9 shortcuts to functions of your choice and shift them, and the second tab shows the currently running programs and you can stop or start them without having to scroll through the menus. This is something like a partial multitasking, because not all applications can be left working in the background, such as games for example.





There weren't any themes that completely change the looks of the inteface. There was only one for the main menu. However, it didn't change much and simply adds a different transition appearance of the four categories on the right of the screen.

Phonebook and Organizer:

The phonebook can hold up to 1000 contacts with multiple numbers and you can set a picture/ photo, ringtone, date of birth, e-mail, address, etc. for each person. What is more interesting is that when typing text, you can rotate the phone horizontally and the numeric keypad will become a full QWERTY or you can start the handwriting recognition. You can look contacts up by first and last name, and by dialing a number. After entering the first three digits a box appears with a search result; just click the arrow on the right to get more results (if there are other matches).


The organizer's functionality will fully satisfy the needs of a typical user who does not need specific business options. You will have a handy calendar which can be viewed by day, week or month, so that you can easily see the upcoming events and organize your time. Naturally, you have alarms, as each one can be set to be active on certain days of the week. However, some people need help in order to wake up on time and not be late for work. If you need to do calculations, even if they involve sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, etc., you can rely on the calculator. Apart from it you will have handy an Unit Converter. Some people need to know, for example, what time it is at the other end of the world. In this case you can rely on the World Clock, which is actually quite nice and has a pleasant interface

Messaging:

The types of messages that you can send and receive with the KP500 are SMS, MMS and e-mail.The phone is able to automatically find the settings for the latter type, at least for the popular services (Google), but we strongly recommend that you read the instructions carefully before giving any confirmation. The first time we overlooked them and we wondered why we could not send an e-mail and...

When you have selected a field for entering text, the QWERTY keyboard can be activated by turning the phone to horizontal position or manually, using the options. We definitely prefer the first method because it is easier. Despite the size of the 3-inch display, the buttons of the QWERTY keyboard look small. In the beginning we made many mistakes and we thought of taking the  stylus out but the T9 correction managed to fix them successfully. With some practice you get used to it, but still, mistakes can occur. We are a little disappointed with the QWERTY keyboard. However, we have almost no remarks about the handwriting recognition. Well, it took us some time to get used to it, but then again, we do not write by hand so often...


Internet:

For accessing the global network you will have to rely on EDGE, which offers a rather slow speed, taking into consideration today's standards. However, we cannot expect from a relatively budget phone to be equipped with all the latest "features". The browser does not appeal to us much and we can mention the same remarks that we had about the one of the Renoir. Pages are displayed correctly, but navigating through the contents and reaching what we want to look through is not an easy task. Zooming in and out can be done by a slider but the device needs some time in order to respond, which is pretty uncomfortable. There is also an option to do this by holding a finger on the screen, but this method works very illogical and rarely does a good job. If you just want to track the news and your favorite sites have RSS feeds, you can insert them in the built-in RSS reader and thus save quite a lot of time.

Camera:

The 3-megapixel camera on the back has neither autofocus nor flash, but the Cookie has no claims in this regard. We walked around and took some shots and we concluded that with the pictures from this camera you can boast before your friends like: "Look, I was there". However, you will not able to show the squirrel on the tree behind you. Outdoor pictures are noisy, have an average level of detail and sometimes the colors are unreal; with artificial light the situation is pretty bad. There is an option for recording video with a  maximum resolution of 320x240 pixels, which makes it suitable for YouTube, for example, but not for playing on the big screen.



In the gallery, which is like the one of the Renoir, you can waste a lot of time and have fun with the many effects that can be applied to the photos. You have also this well-known application from the Viewty, Muvee Studio, which enables you to make interesting videos with the photos, available  on the phone.

What is interesting about LG Cookie’s music player is that the interface is updated and it is much more beautiful than that of the more expensive LG Renoir, which is from a higher market segment. Here you have the same options to filter your songs (by artist, album, genre cover ...), but the cover occupies a large part of the screen and the buttons are much better made, so that they can be pressed easily with a finger. In addition, there are several equalizer presets, but you cannot set your own. If you are tired of listening to what you have stored on the phone or the memory card, you can run the FM radio and to enjoy the beautiful and somehow funny interface. We can’t help sharing with you that the sound from the loudspeaker is very strong and above the average quality. The situation with the headphones is almost the same and as a whole we are pleasantly surprised by the musical capabilities of the KP500.


The playback of video files, however, frustrated us, because we were able to play only H.263 encoded videos, but we also wanted to enjoy H.264 ones. which offer better quality. Too bad for the 3-inch screen...


For fun you can try one of the available games. For example, if you like gambling, thanks to the accelerometer, you have the opportunity to throw dice (Flying dices) or moving the wheel of luck (Wheel mania).

Performance:

For the time that we were using the KP500 we did not encounter any problems regarding its performance, which we evaluate as normal. Just at moments, due to the transitions in the menus, you have the impression that the commands are executed slowly. And how does it perform during a call? Honestly speaking, it does quite well, providing good sound quality on both sides. The voices are very loud and even the person that you are talking to can be startled in the beginning. Unfortunately, if he/she does not reduce the volume a bit, everything will sound unpleasantly sharp with a lot of environment noises.

Conclusion:

Thin and light with a large touch-sensitive screen and with features, almost typical for a higher-end phone, the LG Cookie definitely has a chance to win the heart of the common user. We believe it is a very good choice, especially when it comes to its relatively low price and the possibilities it offers. This puts us in an uncomfortable position because it is difficult to show you decent alternatives in this price range. However, you can check whether the HTC Touch Viva will not appeal to you, but note that it is a smartphone, which means that it’s more complicated to work with, due to the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system.

The software version of the reviewed unit is KP500AT_V10c.