Design and Looks
With so many LG basic handsets around, it's becoming harder to tell them apart. Luckily, the few phones like the LG GB170 are easy to tell apart because of their unique looks. The handset is black and rectangular but is curved at the top and bottom. A thin red accent runs through the sides of the phone and at the top it culminates into the standard 3.5mm audio jack. It's obvious that LG wants to highlight this as it is one of the phone's best features.
Coming back to the front, the phone sports a dismally small 1.5-inch TFT screen with an equally disappointing resolution of 128 x 128 pixels. The LG website claims that this display is capable of 262K colours but judging by the image quality we're sure it's actually not more than 65K colours. LG also tries to hide the small size of this screen by quoting its diagonal measurement in centimeters but one look at this phone and you know this screen belongs on something that's a thousand rupees cheaper. We have to admit that this flaw is pretty well hidden though and that's because of the large control pad just below it.
The D-pad controls and soft keys merge with the alphanumeric keypad to form one large control pad. The nav-pad incorporates a confirming centre in addition to the regular four way direction buttons which is something rare for a budget handset. It is flanked by call and end keys which are compact yet easy to use. We are happy to say this keypad is made out of rubber and is very text friendly. While there is no definite individual spacing between keys, each key has a unique bump which provides good touch orientation. The keys are also soft to press and offer good finger-feedback- an SMS addict's choice.
The back of the phone is bare except for a speakerphone grill at the top corner and an LG logo at the bottom-centre. What lies between is a leathery sort of texture on the plastic which boosts both, the phone's ergonomics and aesthetics. Coming back to the screen, it is grainy and sports poor sunlight legibility but if you are willing to look beyond this, you will appreciate the phone's simple user-interface. The menu-logic is good and most items are only a few clicks away.
Now for the phone's USP- the mp3 player and FM radio- the mp3 player is basic and can be accessed straight from the nav-pad. The response is quick and the player is activated in an instant. It offers simple options like sorting songs in a playlist and equalizer presets including Normal, Bass, Dance, Classical, Treble, Party, Pop and Rock. There is however no option for user-defined presets. Finally, no mp3 capable phone is complete without memory card expandability and in this case users can expand up to 8GB. The FM radio feature is pretty self-explanatory and users also have the option to record broadcasts off the air. Sound quality is decent and both Mp3 and FM radio can be played over the inbuilt speakerphone.
Finally, the phone features all standard Java apps including personal information management functions. The phone also ships with a Data CD which contains the PC suite for syncing the phone for music transfer. The packaging also contains a USB data cable for the purpose.
There is so much more we could say about an excellent phone like this. The phone excels in every aspect it covers except for two things- the lack of Bluetooth connectivity and the incorporation of a disappointingly small and low-quality display. We hope this little 'taster' gives you all the information you need on what to look out for in the LG GB170.
Features
- Mp3/Mp4 player with equalizer presets and memory expandability
- FM radio with broadcast recording
- Standard 3.5mm audio jack
- Mlearing application on board
- Long battery life
