LG KF600 review

LG KF600 Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 3 March 2008

At this year's Mobile World Congress, LG was keen to promote its latest handset, the LG KF600, which features a split-screen design. We were just as keen to get our hands on this mobile, as interesting as it looked. Would we find its functionality to be as intriguing as its appearance?

The LG KF600 is currently available on Orange, free on a monthly contract.

Design
If phones were cars, then the KF600 would fall somewhere in between a VW Golf and a modded Fiat Punto -- it feels solid, but one look at it and you might find yourself asking 'why?' It's not that it's an ugly phone by any means, but certain features seem unnecessary.

The LG KF600 features two screens: the top one is for viewing and the second (pictured) acts as a touch-sensitive navigation pad

Take, for instance, the split screen with touch-sensitive navigation pad that changes depending on what feature you're using, from the music player to text messaging. Every time you access a different part of the phone's interface, the navigation area at the bottom changes the displayed keys to suit your needs.

On paper, it sounds very exciting, but we don't really like it. After months spent with a Chocolate phone, we realised that touch-sensitive keys have their ups and downs and the KF600's navigation pad reinforces that issue.

We found the screen clunky to press compared to using a mechanical four-way navigation key. We also wanted to touch the top screen, which you frustratingly can't do. If you want a full touchscreen phone, you could always look to the new LG KF700. The system works overall but it felt slow and unresponsive at times. 

We were slightly disappointed with the plastic that covers the two displays, which felt less solid than we expected and isn't as high in quality as other LG phones' screens, such as the Viewty's screen. We also weren't impressed with the keys on the keypad -- they were too flat to easily distinguish between each one.