LG Cookie KP500 review

LG Cookie KP500 Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 13 January 2009

Having sampled the delights of the KP500's photo viewer, the music player didn't impress us -- it offers typical features, such as playlists and shuffling tracks, but it's clunky to use and didn't work quickly enough for our liking. The lack of a 3.5mm jack also annoyed us, as we had to use the proprietary headphones, which aren't great.

The KP500 has a 3-megapixel camera on the back

The KP500 can handle POP3 email accounts, such as Gmail, but don't expect to use it with a Microsoft Exchange work account. That said, the KP500 will let you view Microsoft Office documents and PDFs, but you can't edit them. Video support is also limited and, unlike the Viewty or Renoir, the KP500 doesn't support DivX or Xvid.

One of the most disappointing features on the KP500 is its Web browser, which doesn't render full Web pages properly and acts more like a WAP browser than anything else. When you've got a screen like this, you want to see the Web in all its glory and the KP500 doesn't deliver that experience.

Performance
Audio during calls was loud and clear, but the loudspeaker sounded tinny when put on high. The music player's audio quality was satisfactory, but the inability to use our own headphones meant that we couldn't test it properly. Battery life was over a day, since there were no heavy features draining the battery.

Conclusion
The LG Cookie KP500 had us torn because, on the one hand, it's an affordable touchscreen phone that works well for the most part, but, on the other hand, it has flaws. The most apparent issue is the lack of any juicy features to make it really stand out from the crowd. It's a shame that such a well-designed handset doesn't have 3G, for example.

If all you're looking for is a touchscreen phone that does the basics, then this is it. But, if you're looking for an iPhone killer, then the KP500 will almost certainly disappoint. The confusing thing about the KP500 is that, although it's a phone we could live with, we wouldn't actually do much with it.

Edited by Charles Kloet