A good measure of how beautiful a phone’s design and overall look truly sets it apart from the crowd is how random people around you react when you whip it out. Ot’s never a bad thing when someone strikes up a conversation with you to find out where you bought the thing, and during my time with the LG GD900 Crystal, that happened a lot.
The GD900 Crystal, at first glance, looks like any typical touch mobile phone. It has a spacious 3-inch capacitive touchscreen and is decked out in a tasteful silver finish. The real draw to thus particular beauty is when you slide out the keypad. The whole keypad is transparent, and the GD900 Crystal is the first mobile to have that particular feature. Tje keypad lights up in a faint blue light which is enough to see the printed numbers on the keypad and lends a kind of 3D effect to it. There are soft keys set right above the keypad set in a metallic gray finish. The volume rocker and camera shortcut key is set on the right side of the unit, as well as the microSD card slot that’s revealed when the keypad is slid down. The charger/data/headphone combination slot is on the right side of the unit, and the 8-megapixel camera delivers the goods with autofocus and a LED flash.
Anchoring the unique design of the GD900 is the Touch S-Class UI. The icons are large and are labeled clearly. so users won’t have problems getting in and out of submenus. The GD900 also features an accelerometer that automatically rotates the display according to the orientation of the phone from portrait to landscape. The home screen of the GD900 is broken down into four categories: shortcuts, widgets, contacts and multimedia. Each category can be customized to include user’s favorites, and switching from one screen to the other is achieved by simply swiping a finger across the screen.
The transparent keypad isn’t just there for looks and has limited multi-touch functionality. When browsing the web, you can use it ala trackpad, and combined with the handwriting recognition software in the GD900, it can be used as a handwriting platform for screens that require input. As mentioned previously, the GD900 is armed with an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus. Pictures shot with it are relatively clear and crisp, although the LED flash really doesn’t do well under low light situations. Going through pictures in your gallery is as easy as swiping your finger. Music lovers might balk at the lack of a 3.5mm audio jack, but the included hands-free kit has a 3.5mm jack that you can plug your headphones into if you wish.
Call quality is good, and I’ve yet to experience a single dropped call. Calls from, and to the GD900 are clear. I usually issues with phones that don’t have raised keys, but the haptic feature in the GD900 gave me enough feedback to know I’ve pressed a button. Battery life was around a day and a half with a few calls, constant texts and a music track or two.
The only issue I had with the GD900 was with the way it handled contacts, as going through the 300 plus or so contacts I had wasn’t the smoothest experience I’ve had so far. This also translates to the messaging screen when you choose a recipient for your SMS messages.
