LG Shine KE970 Cell Phone Review
By Alfredo Padilla
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
August 04, 2007
The LG Shine is a sharp—looking fashion phone with a mirrored screen and a slim slider design; the phone screen is underneath the mirrored surface on the front of the phone, so it can double as a pocket mirror and cell phone. Unfortunately, the Shine's mirrored screen makes it almost impossible to use in bright sunlight, and the software it runs leaves much to be desired. Also adding to the problems is the Shine’s premium price—$399 from companies such as Dynamism, the company that provided our review unit. The Shine may also have some problems with U.S. networks, as it does not support all frequencies used here.
The LG Shine's keypad is small and prone to errors, but we were still able to dial a number in 3.8 seconds, an average time. The call and contact management features are basic, but adequate. For organizational features, the Shine includes a calendar and notes application, but no support for tasks. Like most regular phones it won't replace a more fully-featured phone for users interested in these extended features.
The LG Shine did not perform well in our audio tests. The audio received by the phone overemphasizes higher frequencies, while suppressing the lower end, making the caller’s voice sound high-pitched and reedy. The sound it sends isn't much better; the phone exaggerates the mid-range frequencies, so voices will sound flat and unrealistic.
The Shine includes a 2-megapixel auto focus camera. Normally you'd find auto focus cameras perform better than the fixed-focus ones found on most phones, but in the Shine's case we were not impressed. The images the phone captured were unimpressive; even the lackluster camera on the Apple iPhone produced sharper images. Colors captured by the KE970 also showed significant error. We've seen better performance from some 1.3-megapixel cameras, such as the one on the Treo 750.
The Shine’s poor performance continues in terms of multimedia capabilities. Its music software is extremely poor, without support for playlists or any way to organize your music. To make matters worse, the music software doesn’t recognize music stored on a MicroSD card. Instead you must navigate to it manually using the phone's file-browser software. All in all this was a very poor performance, with the only upside being a cute little wired remote control that allows you to control the music without taking the phone out of a pocket or bag. The remote has a small microphone and a 3.5-mm socket, turning a pair of normal headphones into a headset.
The LG Shine is capable of handling text and multimedia messages. The interface is fairly straightforward, without any advanced features like threaded messaging. There is also a built in e-mail client, but it is so basic that anyone trying to do serious e-mail work on the phone will be quickly frustrated. The Web browser is also fairly basic and is only sufficient for light mobile browsing.
The LG Shine's battery performance was good, lasting an impressive 7 hours and 15 minutes in our test. This is more than three times longer than LG's claim of 2 hours, and should be sufficient for even über talkers. The Shine's Web browsing performance was similarly good at 6 hours and 44 minutes, although we doubt anyone will spend much time using the Shine's built in browser. Music playback was unfortunately not as good, at 6 hours and 11 minutes. Although on its own this isn't terrible, we expected more given the Shine's excellent talk time.
The LG Shine is a pretty package that doesn't impress once you actually start using it. Much of the on board software is simply subpar (such as the lackluster music player), while the 2-megapixel auto focus camera doesn't live up to its specs. The Shine's one shining feature, if you pardon the pun, is the solid battery life. Those looking for a fashion phone that just makes calls may do well with the Shine, but look elsewhere if you are looking for a phone to play music or keep track of your life.
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