LG GD900 Crystal Review

LG made the Crystal GD900 a bit intriguing by including a transparent touchscreen keypad in this handset — something that we rarely see these days with mobile phones but an interesting approach, nonetheless.

The LG Crystal (GD900) is, in most respects, your typical slider phone. The main difference is that the alpha-numerical keypad is a touch panel and the letters/numbers are laser-etched on a transparent hard plastic (feels like tempered glass) — you can practically see thru the keypad. That’s on top of the 3″ display screen that’s also touch-sensitive and has good, bright output.

Using the touchpad takes some time to get used to mainly because there’s not physical buttons to push but the feedback mechanism is okay. The cool thing about the touch keypad is that you can use it as a trackpad (with multi-touch!) to navigate between menus, when browsing and even for handwriting recognition. It even lights up (glows) so you can see the letters and numbers in the dark.

LG GD900 Crystal specs:
3-inch screen @ 480 x 800 pixels
1.5 GB internal storage
up to 32GB microSD card
3G/HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Video recording 720×480@30fps, VGA@30fps, QVGA time-lapse and slow-mo video recording
FM radio
TV-out

As for the user interface, it’s basically the same as the LG Arena (LG KM900) we reviewed here earlier (you can read thru that review to learn more about the S-Class Touch UI). In a way, the GD900 is like form-factor upgrade to the KM900.

There are several partitions for the internal storage that sums up to 1.5GB but you can upgrade it up to 32GB with a microSD card (sold separately).

From experience, the touch screen is more responsive and the multi-touch adds better navigation when browsing the internet over 3G or WiFi. As with the LG Arena, the LG Crystal is also powered by Dolby Mobile so sound quality has more depth and volume.

Took a couple of shots using the 8-megapixel camera. It’s pretty decent but not very impressive either (photos are a bit smoothed out and not crisp). Haven’t tried the LED flash at night time though.

At daylight, white balance and exposure are a little off so these should be adjusted in the phone’s settings.

Here’s a sample video from LG Crystal’s 8MP camera. Not really HD quality but the HQ level is pretty good.

As for battery life, the handset can do 3 days without heavy multimedia and internet use. Those who liked the LG Arena will surely love the LG Crystal as well. As for the price, earlier listing pegs it at Php27,500USD 469INR 39,727EUR 446CNY 3,413.