LG Incite
LG has been producing beautiful devices such as the Chocolate, Shine, and Prada for quite some time now. But they’ve never really create a true smart phone that can handle all the needs of a business professional. AT&T is lucky to be the first U.S. carrier to offer their Windows Mobile powered phone. The LG INCITE incorporates a ton of features that we’ve been accustomed to seeing in a design that has been the norm. Primarily focused to business users, the incorporation of various Microsoft applications will aid the mobile user to work on the go. But the biggest question left to answer is if LG can provide a worthy device that is functional and intuitive when going against the current offerings.
Design
Measuring 4.21 inches long by 2.2 inches wide by 0.55 inch thick, the LG Incite is one of the shiniest handsets we’ve ever seen; its display is reflective when idle, similar to the one on the LG Shine, and the Incite’s entire chassis has a mirror finish. You will definitely have a tough time trying to get fingerprint smudges off the phone, and there’s no need for a self-portrait mirror next to the camera, as the handset’s surface itself can act as a mirror. Like most touch-screen handsets, the Incite has a minimalist appeal: it is sleek and slim, with few external controls. It’s also quite lightweight at 4.23 ounces, so it won’t weigh you down, either.
Following the lead of other touch-screen smartphones like the Samsung Omnia and the HTC Touch, the LG Incite’s design is dominated by the large touch screen on the front. The 3-inch diagonal screen is a 240×400-pixel resolution QVGA display with support for 262,000 colors, which makes for vibrant colors and sharp images. It doesn’t have the screen real estate of other handsets like the Samsung Instinct or the Apple iPhone 3G, but that’s only really an issue when it comes to the Web browser (which we’ll get to later). You can adjust the screen’s backlight time plus the font size. Because the display is so reflective, we have to say it can be a little tough to read the screen under direct sunlight.
Specs:
Display: 262K color touch screen LCD with haptic feedback and accelerometer. Screen size diagonally: 3.0″. Resolution: 240 x 400, supports both portrait and landscape modes.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1300 mA.
Performance: 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7201A CPU. 128 MB built-in RAM. 256 MB Flash ROM with ~70 megs available.
Size: 4.21 x 2.2 x 0.55 inches. Weight: 4.23 ounces.
Phone: GSM quad band 850/900/1900/2100MHz with EDGE. Triband 3G HSDPA 850/1900/2100MHz.
Camera: 3.0 MP with autofocus lens.
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Voice Recorder and Windows Pocket Media Player 10 included for your MP3 pleasure.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR. Profiles include headset, handsfree, DUN/PAN and A2DP.
Software: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system.
Expansion: 1 SDHC microSD card slot.
The touch screen on the Incite has haptic tactile feedback, which lets you know, using vibrations, that your touch has registered. You can adjust the sensitivity of the touch response as well as the length and strength of the vibrations. Since the touch screen is resistive, you can use either your finger or the provided stylus to navigate through the screen. We found the touch screen to be mostly responsive, but we did notice some problems with lag; sometimes it takes about half a second for a touch to register, which is a little longer than we would like. We also found that we needed to be very precise in selecting something with the finger, lest we tap the wrong thing. The Incite does come with the aforementioned stylus for more accurate tapping, but we’re not fans of having the stylus dangling off the corner of the phone. (You attach the stylus like you would a cell phone charm via a small lanyard.)
The LG Incite also has a built-in accelerometer, and the screen will change from portrait to landscape mode when you rotate the phone 90 degrees to either the left or the right. Here again we noticed some lag issues. It occasionally takes about a second for the screen to fully rotate, which can be quite annoying. The Incite also has a proximity sensor, which shuts off the screen when you bring it to the side of your face, so as to prevent accidental taps. We also like that the Incite automatically adjusts the screen’s luminance depending on the surrounding light.
Features
As we mentioned, the LG Incite is LG’s first U.S. smartphone, and with that comes a whole host of features you won’t find in a regular phone. It runs Windows Mobile 6.1, so you get all the typical Windows Mobile features like Microsoft Office Mobile Suite, and support for Microsoft ActiveSync and Microsoft Direct Push technology that lets you sync with your Outlook calendar and e-mail via your office’s Exchange server. Other e-mail options include POP3, IMAP, and Web e-mail accounts, all of which can be accessed via Xpress Mail, Windows Mobile’s e-mail program. Of course there are plenty of PIM tools as well, like a task manager, a calculator, a stopwatch, a notepad, and more.
We also like that the LG Incite comes with both Wi-Fi and HSDPA support. This lets us have the option to surf within a Wi-Fi network when there isn’t a strong cellular signal. The Incite comes with Internet Explorer Mobile, of course, but you also have the option of AT&T’s own NetFront browser. There doesn’t seem to be too many differences between the two, but we personally prefer Internet Explorer Mobile just because we’re more familiar with it; your mileage may vary with this. You won’t get Flash support here, but we weren’t expecting that anyway. When compared with the Apple iPhone, the browser experience left us wanting, mostly because of the inability to do multitouch gestures like pinching to zoom in and out of a page.
The Incite comes with a 3-megapixel camera that can take pictures in five resolutions (2,048×1,536, 1,600×1,200, 1,024×768, 640×480, and 320×240). It has three image-quality settings, five white balance presets, and four color effects plus a no effect option; other camera options include a self-timer, the choice of three shutter sounds plus a silent option, zoom, four shot modes (Normal, Continuous, Panorama, and Frame shot), and brightness. There is no flash or autofocus, however. There’s also a built-in camcorder, which can record in four resolutions (400×240, 320×240, 176×144, and 128×96) in three different modes (No Limit for however much memory is available, MMS for short video clips, and Video Share Call for live video calls). Other camcorder settings are similar to the ones on the still camera.
