LG Arena KM900 Review

The LG Arena KM900 is the latest touchscreen phone from LG. It is branded as a multimedia phone and comes packed with 8GB of memory built in which can be expanded by microSD up to 32GB giving 40GB of storage in total. It will be made available this weekend in the UK and available on the T-Mobile and Orange networks.

The LG Arena comes in 2 colours. If you opt for an Orange plan then you get it in silver while T-Mobile are offering the phone in Titanium black. We managed to get a review unit of the Silver version although it is unlocked and will be tested on the t-mobile network.

LG Arena KM900 Design

The Arena is similar in looks to the Renoir in that it has a 3 inch touchscreen across most of the front of the device which is covered in scratch resistant tempered glass. The main difference is that the 3 buttons at the bottom of the screen on the Renoir were real buttons, where as they are touch sensitive on the Arena making the front face completely smooth. The button on the left is to accept/make a call while the one on the right ends a call. The middle button takes you to the rotating menu system which we will discuss later. A proximity sensor and camera can also be found on the front of the device. The phone measures 105.9×55.3×11.95mm which makes it slightly smaller then the Renoir on all points.

The left side of the device houses the connector for power and USB connectivity to the PC. Unlike previous phones from LG which have the fiddly pull out cover, the Arena has a sliding door which makes it a little easier to access the port when needed. It’s not a major change, but something worth pointing out.

The right side of the device is home to the camera button as well as volume up/down and zoom in/out while using the camera. These buttons are not marked like most phones are which is another design feature I like.

On the top of the device you will find the power button, back cover release in the middle and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The 3.5mm jack allows you to use any headphones you want with the Arena which is a nice change.

On the back of the Arena there is a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash and what also appears to be a rear facing mic for capturing sound on movies.

Inside the Arena there is a 1000mAh battery, the microSD slot and SIM card slot.

LG Arena KM900 Review

The LG Arena runs LG’s own OS which features the S-Class 3D GUI. LG have worked hard getting the usability right on the Arena and surprisingly, it works very well. The 3D rotating menu’s are very responsive and the icons and buttons are all at a comfortable size that allow you to tap them with your finger or thumb with good accuracy.

The menu system is set up as a cube which has 4 different menus. The first menu is for favourites where you can customise what programs you can see. A flick of the finger to the left reveals the widgets menu which allows you to put information on the screen such as a usable calculator, email status, text status and other various functions. Next is the contacts menu which works as a reel setup where you scroll up and down through photos of your contacts. Finally the last menu takes us on to the multimedia section of the phone where both movies and mp3 files are stored on a reel which can be rotated around.

The main menu system rotates automatically in to landscape mode. An interesting addition is that it rotates both to the left and right so that the menu is always correctly placed.

Overall the menu system works fantastic. It is very customisable making it easy to position icons just where you want them, although the standard layout is quite good in it’s self.

LG Arena KM900 Features

The main features of the phone (as well as the fancy 3D menu system) includes Dolby Mobile V2, DivX support and a 5 megapixel camera.

Dolby Mobile has been added to this phone. This version is V2 as it’s Dolby’s second attempt with the Renoir having V1. Mobile surround sound is built in to this phone. The supplied headphones are among the best I have seen and sit comfortably in the ear. Sound is absolutely fantastic with the enhancements from Dolby really bringing out the higher frequency noises that normally get cut out. Also, the Dolby Mobile system can take any stereo signal and convert it to surround sound providing a more immersed sound.

DivX gives some great quality movies on the 3″ WVGA 480×800 pixel screen. The detail is fantastic and with that high resolution it makes it 4x better quality then the average mobile phone screen of today.

The 5 megapixel camera is lower then the previous 8 megapixel of the Renoir although picture quality is still acceptable for a camera phone. It is unclear why the dropped the level back down to 5 although it seems the focus is more on multimedia apps rather then photography like the Renoir. Video quality is also good with the ability to record at 30 frames per second with a 720 x 480 resolution to provide near DVD quality images. As with most LG phones there is also a slow-motion and fast-motion video recording option.

Overall I am impressed with the LG Arena. It looks good, responds well and has a number of built in features which I enjoy using.

Other features not mentioned in the review are…

aGPS (geo tagging photos, tracking etc…)
FM Transmitter so you can tune your radio in to a frequency set on your phone and play music to your stereo in your car.
Embedded games that make use of the built in accelerometers.
TV-Out – Needs a separate cable.
Docking stand (supplied separately) to allow you to charge and watch movies at a comfortable angle.
MS Exchange support.
Wireless Lan, 7.2Mbps 3G HSDPA connectivity, Bluetooth.
3.84 hour talk time and over 300 hours standby with over 30 hours of audio playback.