Not a million miles away from the T-Mobile Compact V in design, the LG GT500 is a touchscreen handse running LG’s own operating system. But with smart looks come high expectations – does the GT500 disappoint?
What we like
The LG GT500’s design is slim and serious and it’s a nice, lightweight handset. Although the 3-inch screen is a little on the small side, the images are quite sharp.
The tabbed menu is sectioned into four sensible submenus, icons are clear and easy to understand and the menu is altogether a far simpler affair than we have seen on other handsets of a similar level.
Similarly, we’re fans of the home screen widgets which you can either arrange as you like or shake the handset to align tidily for you.
A handset of this calibre doesn’t always come with extras like GPS or mobile TV, so it’s nice to see them making and appearance on the LG GT500. The handset will always check with you before connecting to the internet which is perfect if you’re on a bit of a budget.
The camera isn’t bad, although we’d prefer it if shots filled the screen as default to make wallpapers easier to position. As it is, you have to fiddle around a bit to get the full-screen look.
What we don’t like
There’s just no getting away from how awful we think resistive touchscreens are, particularly on smaller, lower-cost handsets. Even with haptic feedback which gives you a little vibration when it registers your command, it’s not an easy screen to control and is particularly frustrating when you’re in a hurry.
The resistive touchscreen also makes typing less than fun as well, although the predictive function isn’t bad. Using the T9 pad in portrait mode is not worth the headache it’ll give you – you’re much better off turning the handset landscape and using the Qwerty layout.
The music player is not particularly beautiful to look at, and is slow and clunky to use. In fact, we found ourselves getting quite impatient with the handset in general, as the apps took a second or two longer to load than we’d like.
Conclusion
LG is the master of the average phone, and the GT500 is no exception. We like that it’s a little more lightweight, grown-up and straightforward to use than other comparable handsets, like the LG Cookie range.
If you’ve got your heart set on an LG handset but the GT500 doesn’t do it for you, we’d suggest going for something like the LG GW620 InTouch Max which has the benefit of Android OS and access to apps, as well as a nicer user experience and a far more responsive resistive touchscreen.
Specification
| OS | Proprietary |
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