LG Secret (KF750)
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2008-05-05
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| LG Black Label handsets have a way of seducing, like Apple products without the unnameable craziness and fandom. LG's Chocolate and Shine were both uniquely designed handsets for their time, and both to be copied ad nauseam thereafter. The Secret looks to be a cross between the two, sleek and black like the Chocolate with a similar size and shape to the Shine.
Upside
After reading the official press it's obvious LG is pushing the sex appeal over the tech side of things, but that's not suggesting the Secret is lacking under the hood. While the Secret looks the part of a Black Label series phone it actually has more similarities to the LG Viewty on the spec sheet.
Firstly, there's the 5-megapixel (MP) camera that is capable of shooting video at 120 frames per second. LG is touting the Secret as being the world's slimmest 5MP camera phone at 11mm in thickness which is an impressive feat of engineering in itself. The Secret is also packed full of photo and video editing software like face morphing and SmartLight for adjusting the lighting of a shot.
Also similar to the Viewty, the Secret is an HSDPA capable handset with download speeds up to 3.6Mbps. We were very impressed with the Web browsing on the Viewty, but unique to the Secret is a bundle of pre-installed Google applications including Google Maps, GMail log-in and the ability to directly upload videos from the phone to YouTube.
The Secret also looks like a very sturdy handset, made of a composite material using carbon fibre "one of the strongest composite materials used in aerospace and high-performance automotives" according to LG. The 2.4-inch display is made of tempered glass which should keep the screen free of scratches and nicks.
Downside
The 5-megapixel camera could turn out to be both a blessing and a curse depending on how similar the camera module is to the one LG used in the Viewty, which disappointed us again and again; first during the review and again when pitted against the competition in our 5-megapixel camera phone showdown. If LG are yet to improve the image quality then the high-resolution images will be wasted.
The other downside to high-res shooters is that the larger images consume larger chunks of your phone's memory for storage. The LG Secret comes with a paltry 100MB of internal storage, so the assumption is you'll need a MicroSD card to supplement this, and there's no word yet as to whether or not LG is planning on bundling a card with the phone.
Unlike many phones in the same price range, the Secret will not include Wi-Fi connectivity. The absence of Wi-Fi may not hold the Secret back too much, but LG will need to think about including it in upcoming models to keep up with the competition, most notably Nokia.
Overall
The LG Secret looks like the most exciting local LG release in a long time and the fact that it's part of the Black Label series almost guarantees it a certain level of success. We're looking forward to seeing the Secret in the labs towards the end of Q2 or the start of Q3.
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