on November 4th at 8:51 pm 
The LG KG800 is a cell phone to be seen with. Many heads will turn to see the fancy candy (chocolate) bar phone. Slim, black, good looking…everybody knows something about it. The internet is full of reviews, pictures and thoughts about the most heavilly advertised model nowadays. But will the buyer of the LG KG800 be satisfied with the product? Will the cell phone deliever anything else than good looks? How does it perform? In this review, we are trying to answer these questions.
LG KG800 Chocolate Overview
- Pluses
- Good telephony performance
- Great design
- Touchpad
- GPRS, Bluetooth
- Good battery life
- Comfortable keyboard
- Minuses
- Bad camera
- No expandable memory
- Sync
- No speakerphone
- No protection against scratches and fingerprints
Final note
The LG KG800 is definitely a cell phone to be seen with. Class and style are all over the place at this cell phone. The LG KG800’s design is something that you don’t see everyday. But when it comes to features and to how the cell phone performs, the demanding users will say “Pass” to the LG KG800. The memory is not expandable, the camera takes dull pictures, it’s hard to sync with your PC and there is no speakerphone to allow you more flexibility. So, what you buy this cell phone for it’s up to you: the looks or the (average) performance? Our marks for the LG KG800 are 8.8 for design and 7.5 for the tech specs.
LG KG800 Chocolate – Look and Feel
Puting aside the box, which is the nicest box ever made for a cell phone, you are greeted by the nice looking LG KG800 with its minimalist design. Nothing about this cell phone seems to be out of place. Everything is placed exactly where it should be – and looking at it, you can see no other place for it. The poorness of the design elements are well exploited by the LG KG800’s designers and the result is the fact that you can’t take your eyes from the cell phone. The slender lines confer the LG KG800 a daring design. The slim form factor is accentuated by the overall black color (interrupted only by the silverish border around the OK button and by the red signs on the touchpad – a nice addition to the overall aspect of the cell phone). The only problem is that the cover that LG said that will protect the KG800 from scratches and fingerprints doesn’t do its job like its supposed to; after a period of intense use we found fingerprints all over the place and a few scratches.
The LG KG800 is pocket friendly. It fits well in every pocket and a lady will surely lose it in her purse. Measuring 3.74 x 1.88 x 0.59 inches (95 x 48 x 15 mm) and weighing 2.92 ounces (83 gr), the LG KG800 stays very well in your palm allowing you a comfortable and ergonomic use.
Almost half of the front panel of the LG KG800 is ocupied by the display. This is nice. A big display has always been a head-turning feature on a cell phone. The 1.3 x 1.57 inches (33 x 40 mm) screen offers enough real estate to an easy and comfortable reading of the menu. The 262k colors are bright and vivid and the contrast is good. The menu and the icons look good on this display while the pictures are best viewed after downloading them on a PC.
Underneath the screen there is the touch and heat sensitive touchpad. And you know that only after you activate it or open the cell phone. Otherwise, you might think that there is nothing there. The touchpad buttons are glowing an eye-catching red. The touchpad will work only if you press it with your hand; for a precise use we recommend that you use the tip of your finger. There is a good and a bad thing about this. On one hand, there is no possibility to accidentaly pressing the buttons while in your pocket or purse, and on the other hand you can not press the keys with the gloves on or through a protective cover you might consider using to prevent the LG KG800 from scratches. The buttons featured on the touchpad are: two soft keys, the five-way navigational toggle, the Send and the Cancel buttons. These buttons require some time of adjustment; given the fact that there are no real buttons to press you don’t know if you really pressed on or not.
On the right side of the LG KG800 there is the End Call button (strange…if you want to end the call, you have to press this button or slide the phone shut but the fact is that due to its position, your first gesture will be to press the Cancel button (nothing happens by pressing the Cancel key during calls) on the bottom of the front panel and not the End button on the right side; where did LG get this idea from?…unfortunate positioning; the result was some swearing before geting used to the different “mise en place”). Near the End key there is a media button - by pressing it you gain acces to the camera and the MP3 player.
The port that serves as charging port, USB port and headset port is found on the top right side.
On the left side of the LG KG800 there are two volume buttons.
Sliding the LG KG800 opened we discover the numeric pad, the camera, the self-portrait mirror and the LED flash. The numeric pad is uniquely designed. You will not find other phone on the market today with a numeric pad to look like this one. Some keys are glossy while others are matte giving a chequered effect. The effect is very nice and…different. The contrast is good by using white paint on the numbers against the black color of the keys so that you can read very easily. Also, the keys are large and easy to type on. Also, the keys are not set flush with the phone and this makes them very tactile and easy to use by feel.
The camera is hidden on the back of the front panel so that it is revealed only when you slide the phone open. This is a good thing; it prevents against scratching the lenses and dust depositing.
LG KG800 Chocolate – Capabilities and Features
The LG KG800’s phonebook can store up to 1000 contacts. For each contact you can enter 4 phone numbers and an e-mail address. You can assign a photo to any contact and you can group your contacts into seven predetermined groups. The name of the groups can be changed. The LG KG800 comes with an answering machine that has two prerecorded answers and two more available slots for you two record your own. The time until the answer can be set to 3, 5 or 10 seconds.
The LG KG800’s messaging system is an above average one. You can send and receive SMS, MMS and e-mail. Due to the rather large memory that the LG KG800 has, you can store up to 150 SMSs, 100 MMSs and 110 e-mails. The nice thing about the LG KG800’s messaging system is that while typing you can change the font size, color, type, alignement, and background. You can also send files with no matter what extension. The bad thing (could it have been without bad things?) is the fact that the T9 predictive input kinda gives you hard times using it. Each and every time after a full stop the cell phone doesn’t automatically switch to capital letters. So you have to make the switch manually; write the letter; and then manually make the switch again. Not a pretty perspective.
Player. The LG KG800’s player is smart enough. It “reads” MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC++, WMA, 3GP, MP4. You have an equalizer and the possibility of skipping forward and backward. There is a shuffle mode and it even plays some animations. The sound is good.
The LG KG800’s Camera is an average one. The 1.3 Megapixel standard is widely used today (although we see more and more capable phone cameras). The only problem is that the LG KG800’s camera doesn’t rise to the megapixel standard. The pictures seem washed out and a little fuzzy. The colors are not as vivid as we have seen in other megapixel cameras. The contrast could have been better. The video subscribes to the same line. Now, we are not saying that this is a bad camera; we’ve just seen better megapixel cameras, and if taking photos with your phone is not your thing than, this camera should pose no problem to you.
There is one more thing that we didn’t understand about the LG KG800. Why didn’t the manufacturer endow the cell phone with a speakerphone feature? C’mon, you can listen to music but you can not have the handsfree possibility and no conference? Hmm, strange…There are cheaper cell phones out there with this feature. Anyway, the music sounds pretty good on the speakerphone and the ring tone sounds pretty loud and clear.
Another problem (Another one? Already?) we had with the LG KG800 was synchronising the cell phone with the PC with the provided software. We finally did it but this is no easy task for a novice.
Other features of the LG KG800 include: WAP, Bluetooth, calendar, memo, unit converter, calculator, world time and a Java game.
There is one thing that we loved at the LG KG800. It comes with a 3.5mm adaptor, so you can plug in your own headphones if you don’t like the proprietary ones.
The LG KG800 comes with a not expandable 128 MB of memory. There’s no expandable memory card slot. At a first look, this quantity might seem enough; but, upload a few songs to listen along the way and take a few photos, maybe shoot a clip and the memory will prove to be more than not sufficient. “So, what am I going to do if I can not use some extra memory?” you will ask. Well, use the USB cable, download your pics and videos on the PC and free up some memory…that’s the only way.
LG KG800 Chocolate – Performance
One of the best features of the LG KG800 is the telephony capability. The cell phone provides a good signal reception. You can hear and are heard very well. There are no interruptions and no background noises. The signal is good and sustained even in the low signal areas.
You can take advantage of the WAP capability of the LG KG800. Browsing the web is easy and it works just fine. We found no issues here.
Bluetooth connectivity works also fine. File transfering is easy and intuitive. The standard used on the LG KG800 is 1.2. Why not 2.0? Ask LG for this one.
The camera offers a few options; nothing to write home about. We already told you about the pics’s quality, so, we don’t recomend using the LG KG800 as your default camera.
The touchpad works fine most of the times. Despite the fact that it didn’t respond to the touch a couple of times, as an overall it is easy to use and touch-friendly.
The battery lasts long enough for you do your job with your LG KG800 and not worrying about a nearby plug. The LG KG800 stays on for about 360 minutes talk time and about 200 hours standby time.
Final note
The LG KG800 is definitely a cell phone to be seen with. Class and style are all over the place at this cell phone. The LG KG800’s design is something that you don’t see everyday. But when it comes to features and to how the cell phone performs, the demanding users will say “Pass” to the LG KG800. The memory is not expandable, the camera takes dull pictures, it’s hard to sync with your PC and there is no speakerphone to allow you more flexibility. So, what you buy this cell phone for it’s up to you: the looks or the (average) performance? Our marks for the LG KG800 are 8.8 for design and 7.5 for the tech specs.
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