For obvious reasons, LG does not rank among the most active players on the market of Windows Mobile smartphones yet; their recent activities look more like a self-test of their ability to design and promote new inventions. The Koreans are all the same in this matter – for many years Samsung failed to include the segment of smart solutions among their priorities. As a result one shouldn’t expect an abundance of this sort of products since Nokia and Sony Ericsson do not take part in promoting the Microsoft product at all, and Motorola have recently given up this trend too under pressure of not the most favourable market situation for the company. However, all this concerns only the Windows Mobile 6 Professional platform, while taking into account non-touchscreen smartphones, HTC on the contrary take the third place, Motorola are in the lead and Samsung are lagging a bit behind. As for LG, the brand position is not established yet, this segment being new for the company and in many respects depending on KS20 results. For many reasons they are hardly going to be high, though it's actually quite a decent handset by modern smartphone standards.

KS20 is going to endure competition mainly from the models by the well-established, long-term participants of the Windows Mobile market, and first of all, from the above-mentioned Touch franchise. Taking into consideration a drop in interest to it among the consumer masses and no other counterparts being available (since E-TEN glofiish V900 has not been even officially announced yet), the stylish product by LG keeps high chances for success with the public. It stands to reason that HSDPA is useless in some regions of the world, but even leaving it out we have quite a solid offer – a KE850 PRADA style design and a Wi-Fi unit, all together sold at an affordable price. The KS20 enjoys the advantage of an autofocusing camera and increased portability (effectively being one of the most compact and lightest smartphones on the market). Besides, the model is equipped with a 128 Mb ROM unit; multiple manufacturers tend to neglect this aspect, so here comes another advantage of the new KS20. There is also an FM-tuner with RDS available as the part of the hardware feature pack. In a word, the handset is at least a remarkable premiere for the Windows Mobile segment; let’s see how they implemented all this …

	LG KS20 Specifications Sheet
Supported Networks:	GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA (3,6 Gigabyte GSmart i350 ScreenshotsGigabyte GSmart i350 Screenshots), WCDMA GPRS/EDGE
Operating System:	Windows Mobile 6 Professional
CPU:	Qualcomm MSM7200, 400 MHz
Storage	ROM - 256 Mb, RAM - 128 Mb microSD, no card bundled
Screen:	touchscreen, 2,8 ”, QVGA (320х240), 65K
Connectivity:	USB2.0, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR, A2DP is supported )
Camera:	2 Mp (up to 1600 x 1200), auto-focusing
Battery:	capacity - 1050 mAh up to 400 hrs of standby up to 4 hrs of talktime
GPS	-
Keyboard:	-
FM-tuner:	+ RDS
Dimensions:	95 x 58 x 12,8 mm
Weight:	95 g
Guiding price:	€ 440

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Sales

LG KS20 comes with quite a good bundling judging by smartphone standards. There is a USB data cable, a wire stereo headset, a charger and a battery, a printed manual with a software disk, as well as a case and even a wire control unit with a standard 3.5 mm jack on it. No memory card comes with the model – here surfaces the traditional greed of most vendors on the market of Windows Mobile smartphones. The memory expansion slot being the most common microSD standard, we don’t consider it a serious disadvantage.

Design, ergonomics

The LG KS20 smartphone utilizes the classical candy bar form factor (traditional for WM-based PDA phones) with a touch screen and a block of controls below. The casing has a glossy surface, that’s why it tends to be easily soiled. It is completely made out of plastic. The material is of an average quality, looks much like the KE850. As well as the PRADA coating does, in about a week the back panel gets scratched, which spoils the appearance. It’s not by accident that LG included a case into the standard sales package of the novelty. The back cover is close-fitting; it creaks a little bit on squeezing, but everything is within reasonable limits.

The handset’s design is stylish and organic; we liked it very much. But the “brickness” of LG KS20 may scare away some customers. Such appearance is quite new and unusual to Windows Mobile smartphones - the austere and solid exterior looks effective and is targeted at an audience comprising all ages and tastes. The only disappointing side is the above-mentioned vulnerability to grease and soiling; the casing suffers from fingerprints, so one has to wipe it constantly. The flaw is typical of glossy coating, though it is hardly noticeable against the black surface, mostly when the surface glares in the sun. By the way, that’s the only coloring available nowadays.

Due to the well-balanced dimensions LG KS20 sits snugly enough in the hand, even the fairly large width of its body doesn’t cause any inconvenience and the weight isn’t great at all. The latter also goes to the thickness; it’s a bit more than a centimeter, which is quite uncommon for PDA-phones. As for the navigation block, it is quite ascetic – there are but two dial keys and a navigation button. This adds to the overall stylishness, but the ergonomics suffers; at least the habitual soft keys would not be out of place, obviously. In real life, the available controls give rise to no problems when it comes to practice, though it will take some time to get used to the navigation button, for it feels rather tough to press. The handset employs a single-colour white backlighting that sports moderate brightness and an average quality of implementation.

The stylus employs a telescopic design, appearing quite convenient for most users thanks to the balanced size. The only bad side is the positioning of the stylus port: it slides out of the holder pen on the bottom edge downwards – similar to the glofiish. The reason is the abundance of wireless unit antennae in the upper part of the casing. The indication is implemented on a mediocre level - there is a small LED indicator on the upper part of the front panel that is easy to miss, particularly in bright light. By the way, the front camera for video calls is found nearby, but it’s useless outside of 3G coverage.

The arrangement of control elements on the edges of LG KS20 hardly gives rise to criticism except for the interface slot being of a firmware standard, which is not as universally accepted as the habitual miniUSB. The memory expansion slot (microSD) keeps a full support for hot swapping. On the right edge there is a dedicated button used to launch the web browser by default. The camera button used is of the usual rocker type. As for the rest, it’s a standard mess kit – the sound volume rocker to the left, the power button to the right. The camera on the back panel has got no protective cover, it comes with a flashlight. Let’s also note the ‘oar’ used to fasten the wrist band.

An interesting fact is that the handset utilizes no soft-reset socket, which proves this smart solution from LG to be an early premiere; such approach features ordinary GSM phones, not the PDA ones. The logics is simple - if you need to reset the device, just remove the battery and insert it again. The procedure is easy and safe, the battery being combined with the back cover (by the way, the point also isn’t typical of PDA-phones; it’s convenient, but impractical in case of a sudden need of battery removal). Taking into consideration the imperfect stability of Windows Mobile, it is a rather controversial point.

Comparison with Apple iPhone and LG KE850 PRADA:

Compared HTC Touch (Elf):

Compared Gigabyte GSmart MW700/MS800:

LG KS20 comes with a rich set of connectivity features, save probably for the 3G support, but at your desire this unit can be connected via Bluetooth. The device is designed to be used in GSM 850/900/1800/1900 networks, it supports WCDMA and HSDPA. The novelty is compatible not only with GPRS, but with EDGE as well. The signal reception quality of the KS20 is good, the vibro signal does not let down either, but the loudspeaker maximum volume might have been higher - the call tone can be missed, especially out if the phone is concealed beneath thick winter clothing.

The wire communication is done through USB 2.0 that makes use of the miniUSB slot. The data transfer speed leaves no ground for reproaches. The Mass Storage mode isn’t supported; it should be set up as a separate type of connection. The wireless communication is represented by the Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module and Wi-Fi. Both work entirely without problems. A2DP enjoys a perfect implementation - the sound is loud, of a high quality, the signal never gets interrupted - quite up to usual level of PEC products. Unfortunately, the audio signal transmission doesn't stop on the release of connection; the integrated speaker is automatically activated. That's a problem commonly found with all WM-based PDA phones. In addition to A2DP, the following profiles are supported:

Besides A2DP, the following profiles are supported:

• File Transfer
• Generic Access
• Generic Object Exchange
• Handsfree
• Headset
• HID
• Object Push
• Personal Area Networking
• Serial Port
• Audio/Video Remote Control
• SAP (SIM card access profile)

It was a pleasure to learn that the handset makes use of the BroadCom Bluetooth drivers, instead of the standard Microsoft ones. So it is easier to handle this unit with the KS20 and it turned out to be more functional. The same HTC Touch looks less preferable in this respect.

The integrated FM-tuner with RDS is also available. The headset traditionally should be connected to serve as an aerial. The reception quality is standard for the WM platform. The maximum sound volume, as we have mentioned above, might have been higher; the quality goes worse at above than 70-80% of maximum speaker power, the loudspeaker starts to choke. The phone has no ability to record radio broadcasts, the number of settings is minimal (especially against the background of the Gigabyte solution – this function enjoys significantly more successful implementation with the GSmart MW700/MS800).

LG KS20 comes with a total of 128 Mb RAM and 256 Mb ROM. As we have already mentioned, it’s the RAM capacity that is most important, here the KS20 looks very solid against the background of the majority of modern smartphones possessing 64 Mb RAM. Unfortunately, no memory card comes bundled, so it has to be purchased separately. The memory card slot uses the microSD standard, the most popular variant for the time being; the officially announced card capacity maximum is 4 Gb.

Unnoticed by the market, the HTC Company has already long since replaced the original Touch with the so-called Touch Advance that does not anyhow differ from the predecessor, except for a change in memory size - the same 128 Mb of RAM and 256 Mb of ROM. Thus, LG KS20 has got no advantage here as one could possibly think. That's just parity.

Screen

The LG KS20 screen is powered by the TFT technology, its diagonal is 2,8’’ and the resolution is 320x240 quite in accordance with the QVGA standard. The color depth is 65K colors; a solution typical of Windows Mobile, the screen diagonal is on a level with the Touch. The image quality is high, yet the maximum brightness is not as high as one might want. That's clearly evident from the comparison with the Touch device:

HTC Touch / LG KS20

It’s also obvious that the view angles are better with the KS20, the novelty looking much better than the Touch regarding this parameter. The color rendering is average; the same Touch produces a purer white as you see from the given pictures. The LG screen looks well in the sunlight; the information stays quite legible. The truth is, it’s not the best in this respect - here we have an approximate parity with the Touch as well.

Toolbar

The Windows Mobile Platform used in LG KS20 has a quite common interface, but there is a firmware launcher here. Its implementation is similar to the KE850 PRADA style, coming with minimal functionality and no customization whatsoever. It consists of two parts - a navigation bar on the Today screen and its first item which calls a menu consisting of four shortcuts. The versions offered by mobile operators include one more field. Besides the main menu button this navigation bar hosts the sections showing calls, messages and a browser. The presence of the latter is rather disputable since the integrated Internet Explorer is pretty much unsuccessful and you will definitely need to replace it with 3rd party software such as Opera or some other application of that kind. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to customize it, as we have already mentioned – the settings just allow you to start or shut the Toolbar. This doesn’t concern the hardware button; it can be traditionally realigned, that’s why the double binding of Internet Explorer is quite reparable.

Our colleagues were a bit too quick calling such a feat an alternative interface, but we would not like to overestimate Toolbar. It is a simple launcher one way or another available in the majority of smartphones. The merit of LG consists in a good implementation of all these features combined; it’s easy-to-use, doesn’t raise any difficulties and enjoys good integration into the standard Windows Mobile. But the lack of customization is surely going to disappoint very many people. Such functionality will most likely be available in the future versions of the Toolbar firmware. It would come in handy to customize the order in which these bars and icons follow or reassign them. The important advantage of the application is its "light weight" – it boots up instantly, works without lags and hangs; everything is properly functioning.

One shouldn’t expect much from the Toolbar, since it’s just a launcher. Unlike HTC, the LG Company have restricted themselves to rather narrow limits - that’s why we have, as a matter of fact, a structured system of icons associated with one or another standard Windows Mobile applications. Here you will find no customizable list of contacts, no advanced functionality of scrolling and no other boons known from the Touch. The TouchFLO concept is doubtlessly more functional and advanced though something like that can be as well implemented in the KS20 for there is no screen-to-body transition here too – an entire front panel is employed. Moreover, this HTC creation is a purely software feature, and nobody prevents you from installing it on your LG smartphone. You’ll get all pleasures of TouchFLO, including HTC Home with its detailed weather forecast.

This operation isn’t much widespread for one simple reason – the amount of PDA-phones utilizing a flat front panel equals to about zero for the time being, not considering the variations of Touch from HTC themselves. As a result LG is a kind of pioneer in this matter, though the company have invented nothing new - the same KE850 PRADA style, only Windows Mobile running inside. The second to implement the feature are E-TEN in their glofiish V900; however this model is not officially announced yet. Returning to the implementation of the Toolbar main menu, let’s note one more parallel with the KE850 PRADA - the structure is absolutely the same, which once again speaks well for the succession of the Korean models. Let’s draw your attention that it’s not a question of one and the same platform, therefore the menu design and the set of icons might have looked any way they liked, but they repeated the already available solution.

It is quite a reasonable step, the launcher sports logical organization. There are four sections as we have already mentioned: calls and messages, multimedia, PIM and settings. Each consists of the preinstalled set of icons that cannot be anyhow customized as we’ve already mentioned too. The succession of models will please the KE850 PRADA users; however they are few in number judging by the sales numbers of the model, that’s why they had better implemented it in the style of an ordinary mobile phone platform such as the said LG.

User Interface

The main part of the desktop can be customized to your liking. By default it shows the date, the carrier info, the owner's personal data, messaging stats, the tasklist and schedule, and the indicator area (battery charge, display angle, wireless unit manager and backlighting level).

The user can customize the order in which these fields follow or remove some of them from the screen completely. Today Desktop can feature a custom picture or a photo. The top line is used for displaying service indicators like: the signal level, the battery charge level, the clock and the wireless protocols availability status: BT, Wi-Fi, GPRS/EDGE. The bottom line shows the touch button descriptions.

There are two kinds of menus in these phones: the quick access menu and the main menu. The former is activated on pressing the Start button and essentially is a vertical list that contains 7 items, info about the 5 recently launched applications as well as grants access to the main menu and settings. The main menu is a list of applications very much similar to a regular Windows-styled window with icons and application names below them. Up to 12 icons can fit into the field of view.

Preinstalled Software

Settings

Personal Tab
Input, Owner's Data, Block, Signals and Reminders, Keys, Menu, Today, Phone







System Tab
External GPS, About, Feedback, Error Log, Storage, Power Usage, Backlighting, Data, Certificates, Remove Applications, Windows Update Center, Clock and Signals, Encryption, Screen, Language standards














Connections Tab
Bluetooth, USB to PC, Wi-Fi, Wireless communications, Connections

Call service

The Phone application is what stands in control of all the call functions in LG KS20, which can be activated in two ways - by pressing the Call button or by activating the corresponding menu item in the Start menu. The main screen of the Phone application hosts three tabs - Calls, Quick Dial and Phone Settings.

The contact records are stored in the Contacts application. The SIM-stored card numbers fall on the same list with the rest. Contacts can be moved from the phone to the SIM card and vice versa. The PDA phone supports three types of contacts:

• Microsoft Office Outlook contacts, which can be created right on the phone or synchronized with the PC or Exchange Server. Each contact record can store a phone number, an e-mail address, instant messaging service names, home and work addresses and miscellaneous info like the work position, birth date and a lot of other fields. An Outlook contact can also be associated with a unique image and a ringtone.
• USIM/SIM contacts. Only a phone number and a name can be stored per contact.
• The Windows Live contacts, which are used by the MSN, short for the Windows Live Messenger application. Similar to Outlook contacts, Windows Live contacts are supplied with detailed data about the person.

The USIM/SIM card can store only one phone number per contact. If you copy a multi-number contact to the USIM/SIM memory, the SIM Manager application splits it into a number of independent contact records each with a different name, and these records are given suffixes like /M, /W and /H standing for Mobile, Work and Home numbers.

To dial a number, you can use the following menus: Phone, Contacts, Speed Dial, Calls or the SIM Card Manager. Traditionally the Smart Dialing option is supported, making phone call procedure easier. Once you enter the initial digits of a phone number of the initial letters of a person's name, the PDA-phone begins sorting the records to meet the requirements both in the contact book, on the SIM card and in the call log (among missed, outgoing and incoming calls). Then you can select one of the found records to dial that person.

By default the call log shows records of all the calls, but you can choose to filter one exact type only: missed, outgoing or incoming calls, sorting by contact names is also possible. In addition to the contact name and the phone number each call log record displays time, date and one call or all calls length.

Messaging

By default the call log shows records of all the calls, but you can choose to filter one exact type only: missed, outgoing or incoming calls, sorting by contact names is also possible. In addition to the contact name and the phone number each call log record displays time, date and one call or all calls length.

The capacity of the contact book is solely limited by the amount of free memory left. Each contact record can be associated with 12 unique phone numbers, 3 e-mail addresses, a work and a home address, a webpage address and a lot of parameters up to the assistant's phone number. There's an option to assign an individual ringtone and a picture. Contact records can be divided into user groups to the owner's liking.

The E-mail options include auto delivery (a certain time interval is set, defining the period of time between automatic mail checks), also you can set the message delivery mode (define how old in days can a message be in order to pass the filter and be downloaded), activate simultaneous sending and receiving of mail, set a mailing schedule when roaming abroad and sort incoming messages by size prior to downloading them to the phone.

If a Microsoft Exchange 2007 server is used, the message will be loaded at once and not on the next synchronization, HTML support is available. If the message contains several attachments, all of them are loaded at once, delayed download is supported. You can use hot key combinations for quick access to the messaging functions like Reply, Forward, etc.

The security system is not bad at all. For instance, the ActiveSync application can be set to digital signing of documents and enable encryption for all outgoing messages, the IRM (Information Rights Management) menu allows you to limit access to certain sections like the messages and so on.

PIM

The Calendar application in LG KS20 is used for planning meetings, conferences and other events. The Today screen displays the current day's tasks exported from the calendar. If you've got the Outlook application installed on your PC, you can synchronize schedules. A system of reminders utilizes sound and visual signals.

The vCalendar is fully supported (a standard file format used for exchange of business data concerning plans, tasks and schedules) the corresponding files can be stored in the Outlook application on the PC.

The Tasks tab is used for keeping a list of current tasks, those can be one-time or recurring. You can assign reminders to each task event and categorize them in different groups. A comprehensive list of tasks is available, expired tasks are indicated in the red. You can set a reminder to be added automatically to every new task added to the list.

The Notes tab is used for leaving quick notes. You can input the text from the keyboard, do some handwriting or record your voice. It's possible to convert handwriting into regular text and send them over to people. If a letter crosses more than two lines of the greed, it's recognized as an image rather than text. To highlight an image (e.g. to copy or delete it) you have to press the stylus on the image for a few moments.

The Office Mobile software package consists of three applications which serve to edit and view Microsoft documents: Word Mobile (supports viewing and editing of *.doc, *.rtf, *.txt and *.dot files), Excel Mobile (viewing and editing of *.xls files), PowerPoint Mobile (viewing and editing of *.ppt and *.pps files).

Explorer is the basic file manager used for browsing folder content.

The firmware PSNote utility is an alternative to the standard Notes application from Microsoft. If Toolbar doesn’t differ much from the habitual WM launcher, things are much more serious here. The application is an advanced text editor with powerful input opportunities. In particular you may not only select the language of text recognition (Cyrillic support is also promised in a localized supply), but even add custom dictionaries to improve the quality of the process.

The pleasant thing is that you are allowed not just to statically save notes, but send them instantly via SMS, as well as MMS or E-Mail. The latter feature proves that PSNote handles not the text only. You may insert graphics, video or audio files. The ability to add timestamps is available. It is pleasant that upon selecting means of communication the status menu of free\occupied memory appears. The options include a setting that allows you to zoom the image and choose the symbol type as well as font size and color.