Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the LG KP235

The LG KP235 has a clamshell design, which is rare for entry level handsets in its class. The phone definitely has appealing looks and doesn’t disappoint the budget consumer with a cheap look resembling its price. The design is made of a silver body and black patches on it. The front side of the clamshell has an external display and a VGA Camera. When the phone is open, the rather impressive, 1.7” 262K color capable main display is revealed. Overall the phone feels a little less than solid in one’s hand since it weighs just 81 grams, nevertheless the LG KP235’s a great phone to handle. On the front-side of the clamshell we find the rather unprofessionally inscribed “Bluetooth” logo, since it spoils the look of the phone.

The LG KP235 has a good feature set even though it is intended to be a basic phone. The KP235’s main display consists of 128x160 pixels in 262K colors. The phone can be used to send Short Text messages, and also supports LongSMS and EMS length messages. The display was good enough for an entry level handset like the KP235, and made reading messages and browsing WAP sites a good experience. The external display consists of 96x64 pixels in 64K colors which is rather nice. The major addition to the feature set of this basic Samsung phone was the VGA camera. Though it was not of a great quality, most users will find it handy to take pictures of little things or moments they come across. The camera also had Auto-Focus as a listed feature. There’s also voice recording and MIDI polyphonic ringtones support on the LG KP235. The KP235 had a meager 5MB of user memory which was just enough to hold a few hundred photographs and some favorite ringtones. The KP235 can be customized with wallpapers too. The JAVA MIDP 2.0 present on the LG KP235 allowed us to install some useful and fun applications that enhanced our productivity on this phone. Text input is eased by the presence of T9 predictive technology. A hands-free feature and Calendar were present on the LG KP235. There was also support for photo calling (adding photos to contacts).

The LG KP235 phone functions on only two GSM bands, i.e., 900/1800MHz. It also supports GPRS for internet usage on the phone. Surprisingly the KP235 supports Bluetooth 2.0 for local connectivity. There’s no infrared, but the phone allows connecting to the PC through USB. Call reception on the LG KP235 was very good. One thing we were concerned about was that the microphone on the KP235 wasn’t quite hi-fi and resulted in transmitting some noise.

The KP235 was stated to have a talk time of about 3.5 hours; and a standby time of 16 days. This isn’t bad considering the LG KP235 is powered by a slim 800mAh battery. The built-in WAP 2.0 browser made up for fair performance however we loved browsing on Opera Mini after installing it on the Java MIDP.

There’s no doubt the LG KP235 almost justifies what you pay for it. If you’re looking for a phone that’s as simple as possible at a budget, consider the KP235 for its extra offerings.