Review of the LG Town GT350

Logic and results do not go parallel to each other. Sometimes smartphones fail to sustain the hype created whilst mid-range phones gather praises for having a good balance between features and pricing. The LG Town GT350 falls in the latter category engineered for empty pocket teenyboppers. Designed much similar to the KS360 Tribe, the Town however travels a little further as a pocketable social networking phone.

Look, Design, Feel (8/10)

Targeted at sweet sixteen kids, the LG Town comes in four funky colours: blue, purple, silver and black. The colour, even if it does not appeal to all age slots, is pleasing to the eye specially the blue-white combo. Until the blue keyboard appears, the complete handset is dipped in white colour with abstract grey patterning at the back.

The spunky handset is quite compact in size measuring diminutive at 52 x 107 x 16mm. It slides into the purse or a pocket easily, and is also easy to grasp.

Coming to the phone’s hardware configurations, the LG Town bestows both a touch screen panel as well as a QWERTY keyboard. The 240x400 pixels resolution is a resistive touch screen display that many would not prefer, but at such a drop-down price one can’t expect much. Below the touch panel is the center key for running multiple apps and call/end keys on either sides. The center key gets the phone going as it helps switch between apps as well as returning to the home screen.

The 3.5mm head jack and lock/power button occupy vertically only the top, whilst on the sides the volume rocker and microSD card slot get hold of the left. The micro-USB connector and camera shortcut button get their share on the right side.

LG Town incorporates a meager 2-megapixel camera located on the back with no flash or other additional bonuses.

Features (8/10)

The LG Town has a simple menu; easy to navigate and operate. Perhaps similar to the KS360 Tribe, the menu consists of three customizable home screens on which one can adjust the widgets as per need. There’s also the ‘LiveScreen’, third of the three screens which you can animate with avatars each for your favourite contacts. It’s a better way of reaching out to frequently contacted people rather than go the whole way with the contacts menu.

As you drill into the menu, there are four more options; communication, entertainment, utilities and settings with two more screens. The software is very easy to operate, but sometimes the hardware gets its hiccups while navigating through menus.

In the role of a social networking phone, the LG Town plays its part well, though some flaws are hard to digest. The plus points include a direct approach toward contacts with homescreen ‘avatar’s’, an on-screen alphanumeric keyboard and a QWERTY keyboard. All the advantages mentioned above start fading when it comes to pre-loaded social networking apps such as Facebook and Twitter. There is no support for Twitter at hand and for you to source the web to visit its site means using Opera mini browser. It’s disappointing since the phone is touted as a social networking compatible device.

The meager 2-megapixel camera of the LG Town fails to click images that are of high quality. Additionally, there are no supplementary features to improve the appearance of picture.

Video is available at a low 320 x 240 resolution, which is something we didn’t appreciate since the quality is the same as the camera shots.

Connectivity (6/10)

There’s no 3G/Wi-Fi available making us ultimately dependent on GPRS/EDGE speeds. However, checking the phone’s price we were content with what LG offered. Bluetooth as a medium of wireless connectivity and microUSB port to connect to the PC are omnipresent.

Performance (6/10)

The LG Town treads on a thin line of advantages and disadvantages. The price of the handset is its major calling point for which it has backed out on quite a few important features. These include the SNS apps, hardware, connectivity and multimedia apps quality.

As there’s no high-speed connectivity options available on-board, battery performs well lasting for quite a few days. On average, it lasts for a two-day period.

Value for Money (6/10)

Taking into consideration both price and feature factors, the LG Town doesn’t appeal to us as a social networking device. The look of the phone, its QWERTY keyboard and ease of use impressed us, but the sluggish menu and absence of important features was disappointing. An inexpensive, standard phone with a few notable features would compile the phone’s judgement. We would recommend the LG Cookie series rather this one.