With the Arena KM900, LG showed the world that they could compete on the touch screen stage, the innovative S-Class user interface receiving much praise for managing to bring something different from the swathe of iClones saturating the market.

 The LG Viewty Smart continues this trend, hanging on the popular interface, trading on a popular name and rounding out the specs to allure those that passed on the Arena as a little slight.

 Does this snap-happy handset have what it takes in the competitive touch phone market? We are about to find out…

Design:

Very compact, very light and pleasant to the touch tends to be the initial reaction when picking up the Viewty Smart, it feels almost like a dummy handset with a refreshing lack of heft to it.

 The metallic accents on the front are continued on the rear, with the 8 megapixel Schneider-Kreuznach lens housed in an attractive burnished silver finish. The lone menu button on the front is supplemented by a volume rocker, (proprietary) headphone jack and dedicated shutter button along the right side, a power button/lock on the top and a microSD slot and quick access S-Class button on the left.

The black front, curved edges and small footprint all evoke a handset born in the post-iPhone era, if anything giving Ives a run for his money in the gadget design stakes!

The handset is a lightweight at 102g, and the modest form factor (109mm x 56 mm x 12mm) means that the Viewty Smart still looks attractive next to smartphone supermodels.

The only design misstep seems to be a huge black border surrounding the touch screen, as it makes the 3” capacitive display look a lot smaller than it is, and a bit of a waste of valuable real estate.

Features:

The Viewty Smart GC900 is most definitely a camera phone first and foremost. An 8 megapixel camera with LED flash, optics, smile and face detection, image stabilization, and the ability to instantly 'tag' the location a photo was taken using GPS is undoubtedly the handset’s strong suit.

Images are phenomenal, the quick shutter speed eliminating those often blurry photos that other 8 megapixel camera phones are frequently guilty of. The high-grade lens, the wealth of image tweaking features and the slender shape could have the Viewty Smart replacing your dedicated snapper in no time…

Video recording is even better, with support for 720x480 at 30 frames per second, VGA at 30fps, QVGA time-lapse (for capturing those Benny Hill moments) and slow-motion video recording. All more than adequate functionality, and the 1.5GB of internal memory eschews the need for a microSD card!

The 3” screen capably handles the S-Class interface, with the menu button on the side bringing up a 3D cube in the middle of the screen, each face offering a different function. One side houses contacts, whilst shortcuts, multimedia and a simplified Widgets interface familiar to any recent Samsung user fill out the rest.

It is already a simple and intuitive interface, but S-Class also offers a very familiar tile-based interface giving easy navigation to utilities and settings. A cool feature on this screen is that all 32 tiles can be brought when the phone is turned into landscape, meaning every single option is reachable from a single screen. Handy.

Movies and music are ably handled, as LG phones since the Arena have stepped up their game with DivX playback and support for a bevy of musical media formats.

Games are all very much motion-driven, with little to recommend them beyond the novelty of using the accelerometer. Whether it is rolling dice, playing with bubbles or spinning a wheel, the rules often result in shaking the phone wildly resulting in a random outcome.

S-Class is filled with cool features - the Rolodex-style contacts list, the emulated FM dial on the radio and the impressive 3D navigation through the photo gallery. S-Class seems to be full of graphical flourishes and intuitive touches which only serve to highlight LG have turned a corner with this new interface.

We only hope to see it in more handsets, offering that high-end smartphone feel is something that more manufacturers should strive to do!

Calling and Connectivity

The LG Viewty Smart makes and receives calls just fine, offering a clear and simple interface for calls, contacts and numbers.

Text messaging is the usual threaded affair (thanks, iPhone!), allowing you to see the back and forth between friends.

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS are all present and correct, and the integration of these features into both the sending and tagging of pictures makes for a great all-in-one device for getting connected.

Web browsing is merely serviceable using LG’s proprietary service, but makes the process of accessing the usual sites easy enough. No support for things like Flash though…

The battery life is as expected for a touch phone with a nice big screen, a bit over a day with average calling and texting. The talktime touted of 5.5 hours in 2G seems about right, but was eaten up rather quickly after taking some photos using the LED flash after dark.

Verdict

The GC900 is the perfect evolution of the Viewty brand, taking LG into the next generation of touch phones. It is a great handset focused on photography, but offers little more to differentiate itself in an increasingly competitive market.

Aside from the beefed up camera and costume change, the Viewty Smart is largely identical to the KM900 Arena…and with word of a 12 megapixel cameraphone on the horizon from the Korean manufacturer, this phone runs the risk of not having enough of a killer app in a killer camera.

The original Viewty was groundbreaking in terms of design, touch control and cutting edge image capture in a world where clamshell devices and bricks reigned supreme. Times have certainly changed and now the Viewty Smart, despite genuinely impressive specs and a novel interface runs the risk of being branded ‘just another touch phone’.

Perhaps if it was as smart as the name suggested, with a dedicated app store and the ability to download some programs to give the handset more personality than the rigid S-Class will allow, then the GC900 would have a bigger place in the spotlight.