Red Color Makes the LG KF510 Stylish and Different

September 17, 2008

It is a pleasure to discover a mobile phone that comes in another color as black or grey – and still looks stylish. Red can easily be too flashy for a mobile phone that we constantly have at hand, but LG has succeeded with its sunset red. The LG KF510 is a tri-band GSM mobile phone with 3 megapixel camera, and touch sensitive control keys below the display.

The first thing that catches the eye in the LG KF510 is its slim, smooth design. The tasty red color may also catch some people's eyes, but ours are already focused on the touch-sensitive keypad below the screen. The display is not touch sensitive and you don't have to tap the screen at all. The control keys – menu keys, call start, call end, and navigation keys – light up when you touch them. Depending on the action, additional lights below the surface indicate what is going on. It looks pretty nice. We bet that busy businessmen get tired of the extra lights soon, but people who are looking for fun and stylish phone should like the feature.

We are not big fans of phones that have both touch-sensitive keys and ordinary hardware keys. Because both have to be used, it can be difficult to get used to pushing different types of keys on the same device. We are, however, big fans of slider phones if they are solidly built. The LG KF510 has a metal body and robust slider mechanism. The display is made of tempered glass, minimizing scratches.

Mobile phone manufacturers are pretty conservative when colors are chosen for new products. Perhaps they fear that other than black or grey-colored phones will appeal to small group of people only. We tend to disagree. Color can be a powerful way to enhance the style of a product. We believe LG has succeeded with the dark red color in the KF510. The dark grey KF510 model, however, looks like another mobile phone.

LG KF510 Key Features and Specifications:

Tri-band GSM phone for 900/1800/1900 MHz frequency bands (or 850 MHz) networks.
EDGE mobile connectivity for Internet access on the move.
2.2-inch display with 262 000 colors. Display resolution 240x320 pixels.
3-megapixel digital camera. Auto-focus lens.
Video recorder captures clips at 15 frames per second in 320x240 resolution.
Video playback of MPEG4 and H.263 movies.
Music player can play songs saved in MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA formats.
Built-in FM radio.
Voice recorder.
Picture messaging (MMS), text messaging (SMS), and email.
WAP browser software.
Bluetooth 2.0 for connecting wireless accessories, such as headsets.
USB 2.0 interface for hooking up the phone to a PC via cable.
16 MB of internal memory.
MicroSD memory casrd slot for saving videos, photos, music, and applications.
Java applications, like games and messaging products can be downloaded to the phone.
Battery life: talk time up to 4 hours, standby time up to 16 days.
Dimensions (height, width, depth): 104 x 49 x 11 mm. Weight 110g.

Ringtones for the KF510

You can extract songs from your CDs and turn them into ringtones. You need a PC, a piece of software and some computing skills, but once you learn it, you have practically an endless ringtone library for your phone. Here's a guide for making ringtones from audio CDs. In addition to MP3 ringtones, the phone can also play MIDI tunes. You can find MIDI ringtones here.

If you already have music stored on your PC, you can use the MyxerTones service to create your own ringtones. Here you find a few tips for accessing the free MyxerTones ringtone creator.

Downloadable Applications

The KF510 can run Java applications that can be downloaded, for example, from getjar web pages.

Competitive products:

Touch screen phones are quickly becoming more popular as their prices are coming down and the touch-sensitive technology is becoming more reliable. Other touch screen products are, for instance, the Apple iPhone, HTC Touch Dual, Motorola Motozine ZN5, Nokia E66, and the Samsung SGH-U900 Soul.

LG KF510 video review:

Here's a video that shows how the touch-sensitive key panel on the slim KF510 reacts when buttons are pushed (video recorded by Celluloco):