Company Lg created a new model capable of simultaneously working with two SIM cards. The positive experience of the previous such phone showed the need for the development of this segment of mobile devices, and now another brainchild of LG - GX 500 - was born.
Contents of delivery
Included with the phone you will also find a user manual, a headset, a special miniUSB - USB adapter, a charger - a special plug with an adapter for a USB connector, and a software disc.
Appearance
This device is made in the most common form factor - candy bar. The body material is plastic, with small metal inserts for various small parts. The dimensions of the phone are 108.9 * 53.4 * 12.95 mm, and the weight is about 118 g - rather average dimensions and weight, not the heaviest and should not cause any inconvenience. The body is completely rectangular, its corners are slightly beveled. The phone fits comfortably in the hand and does not slip out. We can say that its size is just under the average human palm.
Easy to operate with one hand. The build quality is decent, there are practically no gaps, and no backlash was noted. The plastic of the case is matte, fingerprints are not noticeable on it, besides, it is pleasant to the touch, perhaps just a Soft touch. However, this is a budget model and this is hardly the case.
Display
The entire front panel is occupied by the screen, only at the bottom there are several soft keys. The touch screen is quite good in quality. The manufacturing technology is capacitive, which means that you can control the device with both fingers and a stylus, and if the case is not prone to fingerprints, then the glossy screen suffers from this.
The display has a diagonal of 3 inches, its resolution is 400 * 240 pixels, and the number of displayed colors and shades is 262 thousand. Such parameters make it possible to obtain a fairly high-quality, bright image at the output, which is quite distinguishable even in sunlight, although there is a significant decrease in the display quality. The resolution is, in principle, sufficient for such a screen, and you will not notice any shortcomings in the display, however, for a budget solution this is generally a very good screen.
Above the display, you can see the speaker covered with a beautiful metal mesh. The functions performed by him are communication during a conversation, as well as a speakerphone, he performs them regularly, but he is not suitable for playing music - the sound is screaming, metallic.
It is characteristic that the manufacturer emphasizes the possibility of working with two SIM cards with the corresponding signature below the device screen. Below it there are buttons for accepting and rejecting a call, and in the center there is a shortcut key for a menu with the most frequently used applications. A microphone is located just below these buttons.
On the reverse side there is only a 3-megapixel camera lens, no flash. Further, below there is some information, first of all that the phone works with two SIM cards, as well as the fact that it has a WiFi wireless communication module.
Opening the back cover of the device, you will find a 1500 mAh battery, which provides quite decent performance in relation to the battery life, which is about 4 days if the device is not used very actively. Of course, when you turn on WiFi, the phone's battery life will be measured in hours.
If you take out the battery, you will find, closer to the top of the phone, two SIM card slots. The slots are arranged in such a way that both cards are placed on top of each other.
When turned on, the phone detects the lower SIM card as the primary one, and the second as the secondary one, so you need to enter the PIN code first for the upper card, and only then unlock the second one.
The right and left sides of the case contain black plastic inserts that perfectly match the overall color of the case.
On the right side there is a miniUSB connector - charging and communication with a PC is carried out precisely through this connector. It is also designed to communicate with the complete headset. Below, the phone control lock key and the camera control key are sequentially located.
There are also a couple of elements on the left side, namely the volume control key for sound playback and a slot for a memory card. The maximum supported volume, declared by the manufacturer, is eight gigabytes, which is a lot for a budget phone. The format of the supported cards is microSD. Hot swapping of the card is also possible. Right there, at the top left, there is a small eyelet for the strap.
Menu and software features
A-class shell
As for the filling of the phone, here the manufacturer used a class A shell, which implies the presence of a cubic menu, and, in fact, is a somewhat simplified, budget version of the S class.
On the first desktop, the phone has a whole system of different widgets, of which there are about ten pieces, with the help of the alignment function all widgets are easily symmetrically arranged across the entire desktop.
The second desktop is a service one, it contains speed dial contacts, the maximum number of which is 8. It is just so many contacts that you can give preference to in speed dialing.
At the bottom of the desktop there are shortcuts that go beyond the bottom edge of the screen when working with widgets, without interfering with comfortable viewing.
Menu
In the menu, you can navigate by “flipping” the current pages from left to right or vice versa. There are four submenus, they are communication, entertainment, tools and settings.
The menu provides access to many of today's popular applications such as
Search for Yandex and Google, as well as others intended for communication on the network.
Communication capabilities
To facilitate communication, the manufacturer has provided the device with a variety of applications that are available from various parts of the menu.
In the section "communication" there are already familiar means of forming and sending SMS and MMS messages, in addition, in the same menu there is an application for working with e-mail, which is easily configured even by not very experienced users.
The menu also contains applications for quick access to social networks, such as Twitter, whose client, in the form of a mobile version, is built into the phone by the manufacturer.
The next is a small package called "Social Networks". It contains two mobile applications for accessing social networks and mobile
The "tools" menu has a built-in browser, as well as search engine applications, in addition to search capabilities, providing a bunch of other tools to optimize your pastime. A very convenient and functional Opera Mini is used as a browser.
The "settings" contains all the parameters of the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi modules, there are also the settings for normal communication.
Multimedia capabilities
The manufacturer did not provide the phone with any outstanding multimedia features. Even the camera doesn't make a good impression. It has no flash, no autofocus, and although it has a decent resolution of 3 megapixels, you shouldn't expect high-quality shots. The camera has many settings, such as the quality of shooting, resolution, various effects, such as black and white shooting. In addition, she knows how to shoot video, the quality of which is also not up to par.
The phone has a built-in multimedia player and radio, the settings of which practically do not differ from those of other models, so we will not consider them in more detail. The phone also has several entertainment applications built into the phone, which are also not of particular interest.
DUAL sim function
When two SIM cards are connected, the system will prompt you to select the main one, and also disconnect, if necessary, the secondary card. When using your phone, you can switch between the two cards by selecting the one you want. After this procedure, you need to reboot the phone. You can receive calls to any of the SIM cards, but to make a call from the secondary SIM card, you need to make it the main one, which again requires you to reboot the phone.
Summary of the review As a result, we have a phone with the following set of positive and negative qualities: "Advantages of the device" - High-quality assembled body; - Nice appearance; - Ergonomic device; - Hot swappable memory card; - More capacious battery compared to its predecessor; - Simple and intuitive menu with many useful functions and applications; - Availability of the module of wireless Internet WiFi. "Cons of the device" - poor quality speakerphone; - rather weak camera module; - not very convenient to change the SIM card to make a call. In general, the phone has much more positive qualities than negative aspects. He, of course, will not delight you with beautiful photos and does not shine with any musical abilities, but at the same time, the phone has a number of very useful things in its composition, for example, the presence of a convenient full-screen keyboard for typing messages or many applications for communication and work. online. In addition, an important advantage is the availability of WiFi, which will provide you with Internet access in any cafe. And the presence of a two-card system will save time for those who need to constantly stay in touch with several operators. Add in the not-so-high cost of a budget solution and you've got a great phone for work and leisure. F.ua.
