LG-C900k Windows Phone
From:Telecom
Price: $899 (handset only)
Last week, Microsoft previewed the release of another Windows phone called Mango.
Microsoft New Zealand phone manager Mark Bishop said Mango would deliver a wave of new features to push the boundaries of the smartphone experience around communications, apps and the web.
"Seven months ago, we started our mission to make smartphones smarter and easier for people to do more. With Mango, Windows Phone takes a major step forward in redefining how people communicate and use apps and the internet, giving better results for less effort."
The smartphone experience had been complicated by a sea of disconnected apps and accounts in an attempt to keep pace with all the different ways people communicated from calls, texts, email, instant messenger, tweets, check-ins, photo posting and tagging, he said.
To help people stay on top of that growing complexity, Mango organised information around the person or group you interacted with, not the apps you had to use, Mr Bishop said.
Some of the features were:
• Threads which allowed users to switch between text, Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger within the same conversation;
• Group contacts were personalised into Live Tiles to see the latest status updates and allow users to quickly send a text, email or instant message to the whole group from the start screen;
• Twitter and Linkedin feeds were integrated into contact cards;
• Multiple emails could be linked into one inbox and conversations could be organised to make it easy to stay up to date with mail.
I have been using a LG-C900k Windows Phone on the Telecom network with some success.
The phone is chunky because of a slide-out keyboard, larger than the phones I'm used to.
A heavy-duty phone, it implies it is a "workhorse" for people who rely on their smartphones for almost all functions when out of the office.
The slide up screen lock displays tiles of functions, including contacts, the phone, instant messages, appointments and internet explorer.
I downloaded apps for the weather and sharemarket easily from the app store.
The only down side of the phone was the time it took the screen to switch back from horizontal to vertical. When using just the touch keypad, it was much easier to use it vertically. But sometimes, the screen would not return from horizontal.
When all was going well, the phone was impressive. The sliding screen was easy to navigate, you can add or delete tiles off the home screen.
Using Office documents was easy using the slide-out keypad, the camera had a high resolution and sending photos with emails or documents was a one-touch operation.
The phone was hard on the battery life during a heavy day of use and a charge was needed to continue using the phone at night.
It was switched on at 6am and by 9pm, the warning had come on to plug in the phone.
The phone seemed indestructible and is recommended for heavy usage.
