Let’s check out some of the coolest, touchscreen-based non-smartphones from Korea, the land where ALL phones look gorgeous.
LG Viewty Smart
There’s a phone out there that fits the phrase ‘phone that’s nearly a smartphone, without actually being a smartphone’: the aptly named LG Viewty Smart. Following on from the original Viewty, the LG Viewty Smart follows the same design ethos of having a touchscreen only interface (the awesome S-Class interface), squeezed into a slim body, but it ups the ante with a superb 8MP camera. It also has HSDPA, making it a truly portable internet device. Put simply, the LG Viewty Smart is the smartest non-smartphone in the world, and it’s largely down to the interface. Built around a 3D cube, S-Class gives the LG Viewty a user-friendly and sleek interface, it is designed to be simple and intuitive.
LG Arena - a whole new class of interface
Key to the incredible experience the LG Arena gives you is its interface, as it’s the first phone to use LG’s new S-Class UI. To visualise it, imagine a 3D cube, sitting on the screen of the LG Arena, and on each side of the cube, there are things like shortcuts to apps, links direct to your music, or other widgets that you can customise yourself. The fun part comes when you interact with the LG Arena, as you simply swipe across the screen, to rotate round those faces, and get to what content you want. It’s remarkably intuitive, but more importantly, it makes the LG Arena fun to use, and that is a BIG selling point in 2009.
Samsung Jet
So, there’s the LG Viewty Smart, with its phenomenal camera. And then, there’s the LG Arena, with that interface, and amazing value for money. But coming soon from the OTHER Korean manufacturer is the new Samsung Jet, a touchscreen phone with a brand new interface, based on a 3D cube. Whilst it shares many design similarities with TouchWiz, the new Cubic UI in the Samsung Jet is a whole new experience, where you can flip between screens by dragging your finger, and rotating the cube round. The UI is brilliant, but in terms of feature, the Samsung Jet is no slouch, either. You get a 5 megapixel camera, HSDPA, and a superb web browser, and although the Samsung Jet isn’t a smartphone (nor meant to be one), it’s one of the nicest feature phones out there.
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