LG C3400 GSM Value for Money. Review on LG C3400

Recently I bought the LG C 3400 GSM . I am glad that I bought it - WHY ?...

It packs a n MP3 player, A VGA Camera with a flash light and a timer, 16 MB built in memory, GPRS Class 10, MMS, EMS in a beautiful dualband clamshell phone that fits neatly and comfortably in your palm. Wait , it’s not over yet.....the sales pack contains a great stereo headset, a s/w CD, a USB cable and even a small nylon strap along with the usual battery charger and a very well printed and illustrated Manual. Whew! A complete package.

The Displays

The external display is brilliant white. In a dark room it creates a fair amount of light but does not glare the eyes, it doubles up as

a rough viewfinder for self portraits.

Normally displaying the time, day date month battery etc.etc.

Buttons on either side permit you to change the modes- MP3/Camera/Torch(!the flashlight of the camera doubles as a brilliant torch !) and another to scroll thru MP3s to select ...and as soon as you do, voila the screen displays the music polygraph. The internal 65K display is colourful, vivid and bright but has blue hazes at edges sometimes.

The Keyboard is brilliant riot of blue with brilliant red for cut and brilliant green for call buttons. The response of buttons is good.

The MP3 player

The fairly sufficient 16 MB memory holds upto about 7-8 MP3 songs - i.e. about 24 minutes playback and still leaves about 2-3MB free for other applications. However at this point I would mention that the MP3 would have to be FM quality upto 48Kbits. The phone speaker tough does not deliver very great music quality but the stereo headset does. And there’s also a preset equalizer tossed in, besides you can play MP3s in seq or at random. And of course you can set the MP3s as ringtones to your various caller groups(about 7).

The Camera

Camera is adequately implemented with 640x480, 320x 240, 160x120 and 48x48 pixel sizes. The last is used mainly for the picture phone book where the photo can be assigned to the user. 4X zoom is available only upto 320x240 level and at 160x120 you have some fun built in borders for your pictures. There is a multiview option and a slide show option!

The USB cable is extremely handy, the s/w is quite easy to install, the Multimedia s/w for PC-Phone transfer s/w works exceptionally fine. MP3 downloads are fairly fast. But strangely Picture uploads are quite slow. A 640x 480 pic takes almost 1.5 min to upload whereas a 2 MB MP3 takes about 2 min to download. The PC sync s/w for managing the phonebook,organiser , and to do is about oK ( there are some hardly visible >> marks between windows to transfer the data and are discovered after a little irritation,) and here I would say that LG has ignored this area. The Organiser allows only 20 items including memo and schedule notes which is extremely frugal considering the phone is bestowed with 16 MB memory.

Phone book permits about 200 entries each with 1 mobile, 1 home, 1 office, 1 fax, 1 email entry and the caller group, picture etc. However you cannot add an in comming number to an existing number. this is only allowed from in comming SMS.

Over all the USB transfers are smooth tough at times (say 5% times) it does hang but its ok. and quite convenient.

Tool box is good and contains a basic calculator, a very handy measures convertor, World time, melody composer etc.

SMS editor is good and has a fairly good T9 dic implementation ( large no. of languages - french, german etc.) However strangely there is no facility of SMS groups, though an SMS can be sent to upto 6 persons at a go. MMS capabilities , which I haven’t tried but fidgeted with seem good , and you can include your pics in the messages. Typing is comfortable with great KB ergo.

The battery is great works for about 3-4 days, but takes slightly higher time to recharge.

What else is left I guess that should help you adequately...

So if you are looking for a cute glossy black and matt steel, clamshell phone fitting very cozyly in your palms and one which is guaranteed to generate OH-this-is also-there-wow ! in your friends,go for this david amongst goliaths. For in your heart you know its all available in your little LG C 3400 and at a price that didnt burn your pocket(about Rs7,400/- with 1 Y warranty).

And another thing good is the LG’s service and support network in Mumbai.