Check out our LG Incite review to see if the Samsung Omnia has met its match in this new all-touch Windows Mobile phone on AT&T.
Review summary of the LG Incite:
 |
|
Scoreboard » Features » Side-by-side » Gallery » |
 LG has mostly missed the target so far with touchscreen phones, never coming close to what Apple has achieved on the iPhone, and even lagging behind native rival Samsung on all-touch devices. Is it a coincidence that in the same week Samsung brought their all-touch, Windows Mobile-powered Samsung Omnia to Verizon Wireless, LG dropped the LG Incite on AT&T? Who knows. But even with all the problems we had with Samsung's device, the LG Incite suffers even more under the crushing weight of Windows Mobile, an interface that was not remotely designed for touch. LG has added a menu atop the professional interface, but hasn't extended any style or ease-of-use beyond the menu screens. This would be injury enough, but to add insult, the LG Incite is just not a responsive touchscreen device, and that's what's most important to us. Throw in the boxy styling and cheap build quality, and it's easy to see how LG missed again with this device. Release: November 2008. Price: $200.
Pros: Good connectivity, with 3G networking and Wi-Fi. Web browser does an acceptable job.
Cons: Cheap design and build. Unresponsive touchscreen. Sluggish performance. No improvements to Windows Mobile beyond the main menu screens.
| Poor |
Mediocre |
61%
GOOD |
Very good |
Excellent |
|
|
|
Full LG Incite Review:
|
Design - Mediocre
The LG Incite is an unimaginative silver box with a touchscreen phone inside. The phone has a cheap feel to it, more like flimsy plastic painted silver than the solid, brushed and polished feel of LG's much more attractive LG Shine. The shiny back isn't even a perfect mirror, it's mottled and textured, but not in an attractive way. The phone's screen seemed to bow under our touch.
Though LG explicitly recommends a light touch in the user manual, we found this was not always the way to get the screen's attention. It was often unresponsive to our touch. Even worse, we sometimes got a haptic vibration to let us know it felt us, but nothing would happen onscreen. This was especially frustrating pressing the "OK" button, which closes a window and steps backwards. When did Windows Mobile phone designers forget the importance of the "OK" button?
LG throws a tabbed menu interface on top of the Windows Mobile stuff, but this hardly helps the phone's usability. With other Windows Mobile overlays, the point is to minimize the user's contact with Windows Mobile. On the LG Incite, the improved menu provides no useful information. The Today screen, the phone's starting point, has the standard WinMo features, including upcoming appointments, but the LG-design menus add nothing more. We like features here, including a photo viewer, media player, e-mail reader, etc. Basically, we like HTC's TouchFLO 3D, but LG doesn't come remotely close to that kind of depth. Or any depth, because once you touch an icon on the LG menu, you're thrown deep into Windows Mobile. And Windows Mobile does not like to be touched.
To that end, LG has included a jog dial, which we actually liked, though not as much as we like a free rolling clickwheel. Worst of all, though, is the dangling, charm-like stylus. Samsung pulled a similar gimmick with the Samsung Omnia. It's a horrible idea, prone to get lost or in the way. These dangling charms are ubiquitous in Korea, where Samsung and LG are based, but never caught on in the U.S.
Finally, the LG Incite is a sluggish performer. Like most touchscreen phones, the Incite uses an accelerometer to set the screen orientation. When the phone is clogged with running apps, switching from portrait to landscape mode could take as long as 8 seconds or more. For some reason, though, switching back to portrait never took as long.
Calling - Good
Calls on the LG Incite sounded okay on AT&T's network in New Jersey and lower Manhattan. Some calls sounded a bit muffled, but didn't break up or drop out. Noise was persistent, but not too loud to be a nuisance. For battery life, AT&T claims the large batter will get up to 8.7 hours, and we're inclined to believe, if you leave Wi-Fi turned off. We charged the Incite once before two straight days of testing and it was still going strong at the end. That boxy design is good for something after all.
The Voice Commands app on the LG Incite was hidden under a Tools tab, and not grouped with the calling apps, strangely. It also had trouble understanding our commands, though it was able to recognize numbers accurately. We liked that the LG Incite turned off the touchscreen when we held it to our face, then turned it back on when we pulled it away. Every touch phone should do that, but most don't.
Conference calling was a bit difficult. We had to dig through the menus, and the menus on the LG Incite are tiny and not touch-friendly. We wish a couple of the onscreen buttons could switch to become "Join" and "Swap" buttons during a 3-way call. The speakerphone on the Incite was okay, but we prefer our speakers much louder.
Messaging - Good
On a touchscreen phone, messaging apps live and die by the quality of the onscreen keyboard. On the LG Incite, these apps are definitely on life support. The keyboard looks nice, for sure, but the trouble we had with the cheap-feeling plastic screen intensified as we tried to type. In portrait mode, the Incite presents a 20-key, SureType layout. The phone uses XT9 to guess your word, but can't do much if you press the wrong key. In landscape mode, the phone gets a full QWERTY keyboard. We had responsiveness issues with both layouts. Sometimes we would press a key, and feel the haptic vibration, but nothing would happen on screen. On the full QWERTY, the top row is right on top of the entry field, so if you aim high and miss, you'll rearrange the letters in your message quickly by inserting them accidentally.
For messaging apps, the LG Incite gets a basic, but clean-looking IM client with support for Windows Live, AOL and Yahoo services. AT&T's Xpress Mail does a fine job handling personal e-mail accounts, but the real deal is Outlook paired with an Exchange server. There was nothing special to make the messaging apps easier to use on this touch phone, but the standard Windows Mobile fare gets the job done nicely.
Scheduling and productivity - Good
For scheduling, the LG Incite gets the standard Windows Mobile setup. It doesn't look great, but its all highly functional, and Exchange e-mail users won't find anything better. Of course, entering new appointments was a pain on the Incite's sub-par onscreen keyboard, and any improvements to the homescreen don't extend to the upcoming events viewer, which looks the same as it does on every standard Windows Mobile phone.
For productivity, you get the full Office Mobile suite, and these apps are limited only by how much you can handle the onscreen keyboard. Viewing and some light editing was no problem in our test Word and Excel documents. Buried deep in the phone is a Picsel viewer as well, and Picsel makes a nice looking, smooth document viewer. It lacks editing capabilities, but we're still fans of Picsel's app.
Multimedia - Mediocre
Easily the most disappointing feature on this phone is the media player. LG hasn't added one lick of style to the standard Windows Media Player interface on the LG Incite. The app looks dated, with buttons that are too tiny for touch. When we pull out a stylus to listen to music, it's obvious that something has gone wrong. As a consolation, LG includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, so we could use our own headphones. Also, the microSDHC card slot is located on the outside, and we had no trouble synchronizing our card through the phone with Windows Media Player on our desktop. LG has also thoughtfully chosen a microUSB port for data connections.
AT&T's cellular video service looks pretty good on this phone, and streams smoothly over the 3G connection. Still, it isn't a replacement for an advanced video player, and even the streaming media clips open up in the stodgy old Windows Media Player environment. The phone also has access to some XM Radio stations, and can stream music through a Pandora app. Both of these cost extra, but if you're a Pandora true believer, it might be worth the $8 or so.
Web browsing - Good
The LG Incite gets an updated version of the Access Netfront browser. Usually this is an unimpressive mobile browser, but on the Incite it did a nice job with some complicated pages. Our Web page came through looking good, about the same as we've seen it on Opera's mobile browser. We had the same problems navigating with our fingers that we've had in every other app on this phone. The phone didn't respond quickly to our touch, and digging through the menus brought up tiny selections that were often too small for us to tap accurately with our fingers. The jog dial was some help here, but since it can't move side to side, it didn't solve everything.
The browser does have a fatal flaw. When you switch screen orientation, the browser enters a long redrawing period. It wasn't as tedious as reloading, but still a considerable delay. In the worst instance, we would accidentally tip the phone too far and trigger the accelerometer, which caused the browser to redraw. Then, bringing the phone upright, the browser had to start all over once again. It was a tedious loop.
GPS navigation - Good
While the GPS sensor on the LG Incite picked us up quickly at first, it had trouble staying locked onto us as we navigated our way from the New Jersey suburbs into New York City. The phone uses AT&T Navigator for turn-by-turn directions. The app often mislocated us by a block or so. This caused it to recalculate our directions, which took a few seconds each time, then recalculate again once it figured out where we really were. For a few harrowing blocks as we emerged from the Holland Tunnel, it seemed the phone would never stop recalculating. Finally, when we tried to drag the map around on the screen to see what was ahead, it didn't respond to our swiping motions. Once or twice, we were able to move it around, but it usually ignored us.
Camera - Mediocre
The LG Incite uses a 3-megapixel camera with auto focus. This should keep the phone competitive, now that we're seeing 5-megapixel, auto focus shooters. Unfortunately, the Incite's camera can't manage decent shots. The auto focus was unreliable, and plenty of our shots turned out blurry. Plus, the camera has trouble with lighting, leaving many areas in our photos underexposed.
Fallen leaves
We'll start with a good one. The camera's white balance kept the shot cool, but still captured plenty of light on this hazy fall morning. We weren't blown away by the detail, but colors look accurate.
Pastry under glass
The camera couldn't handle the low light in this French café or the glare on the glass case. M. Payard's pastries look sickly and pale.
Sidewalk outdoor shot
Here, the bright sky is overblown, but the nearby trees and grass are completely dark. It's almost like there was a thundercloud directly overhead, when really the sky was about half-cloudy.
Keyboard close-up
A nice shot. The focus creates a bit of depth to the field, and the keys in the center of this picture look sharp and in focus. We also like the contrast between the black keys and the LED light coming up from underneath.
Panorama shot
The camera uses a fairly standard panorama setup. You take the first shot and it provides a translucent frame in a third of the next shot to help you line up the panorama. Stitching is handled in the phone. It wasn't perfect, but it was somewhat successful.
Self portrait
Price and availability
The LG Incite is available now from AT&T for $200 with a contract agreement and a mail-in rebate.
|
|
|
|
|
Archive