3G, a 1.3 Megapixel camera and Bluetooth; LG's slim clamshell contender, the U880, sways Sindre Lia with a favourable first impression - but can it stand up to closer scrutiny?
Review summary of the LG U880:
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 If we were to sum up the LG U880 in a sentence, we’d say it gets the basics right. An excellent keypad serves to interact with a crisp and bright internal display which handles video calls and streaming with aplomb. Despite its slim and streamlined clamshell design, battery life is also more than acceptable, and the handset’s only real drawbacks is its somewhat exaggerated claim of being a music phone and only average performance on behalf of its camera. These niggles aside, the LG U880 comes highly recommended. Release: November 2005.
Pros: Slim clamshell design; ergonomically sound and comfortable keypad; excellent display
Cons: Poor music offerings; camera performance distinctly average
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Full LG U880 Review:
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Broadening its choice in small 3G handsets, which has previously included the likes of Sony Ericsson's K608i, Three (Hutchison 3G) has picked up LG's contender to the Motorola RAZR V3x and Samsung's SGH-Z540; the U880 super-slim clamshell.
Superbly slinky
A streamlined casing combined with physical measurements of 99 g and 99 x 49 x 18 mm makes the LG U880 the slimmest 3G handset we've reviewed to date. The U880 sits well in ones hand, and provides excellent navigation and numerical buttons which are a perfect fit for interacting with the handset's intuitive and user-friendly menu system.
We also favour the bright and crisp 2-inch 262K colour screen of the U880, which offers an average resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. A decent external 65K colour screen is also present, as is a hinge-mounted 1.3 Megapixel swivel camera to enable face-to-face video chats with decent performance.
The interface for video calls is identical with the one applied for phone calls, and proved to be quite user friendly - as was also the case with the camera application. Hardware shortcut buttons to rapidly access each of these three functions represented another positive trait, although mediocre camera performance with blur and poor colour reproduction lowered our initial impression by a couple of notches.
Music? Sure, I guess I can do music.
Propelled by a microSD card slot for memory expansion and dedicated buttons for music control on its front cover, the U880 is apparently a music phone. After experiencing slow music transfer, poor sound output by otherwise comfortable earbuds, limited music player features and an internal memory of only 75 MB, however, the LG U880 is at best a poor music phone - if a music phone at all.
In terms of connectivity, the LG U880 supports GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz networks as well as GPRS and UMTS based 3G for high-speed data connectivity. USB and Bluetooth are also supported, as are SMS, MMS and e-mail, but EDGE and Infrared have been left out. Furthermore the LG U880 sports a WAP 2.0 browser, polyphonic and MP3 ringtones, Java MIDP 2.0, stereo sound speakers and synchronization of calendar and contacts.
Reception and voice quality for the LG U880 both proved excellent, while its battery offered approximately 3 hours of talktime and 6 days of standby time as compared to the claimed 4 hours and 10 days on GSM networks. As for video calls, our test maxed out at one hour; fortunately, LG had the foresight to bundle an extra battery in the sales package.
Availability
The LG U880 is at the time of writing exclusively available to Three customers in Europe, Australia and Hong Kong.
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