For a while, 3-megapixel camera-phones were the craze. There was the Sony Ericsson K800i, the Nokia N73 and Samsung Ultra Edition 12.9. Even before the dust had a chance to settle, LG fired up the megapixel race with its 5-megapixel KG920. Nokia, too, didn't let up with its fresh-out-of-the-oven 5-megapixel N95. If this is an indication of what's to come, we'll soon be seeing even higher-resolution camera-phones hitting the market. Before that happens, we take a look at what LG has to offer with the KG920.

Design
A cursory glance at LG's KG920 brings to mind the image of a nondescript mobile phone peppered with numerous buttons. With limited real estate, this phone is not for those with larger digits or the text messaging crowd as the numeric keypad is packed within a 24 x 21mm footprint--an area which could easily be overwhelmed by a thumb. While the keys provide tactile feedback, the miniscule size and laggy performance bug the unit. More on that in the Performance section later.

This LG is reminiscent of the Nokia 3250 and Nikon Coolpix S10/S4. You can twist the upper-half of the candy bar 180 degrees to face the opposite direction. The swivel design is a big plus for those who take self-portraits often, or want to shoot from waist level. Unlike the Coolpix S4, you won't be shooting overhead on the KG920 since the lens rotates in only one direction.

The KG920 is one of the few camera-phones designed like a camera and, fortunately, works like one, too. On the left edge of the unit, beside the 2-inch 260k-pixel screen, are dedicated buttons for zoom, flash and timer functions. You can also switch between taking videos and stills using the three tiny circular blobs above the numeric keypad between the call buttons.

When taking a picture, you hold the camera-phone like you would with a digital camera. The shutter button is on the right corner, like most digicams, and there's a distinct feel between half-priming and actually taking of a shot, which we like. There are minor issues, though. Unlike the conventional LCD monitor on the left (when held in camera mode), our right thumb inevitably occupies a third of the screen. There's also a fair amount of chance for the left index finger to creep into your shots due to the proximity of the lens at the corner of the unit.

The back of this phone is Zen-like, compared with its front, and this is where you can find the battery, speaker, camera lens, and built-in flash unit. Over on the right edge, you'll be greeted by a row of connectors for the earpiece, external portable charger and memory card, all protected by individual pieces of equally tiny plastic doors.

In our hands, the KG920 feels very solid. It's definitely not the lightest, nor the slimmest phone around. But from a digital imaging perspective, which is possibly one of the strongest features of this phone, a firm grip usually helps in taking pictures. No one is going to stop you if you want to hang this camera-phone around your neck and you can do so by looping a lanyard on the top-left corner of this LG.

Features
The most compelling feature of the KG920 is its 5-megapixel CCD image sensor and LG has spared no effort in splashing the information on the camera-phone's screen and on the space surrounding the lens. It is also by no means accidental that the Korean chaebol has included full-fledged controls of a basic digital camera onto this phone. You can pick from the various shooting modes (Auto, Closeup, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Dusk and Program AE), select various flash options, filters, timers, resolution and image quality.

While the scene modes take care of the most common shooting situations, the Program AE setting gives the user additional control over the white balance, light metering, sensitivity (Auto, ISO 100/200/400), autofocusing and date stamp options. What was missing on the Sony Ericsson K800i, we found on the LG K920: Exposure compensation and ISO controls. For movie buffs, the KG920 is capable of taking QVGA (320 x 240-pixel) 30fps motion pictures. Like most digicams, you cannot zoom when recording movies. For that extra dose of creativity, you can select from nine cutesy photo frames to go with your snaps.

Beyond the digital imaging goodies, this LG is also a multimedia phone at heart. The KG920 doubles as a voice recorder, MP3 player (MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WAV file formats supported), photo-and-video album when you're not on a call or taking pictures. While it is not as well-equipped as a dedicated music device, the player on this phone allows the user to choose from various equalizer settings, for instance, Jazz, 3D, Country, Dance, Classic, Pop and Normal. You can also choose to play/repeat all or just one track, shuffle your titles and pick from one of the two visual effects. There's no FM radio on this handset, which is a pity.

If you are depending on this camera-phone as a replacement for your obsolete digicam, you'd need to invest in a higher-capacity memory card. LG bundles a 128MB miniSD card which is good for about 75 5-megapixel shots at Super Fine setting. Let's not forget that you might also store some MP3 files on the card as well. As a default, the unit comes with a measly 8MB internal storage space.

Performance And Image Quality
If you're not a heavy user and make only a few calls, snap a couple of images, listen to MP3s occasionally, you'd be able to squeeze about two days of battery life before the 820mAh Lithium-ion cell runs out of juice. Good thing is LG has included a second battery along with the purchase of the handset, which could be a lifesaver.

It's a tad disappointing that for the set of multimedia features you get from this phone, the overall performance of the handset is a letdown. For example, we found texting an excruciating chore on this mobile. You have to type slowly since the letters appear slowly, and you wouldn't want to pre-type your whole message only to end up with an undecipherable string of letters.

With a camera-phone, chances are you'd likely be taking snapshots most of the time. For that purpose, the shooter has to be responsive--we felt otherwise with this LG. For one, it took about 3 seconds to power up the camera and about the same amount of time to lock focus (even longer in low-light situations). Shutter lag was timed at approximately 1.5 seconds, which means you should still hold the handset in position even after you hit the shutter.

You also cannot take sequence shots at the maximum 5-megapixel resolution. Instead, you'll have to drop to 3-megapixels before you can shoot continuously for three frames at approximately one frame per second. The pictures don't save automatically in this mode and you'll have to wait up to 15 seconds for all three shots to be recorded onto the memory card. For our tests, we used Imation's 512MB miniSD card.

We didn't encounter any major issues with voice calls and reception. What we really liked was the crystal-clear screen which was viewable even under harsh sunlight. Sound quality, however, was neither impressive nor mediocre. While the onboard speakers were relatively loud, we did notice that music playback tended to "vibrate" a little too much at certain pitches, especially at full volume.

Our pictures taken in the day with the KG920 turned out surprisingly well, though the shots sometimes were overexposed causing a loss of detail in the highlights. Unlike most camera-phones which use CMOS, this LG uses a CCD as its imaging sensor which some people claim can capture better pictures. Other CCD camera-phones include the Sony Ericsson S700i and Mitsubishi M900. Noise was also relatively well-controlled on this LG even at the maximum sensitivity setting of ISO 400. Overall, image quality wasn't an issue in the day but hit a bump at night, though that's almost the same case with any other camera-phone out there. Do note that the Xenon strobe flash works just like the flash units on standard digital cameras, unlike most camera-phones which offer LED lights for illumination.