By Damian Koh
06/11/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,44105202p,00.htm

In the camera-phone megapixel race, eight is the new favorite. And LG's new offering comes in the form of the Renoir KC910, successor to the Viewty KU990. While we witness what's evolving in camera-phones following the path of what has happened for point-and-shoot digital cameras, one has to bear in mind that a higher resolution (usually marketed as megapixel count) doesn't always make a better shooter. Which is why manufacturers are cramming in a bevy of other imaging features such as blink and face detection, geo-tagging, more sensitive image sensors to entice users. The Renoir happens to be one of them.

Design

The Renoir KC910 didn't look particularly exciting from the pictures and we felt the same when we first held the unit. To be fair, the Renoir isn't ugly. It merely follows a conservative monoblock design with a boring grey/silver chassis. In stark contrast is its predecessor, the Viewty KU990, which has a sleeker look.

The 3-inch 400 x 240-pixel touchscreen LCD takes up most of the estate on the front. Like all devices with a large glossy facade, you'll have to deal with the smudges. Right above the screen are a front-facing camera and an ambient light sensor. There are three buttons below the display. These are the regular Call and Hang up keys, while the third one allows you to access nine program shortcuts and the task manager. The buttons are easy to press and provide a decent level of tactility. We just didn't like how they looked, but that's really personal.

In the hands, the Renoir didn't feel very solid due to its weight, but that also means it is light in the pocket. The camera module sits at the back and juts out unceremoniously from the flush surface. Aside from looking like an alien protrusion, the mechanical ribbed ring on the shooter works in the same way as the one found on the Nokia N95. Sliding it clockwise reveals the lens and activates the camera. The shutter is found on the right edge, along with a dedicated button for the digital image stabilizer that doubles as a keylock for the screen.

Elsewhere, the usual controls and connectors which comprise the volume buttons, microSD expansion card slot and proprietary port for the charger and headset are littered on both sides of the Renoir.

Features

Like most mid- to high-end phones these days, the Renoir comes with a raft of wireless connections. There's quad-band GSM, HSDPA for fast data transfers, Wi-Fi to hook up to the Internet at hotspots, GPS with Assisted-GPS for navigation and Bluetooth stereo for connecting to a pair of wireless earbuds. Our biggest disappointment with the Renoir is that it doesn't come with a built-in 3.5mm audio jack. Which is a real pity since it's equipped with a Dolby Mobile music processor. Instead, LG has included a standard headset with the Renoir and this comes with a 3.5mm port.

The highlight of the Renoir is obviously the Schneider-Kreuznach lens, an 8-megapixel autofocus camera and a whole entourage of imaging features--some useful (Xenon flash, ISO, white balance, backlight compensation, macro and timer mode), others gimmicky (color effects, geo-tagging, smile/beauty/art shooting modes, blink detection and face tracking). The camera also supports manual focusing, but we found it difficult using the onscreen slider to focus. There are no physical keys, so obviously you'll need to tap on the screen to change the settings. As for video file formats, the Renoir supports both DivX and Xvid. The only problem we found with the camera was that the viewfinder screen isn't accurate. The display chops out the top and bottom parts of the actual image. So when snapping, you'll need to factor in these blind spots.

Moving on, it's also evident that LG has done a fair bit of work to make the user interface of the Renoir a lot more friendly now. The widget system, similar to the ones on the Samsung Omnia, Pixon and F480, allows the user to drag-and-drop mini apps onto the standby screen. On the Renoir, you can pick from a selection of 10 widgets, including common ones like a digital clock (there's an analog version, too), calendar, FM radio, music player.

The only limitation to this UI is the physical size of the phone's screen since there's only this much real estate to play with. LG's answer to this is a scrolling standby screen. As the display gets more crowded, you can scroll vertically by swiping your finger up or down. Besides the widgets, there's also a permanent shortcut dock to the dial pad, phonebook, messaging and menu. Within the phone's menu, you can also rearrange the icons on each tab to your personal preference by tapping and holding down on each icon.

The Renoir's UI is meant to work with finger gestures even though there's a stylus bundled (with casing included) in our review unit. The good thing is we didn't find it any more difficult to use than most of the other touchscreen handsets with haptic feedback out there. Other than the usual numeric keypad which makes it possible for one-hand text input, the onboard accelerometer changes the pad to a QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode. We did find the scrolling throughout the phone a little finicky and not as polished as the iPhone 3G. The "stickiness" between the screen and finger is still something LG can work on to improve.

Performance

Overall, the Renoir did manage to keep up with our expectations for a touchscreen phone, but it's not perfect. There were occasions of lag especially when switching between apps and the widgets took time to load whenever we returned to the home screen. The Web browser rendered pages correctly, though it still can't beat the fluidity and accuracy of the Safari browser on the iPhone 3G.



We didn't find any issues with the audio quality as the Dolby Mobile added bass to otherwise flat-sounding tracks. If anything, the phone could seriously help with a better (and louder) onboard speaker.

As far as image quality goes, our pictures had good color reproduction, but we also noticed evident noise even at low ISO settings. For the record, the Renoir goes up to ISO 1,600. The camera gave nice depth of field in macro mode, but the focus grid sometimes misled us into thinking the shooter had locked focus when this clearly wasn't the case. Our Lab shots also showed that the flash was on par with some of the Xenon-equipped camera-phones, but not any better. In general, it gave a slight bluish tint to our test pictures. We'll leave you with an image taken in our Labs without flash, so you can make your own judgment. For a clearer picture of how the Xenon on the Renoir compares with other models, check out our feature article here.

LG rates the battery life of the Renoir at 3 hours 40 minutes of talktime and slightly under 15 days on standby.

Conclusion

We liked the Renoir but didn't adore it to the extent that we would rush out to buy one. Among the reasons was that although the user interface has been improved, it still doesn't beat the robustness of other competing platforms out there, notably Symbian. Touchscreen capabilities, depending on user preferences, could be a hit or a miss. The camera was decent, but not much better than the competition. Music playback was good, though we'd love to see a built-in 3.5mm audio jack.

To sum it up, the Renoir is one of LG's better implementations. However, if you are in the market for an 8-megapixel camera-phone with a touchscreen LCD, you might want to check out its competition, too.