Photo answers review
Photo answers rating 
LG’s original Viewty - the KU990 – was reviewed in June 2008 in Digital Photo magazine and 18 momths later its replacement - the Viewty Smart GC900 – is here.
The Viewty 2 will appeal to phone users looking for an upgrade, with its impressive slimline styling and wide range of features. Emails can be sent and received on the move, internet is accessible from the palm of your hand, texting available at a touch, and there’s an inbuilt GPS receiver to help you navigate about town. If you’re after music there’s an MP3 player, which incorporates Dolby’s crisp sound technology, video that records at 720x480 pixels (30fps) and an inherent camera.
Most of the functionality is controlled using a large 3in touch screen with just five buttons in total, one of which is used to access the cube-like S-Class interface. This splits contacts, multimedia, widgets and shortcuts on the sides of a cube, making it quick and easy to find what you want when you need it.
The phone’s camera packs an 8.0Mp sensor inside with an Xenon flash beside the lens. There are four flash options including red-eye reduction, and five scene modes as well as an Intelligent Shot recognition mode. For extra control, exposure compensation and a macro are featured with the latter focusing within 10cm of close-up subjects. ISO can be manually controlled between 100 and 1600, or you can select Auto.
Elsewhere there are five White Balance options, four colour effects including Mono, and grids to help you compose using the rule of thirds theory. Most of the camera settings are controlled using a slick on-screen command dial, which can be spun around effortlessly.
The large fine JPEGs that the GC900 captured were sharp and were stored on the phone’s 1.5Gb internal memory. If extra memory is required, you can insert a micro SD card into the side compartment of the phone, something that wasn’t easily possible on the older KU990 model. Offloading our pics onto the computer took a few seconds using the USB cable provided and this also charged the phone at the same time.
Despite hosting a lengthy list of invaluable camera features, a couple of the points picked up on its predecessor, haven’t been addressed. There’s still no lens protection, despite the lens being slightly recessed from the body, and there’s a frustrating fraction-of-a-second delay between firing the shutter and the image being taken. That aside, the GC900 is good at what it’s designed to do best - making and receiving phone calls, and is a definite improvement on its ancestor, so earns itself an extra star over the KU990 in the ratings.
For more information on LG's range of mobile phones, click here.
Specification:
Price: £350 - Pay as you go.
Resolution: 8Mp (3264x2448pixels)
Lens: Schneider Kreuznach
ISO: 100-1600
Screen: 3in
Wi-Fi: Yes
GPS: Yes
Internal Memory: 1.5Gb
External Memory: Micro SD (32Gb)
Dimensions: 108.9 x 56.1 x 12.4 mm
Weight: 102g