LG GW520 – is it any good?

The LG GW520 is a new smart phone model designed around social networking, sending messages, and texting between friends.  It offers an excellent balance between raw processing capabilities, excellent data rates, and ease of use for sending messages.  This phone clearly has its niche, which it targets well.

What’s most noticeable about the LG GW520 is its full QWERTY keyboard.  This is an excellent keyboard, having keys which are nicely spread apart and large enough to eliminate mistyping errors. The keyboard also carries a set of arrow keys, perfect for scrolling up and down a webpage or conversation. This keyboard combines with LG’s LiveSquare software, to create an ideal instant messaging device, combining a wide variety of protocols and programs into one simple system. 

While the software may be adequate, and the GW520’s keyboard may be suitable, this phone suffers from several key hardware issues that simply make the phone inferior to other models. First and foremost, the provided touch screen is simply not sensitive enough. The arrow keys quickly turn into a necessity rather than a convenience factor, simply because the touch screen cannot be effectively scrolled through. In addition, the 2.8 inch screen, while a decent size, is simply not large enough for some social networking apps.  The face book application quickly begins to look cramped, and difficult to read.

The GW520 is an honest attempt, however due to the glaring faults of the product, it cannot be recommended.  Hopefully LG takes this device as a lesson, and improves future QWERTY keyboard, touch screen smart phones. Please check mobile phone reviews for other LG products, or compare mobile phones from other manufacturers.