LG KU380 — 3G for the masses

Six months ago, C.U.R.E. held a party at the Rockwell Tent and gave away some 750 cell phones in a “raffle”. Since there were about that many guests, the raffle was really for who would get the phones first. They were the LG KU380, billed as “3G for Everyone” because of the relatively low price (about PhP7,500, maybe less nowadays). Oddly enough, although it was a C.U.R.E. event, the handsets weren’t locked to C.U.R.E., which at that time went with the umobile brand. I used a Globe SIM until C.U.R.E. arranged for the delivery of a umobile SIM a few weeks later. I managed to run a few bandwidth tests with the SIM, and I’ll write about those in another post so I can focus on the KU380.

(An aside: “umobile” is spelled with the dots over the ‘u’, i.e., the umlaut.)

The KU380 is a slider phone with 3G, BlueTooth, a 1.3 megapixel camera, T9, Java, and the usual gaggle of software accessories such as an organizer and a multimedia player capable of playing MP3 and 3GP files. Speaking of which, you can set your ringtone to an MP3. The specs aren’t spectacular but the phone gives me what I need, and most of what I want.

Given Nokia’s worldwide market share, a comparison is inevitable. The only Nokia I have is a 6108 which is a hand-me-up from my niece in Australia. It’s an old GPRS model, maybe three years old, but the comparison isn’t as one-sided as you might think.

Menu handling. On the KU380, the center button brings up a graphical menu. You can then navigate around to the section you need (Messages, Multimedia, Contacts, etc). In addition, the four arrow keys surrounding the center can take you directly to Profiles, the Quick Menu, Messages, and Contacts. The last option is also accessible through the right “soft” menu button.

The 6108 has the usual left and right soft menu buttons and the four directional arrows (left, right, up, down). The right menu button brings you to the Quick Menu in standby mode while the left brings up the main menu – in sequence, Messages, Calling, etc.

The menu systems of both handsets are well-designed, with the more common options appearing early on. In addition, both provide for a way to bypass the menus by pressing the number keypad in sequence. For instance, on the Nokia, I press 0-1-1-2 in rapid succession to go directly to my text inbox. The first two digits (0,1) represent the position of the Message menu (I need to put in the leading zero because the 6108 would interpret 1,1,2 as the 11th item on the main menu and the second item off that menu), the second 1 means Text Messages, which is the first item off the Message menu, and finally 2 represents the inbox item, which is the second item off the Text Messages menu. However, if I falter just a bit and delay a keypress long enough, the 6108 thinks I want to enter a number on the dialing screen. In contrast, the KU380 keeps the menu onscreen and in fact indicates the numbers corresponding to a menu choice. For instance, if I’m in the Calling menu, Call Logs item, I see [1] All calls, [2] Dialled calls, etc. I can take my time pressing the digit corresponding to a menu item.

Reading SMS. Here the age of the 6108 shows. When I highlight a message in my inbox, I can only “select” the message – i.e., open it up for reading. Once it’s open, the Options available to me are, in order, Delete (!), Reply, Use Detail, and so forth. You’ll note that the first of the options is delete, not reply. In fairness, my brother, who owns a more “modern” Nokia model, says that the center button is coded to Reply, just as on the KU380. In addition, on the KU380, I can immediately choose to delete a message right from the message list – no need to open the message first, then bring up the Options.

Composing SMS. Moving from the 6108 to the KU380 was a snap because of the similar keyboard layouts – i.e., the ‘1′ key is the dot (.), the # cycles through the T9 options albeit with minor variations, the * brings up the special characters menu, and the left and right soft buttons give similar menu options. The KU380 has the advantage of a center button that you can use to bypass the menu and send the text immediately. On the other hand, you can use the green-phone (off-hook) icon on the 6108 to accomplish the same thing.

If I accidentally (or otherwise) press the cancel (on-hook phone icon) button while I’m composing SMS on the 6108, I get back to the main screen and it seems that my message was lost. However, I press the left arrow, and I’m back in the SMS message composing screen, with my previous in-progress message ready for editing again. On the other hand, the KU380 automatically saves an in-progress message to my drafts folder if I press cancel. I don’t think either treatment of in-progress messages has any advantage over the other. At least, you don’t lose any messages.

The two handsets also differ in T9 handling. When I have to enter a word (say, a Tagalog word or a proper noun) that’s not in the T9 directory, I’d type in as many characters as T9 will recognize, press the right arrow (not space) and continue. For instance, ‘Kapitolyo’: the 5 key will give me ‘k’, then I press the right arrow, 2 to give me ‘a’, right arrow, 7,4,8 to give me ‘pit’, right arrow, 6,5 to give me ‘ol’, right arrow, and finally 9,6 to give me ‘yo’. The KU380 keeps track of when I pressed the right arrow and treats only that portion as a word. In the ‘Kapitolyo’ example, if I press the left arrow or delete key after ‘Kapitolyo’, it will highlight only the ‘yo’. Another left arrow, and the ‘ol’ is highlighted. In contrast, the Nokia treats the entire word as a single unit, not breaking it down into its “right-arrowed” components. Its age excuses the Nokia.

Organizer. Both phones let me enter calendar appointments, to-do’s, and notes. For a “fashion phone”, the Nokia does a better job with appointments, giving me the option to label an appointment as a meeting, a birthday, call (possibly a reminder to call someone), memo, or simple reminder. I can set the alarm to go off at various times – 5, 15, or 30 minutes before the appointment, at the appointed time, or another time I can choose. The KU380 only gives me a choice of an appointment, anniversary, or birthday. Furthermore, I can set the alarm only at the appointed time or 15, 30, or 60 minutes, or one, three, or seven days before the appointment. I work around this limitation by setting the appointment a little earlier or a little later depending on when I want the alarm to remind me.

As an aside, I’ve sent appointments between the two handsets via SMS, and they each handled the transfer OK, with the alarms intact. However, I’ve only transferred appointments that both handsets recognize – mostly, meetings, which the KU380 interprets as meetings, and birthdays.

Another feature where the 6108 beats the KU380 is in the to-do’s. The 6108 can remind me of the to-do with an alarm, whereas the KU380 doesn’t.

Still, in all, I’m happy with the KU380 – and that has little to do with the amount I had to pay for it, which is nothing. Even a free phone that didn’t meet my needs would make me unhappy.