LG TU500 next G - review

April 5th, 2007

Continuing our coverage of Telstra’s Next G product launch, this time we’ve decided to focus on a mainstream phone, that being LG’s TU500 clamshell. We’re looking at a far more moderate feature line-up in the TU500 than say Samsung’s A701, and that includes a rotating 1.3 megapixel camera, 176×220 resolution main screen and just 14 megabytes of memory. While multimedia features are modest at best, software functionality on the other hand is rather complete – there’s SMS, MMS and POP3/IMAP4 email support, Bluetooth with music streaming and a fully-fledged music player that can be used with music stored on a one gigabyte microSD card.

To make it Next G compliant, the handset comes with a UMTS radio tuning the 850 MHz band, while HSDPA boosts download speeds up to 1.8 megabits per second. Tri-band GSM functionality (900/1800/1900) with GPRS is included for roaming purposes. Sadly, we weren’t provided with a Telstra Next G USIM card for this review, which prevented us from testing the TU500 with Telstra’s Next G network and the included broadband services. Instead, we tested the phone’s core hardware and software features only, running the phone on Vodafone’s GSM network instead to evaluate its behaviour there.

The TU500 is sold in Australia only, but our readers in the USA will be glad to know that Cingular is indeed selling a similar phone called the CU500. This review obviously pertains to the TU500, but many of the features and hardware characteristics are similar, if not identical to its American sibling.

Major features

Slim clamshell form factor
Telstra NextG customised phone, full BigPond Mobile support
W-CDMA/UMTS 850 with HSDPA Class 4 (1.8Mbps)
Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 with GPRS
2.0 inch 262,144 colour TFT 176 x 220 pixel internal display
1.25 inch 65,536 colour TFT 96 x 96 pixel external display
1.3 megapixel digital camera, QVGA video support, 4x digital zoom
72 tone polyphonic ringtones, MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA support
Media player for music, video and streaming
14.3MB internal memory (7.8MB available), microSD card slot
USB 2.0 and Bluetooth with A2DP music streaming
SMS, EMS, MMS and POP3/IMAP4 email messaging
WAP 2.0 (xHTML) capable browser
MIDP 2.0 Java games and applications
PIM and organiser functions

Problems/Issues?

No memory card included
Memory card slot located under battery

Sales package (should contain):

1x LG TU500 handset
1x 1100mAh Lithium battery
1x AC travel charger (110V/240V)
1x Stereo handsfree earphones
1x USB data cable
1x PC software CD
1x User guide

Source

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Entry Filed under: LG