It’s too bad that when the mobile phone industry has evolved this significantly, LG is still struggling really bad to get its creations accepted by the market. With the increasing level of popularity and sales that has seen Apple and Samsung rule the cell phone market these days, it’s gonna be even tougher for LG if this company cannot bring something new that looks better, works better or at least equal with iPhone or any Samsung GALAXY series out there that already have been labeled as giants in this industry. That’s why one of LG’s army called LG Shine Plus is finally deployed to the market. Okay, without further long introduction, in this LG Shine Plus review, let me show you the whole prominent aspect of this phone
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LG Shine Plus Review - Design
At a glance, LG Shine Plus kind of reminds me with Sony Ericsson P910, a PDA-look-alike-phone model, especially with the appearance of its case cover and the back cover of this phone, which looks really shinny. However, based on this LG Shine Plus review, when the back slider is opened, it’s gonna show you the different thing
. The QWERTY slider board on the back definitely makes it look elegant and professional for sure. The buttons on the QWERTY keyboard also look like office-designed keyboard, especially with its silver metallic material.
- Type: LG Shine Plus
- Release Date: May 2011
- Price Purchased: Not Available
- Vendor: LG
Readers' Score
NextPhones4u Score
Phone Specs: TFT, 262k Colors, 480 x 800 pixels, 3.2 inches, Android 2.1 Google Experience (upgrade to Gingerbread), QWERTY keyboard, 100 MB Internal, WiFi, MicroSD for up to 32 GB.
- Pros
- Good performance | Great and elegant body design | 5MP camera with Flash support | Android OS | QWERTY keyboard
- Cons
- This phone feels pretty bulky or fat | Front design doesn’t look s elegant as the back side
- Bottomline
- Bottom line, if you want to taste how it feels to have office-dedicated phone with QWERTY slider keyboard that doesn’t run Windows Phone OS, then LG Shine Plus could be a good choice.
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| LG Shine Plus Review |
Camera
The next thing that is interesting to talk about in this LG Shine Plus review is the camera aspect.
Luckily, the decent digital camera look of this phone is followed by a good quality camera. Snapping photos or recording videos can be such as great experience for users, thanks to its 5MP camera that comes with it. It’s also great to see that this phone has also supported autofocus and flash, which are pretty basic for camera phones. And the camera of this phone also has the power to do 2x zoom mode. Other worth mentioning features of its camera are Effects, Panorama, Self timer and White Balance.
Performance
LG Shine Plus basically looks certainly like Navigator phones or office-dedicated phones, which should have Windows phone OS on board. Interestingly, the vendor decides to bring Android experience to this phone. The Android version called Google Experience 2.1 might also be a bit unfamiliar for those Android fans. Luckily, you can upgrade this Android version to Gingerbread if you don’t like it very much.
Screen
The screen itself gets the best treatment from the vendor with the supports of 262K color display and 480 by 800 pixel resolution, the 3.2 inch screen looks sharp and gorgeous, especially when decent wallpaper/theme is deployed on the screen. And the experience of using this phone will become much much better than before.
Interface and Functionality
Since you already knew that LG Shine Plus is injected with Android 2.1 Google Experience, not with normal Android versions (e.g., Éclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, etc), then the user interface also looks slightly different than the other Android counterparts out there. It actually looks like a Windows-based phone, especially with the appearance of the homescreen that uses Windows wallpaper on the back. However, when you slide the homescreen to the left or right to see the available widgets, you will know directly that it’s an Android phone, not Windows-based phone.
Just like any Android phones around the market, on the homescreen, you can add new widgets (e.g., weather forecast, Google search, clock widget, etc) and float them around the homescreen.
The performance of its User Interface can be considered good. Which means, you’re gonna get fluid interface when operating the touch screen. Sliding the main menu is also a pleasing experience for users. I also like the transformation effect that occurs when opening from one window to another window. Overall, the user interact of LG Shine Plus is great and the performance that it delivers is also satisfyingly smooth.
The interface when entering to the photo or video gallery also looks similar with the one on Android phones out there, where the photos are arranged in “pile of pictures” order and it delivers such a fluid performance when you explore your photo or video collection on this menu.
Features
LG Shine Plus comes with major functionality of smartphones, such as: Bluetooth, GPS, USB, NFC (Near Field Communication), expandable microSD card for up to 32GB capacity, 100MB internal storage, 3.5mm headphone jack, WiFi, 3G, HSDPA, radio, Java applications, flash support and many more. So this phone absolutely comes with basic elements that touch screen phone should have.
Conclusion
Bottom line, when releasing LG Shine Plus to the Android market, this vendor is well aware that this market is already crowded with wide variety of Android phones. However, that is the reason that brings LG to produce LG Shine Plus as a QWERTY slider phone not running in Windows platform, instead it uses Android OS on board called Google Experience 2.1, which later can be upgraded to Gingerbread. Many elements of this phone can be considered as premium, such as: 5MP camera, WiFi, HSDPA, GPS and many more.
So basically, if right now you’re still looking for office-dedicated smartphone that doesn’t use Windows OS, then based on this LG Shine Plus review, having LG Shine Plus, QWERTY slider with Android OS can be a new experience for you.
