The LG Eve, available on Rogers in Canada is a new Android Smartphone being offered for just $49.99 on a 3 year contract. I have been given the chance to use an LG Eve (you can call it the “GW620R” if you feel the inexplicable need) for a bit and will be posting some thoughts on it for the next little while.
This is actually my first go at Android, so I was pumped about playing with this phone. I’ll get into more of that in later posts. For now, let’s take a look at the hardware and an overview of the Eve.
Let’s just gets the specs out of the way:
Basic Specification
- Type: Slide phone/Touchphone
- PET NAME: Eve
- QWERTY Keyboard: Yes
- Technology: GSM and 850/1900 MHz HSPA ; Quad Band Operation 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- Dimension: L x W x D (mm) 109 x 54.5 x 15.9mm
- Display: 262K Colour TFT
- Touchscreen: Yes
- Vibration: Yes
- GPRS/EDGE (class) A-GPS / Stand alone
Messaging
- SMS / EMS / MMS SMS/EMS/MMS
- E Mail: Yes
- Instant Messaging: Yes
- Video MMS: Yes
- Predictive Text Input (T9): Yes
Internet:
- WAP (version): Full HTML Internet Browsing
- Wi-Fi: Yes
- Google: Yes
- Operating System Android OS: Android webkit browser Wi-Fi
Advanced Features
- FM Radio: Yes
- Speaker Phone: Yes
- Camera: Yes
- Camera Resolution (MP): 5
- Smile Shot: Yes
- Internal Memory: 4GB / 2GB
- A-GPS Navigation: Yes
- MP3: Yes
- Bluetooth: Yes
- Touch Screen: Yes
- Video Recording: Yes
- Document Viewer: Yes
Carrier
- Rogers Wireless Yes
Yes, yes, but how does all that translate? Quite nicely.
I’m going to do the unthinkable and give you my opinions of the LG Eve before the end of this review: It’s a fantastic Smartphone for the money. Simple as that.
The Eve is not meant to be a power house of a phone. It isn’t trying to be an iPhone killer and it isn’t pretentious in any way. It’s an inexpensive Smartphone that runs a great OS.
Personally, I like what LG is doing here. Not everyone can afford to sign a contract for 3 years and still pay $200 for a new Smartphone. The Eve gives a lot more people the chance to jump into the deep end.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying this is a cheaply made phone, it feels great and seems very solid, it just isn’t metal or all chromed out.
Anyway, back to the phone.
The Eve is a good size for carrying around and with the tapered ends it’s comfortable to hold. The flip side of its pocketable size is that the screen is small compared to some.
The screen, at just 3 inches and at 320 x 480 this isn’t going to be an HTC HD2 alternative. It’s fine for most tasks but it isn’t going to be a phone you can watch movies on much. As mentioned in the specs (you did read them, right?) it’s a resistive screen. Certainly, capacitive is wonderful but this screen does well. Tapping doesn’t require repeating and at this size capacitive might be hard to use anyway.
The keyboard is actually very nice, at least the physical keyboard is (more on that in a sec.). The keys are spaced nicely and keys are domed just enough to properly feel the keys. There’s a satisfying click with buttons and overall the hardware seems great. The letters on the keyboard are slightly off to the right though, so it took me a bit to get used to hitting just to the left of the letter. Not a big deal though. This is 5 row keyboard with the top row being for numbers. I LOVE not having to hit shift to get numbers! 
Perhaps I’m a moron (quick glace at my wife) but I can’t figure out what the software is doing with the keyboard. When I type a word on the physical keyboard and press the spacebar sometimes it will put a space after the word, but sometimes it just seems to confirm the word and I still have to hit the spacebar. I’ve tried changing settings but haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe someone has some suggestions?
That’s probably enough for now. Since I do have the LG Eve for a bit I will post more impressions as we go. If you have any questions fire away.
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