Mobile Jaw » LG

LG to Launch Windows Phone 7 Device by End of September

Mike Temporale — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:30:00 +0000

In 2009 at Mobile World Congress, LG Electronics made a big commitment to use Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system on the majority of their devices over the coming years. To date we haven’t seen much result from that announcement, but all that could change before the end of this year. According to an article from PCWorld, Ken Hong who is the LG representative for LG in Seoul, said “We have a deep relationship with Microsoft so expect to have a couple by the end of this year”.

Pictures of one of the LG smartphones has already been posted on a number of blogs – including MobileJaw. According to LG, this device is ready to be released. There was no indication when that particular device will be released, however LG did say that they will launch their first smartphone with Windows Phone 7 by the end of September.

Microsoft has been very reserved when it comes to dates for the release of Windows Phone 7. They’ve continued to stick with the “Holiday 2010” line that was used back in the Mobile World Congress announcement. A September release is a little before the holiday season by my standards, but I’m not going to complain.

LG Panther Arrives at Microsoft Innovation Center in Singapore

Mike Temporale — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:15:00 +0000

We’ve been reading rumors about the LG Panther for a while now. For those that haven’t been keeping up on the chatter, the Panther is LG’s Windows Phone 7 device and it’s picture has been floating around the internet since just before Microsoft’s MIX event back in March. Details have always been hard to come by, or at least hard to get an official response on. Yesterday, Microsoft’s Innovation Center in Singapore posted about the device on their blog – Innovative Singapore.

The device was sent to them so they can start testing applications on real hardware instead of just the emulator. Don’t get too excited, the OS is still getting new builds almost every other day. So there’s still a whole lot of work left to do!

In terms of the hardware, they report that the phone is fast – incredibly fast and responsive. Good news for everyone that’s been worried about performance on the new platform.

If you’re developing applications for Windows Phone 7 and you’re in the Singapore area, Microsoft Innovation Center is willing to loan out the device. If you’re not in the area, you might want to talk with your local Microsoft Mobile rep and see if they can get you connected – even if it’s a loaner for testing. That’s better than playing around with an emulator!

Windows Phone 7 can’t come soon enough.

Source = WMExperts

How to Hard Reset the LG eXpo / IQ

Mike Temporale — Sun, 02 May 2010 15:00:00 +0000

The LG eXpo and IQ are the same phone. The only difference is the carrier and some preloaded software. LG eXpo was released to AT&T in the US, but didn’t last very long. The LG IQ was released to on Telus in Canada to pretty good consumer acceptance. Regardless of the model you have, there may be a time when you need to reset the device back to factory defaults – perhaps you’ve picked up a used one, or your getting ready to sell yours, or maybe you’ve installed some application that has made the device unstable and it keeps freezing up on you. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, if you’re looking to reset it, you have two options to pick from. The first option is powered by the software of the device. Simply tap Start / Settings / System / Clear Storage. You will then be asked if you want to clear internal memory, external memory, or both. Internal memory refers to the memory hard wired into the device. External would be any storage card you may have inserted. Once you have made your select and tap the Yes button, the device will start the wipe and all of your data and configuration settings will be removed from the device.

The second option works if the device will no longer boot up. If that’s what you’re seeing then you will need to master the following process. First, make sure your phone is turned off. Press the power button for a couple seconds until it starts. As the phone begins to boot, press and hold down the Volume Down key, Multitasking key, and the End key. Release all 3 of the keys once the status lights change multiple colors. The phone will continue to boot and you will know if the process worked when it prompts you to align the screen on the device.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an eXpo or IQ to test this procedure on. If you have any problems or if something is not clear, please reply and let me know so we can try and clarify the steps.

Exploring the LG Eve Smartphone

Mike Temporale — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:30:00 +0000

I recently got my hands on the LG Eve (GW620R), an Android based smartphone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. While it was hard to do, I put the HTC HD2 down and decided to make the Eve my primary device for a little while. The Eve is not a Nexus One, Desire, or even Hero. But it is a pretty stylish device with plenty of goodness, and considering that this is LG’s first crack at an Android device, it’s also pretty impressive.

For those of you that are not familiar with the Eve, here’s a quick run down of the specs:

Quad-band phone (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
UMTS Dual-band – North American 3G (1900/850 MHz)
3.0 inch, 320×480 pixel Resistive screen
5 Megapixel Camera
Powered by Google’s Android 1.5
FM Radio
Slide-out QWERTY Keyboard
Support for microSD expansion cards
WiFi – 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.1
3.5mm Headphone jack
Weight – 4.90 oz / 139 g
Dimensions – 4.29x 2.15 x 0.63 inches / 109 x 54.5 x 15.9 mm
Accelerometer & GPS

Specs are one thing, performance is another. Overall, in terms of hardware, I’ve been pretty impressed with what the Eve has to offer. The keyboard is responsive and has a great feel to it. Of course, the fifth row of numbers is an excellent plus! It’s a thin device, yet the battery is enough to make it through a day of regular use. A 3.5 inch headphone jack is always nice to see on a smartphone.

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Read the rest of Exploring the LG Eve Smartphone at MobileJaw.

CES: LG to Bring Device Remote Control to Your Car Stereo

Mike Temporale — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:00:00 +0000

As I was passing through the LG booth today when my eye caught something out of the ordinary. In the Converging Technologies corner of their booth they have an in-dash screen that was showing Windows Mobile 6.5 on it. This could mean one of two things, either they have put Windows Mobile into the car audio system, or they are doing some sort of remote control / RedFly like connection to the device.

As it turns out, the in-dash unit is running Windows CE and they are doing a remote control session to the device in almost the exact fashion that you would do remote control between your desktop and your Windows Mobile device with SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro software.

The connection can be made over WiFi, Bluetooth, or over USB connection. They are still working on the USB connection, but expect to have that completed soon. You do need to install a small agent on the device to allow the communication to happen. They are open to supporting more than just LG devices. Since this is a Windows Mobile client, it will work on any Windows Mobile device. It’s still early, but they are looking at adding other mobile operating systems as they move forward.

Currently this is not something that you can go out and buy. They are talking with car manufacturers to put this in your next car. Eventually they would like to see it as a stand along unit that you could purchase and install in your car.

This gives you true hands-off your mobile device while still being able to access and control everything on your device.

How To Hard Reset an Android Phone

Darren Humphries — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:04:19 +0000

If you have an Android phone you may at some point want to hard reset, or completely wipe out the phone to start from scratch.

Why would you want to reset? Well, you may want to start again with a fresh install or are having a problem with an installed app. You may have bought the phone from someone or all selling it. Sometimes it’s just nice to start all over.

When I got this LG Eve phone for review it had already been used by another writer who didn’t bother to (or didn’t know how to) reset the phone. As a result, I could have read her email, chatted with her friend, used her twitter account and so much more. Doh! Well, I didn’t do any of that, just set out to find out how to reset it to start fresh.

Those that have been Windows Mobile users may be looking for some kind of hardware key combination to hard reset the device, but it’s actually built into the OS. It’s just a little bit buried and took me a bit to find it.

Steps to hard reset Android:

1. Go to “Setting”.
2. Select “SD card & phone storage”.
3. Select “Factory data reset” which should be the last option.
4. Press the “Reset Phone” button.

Now you just wait for the phone to restart and you are all set to go. Ta da!

BTW, in case there is any confusion about this; this will wipe out everything from your phone. You should back up all information before going ahead with this. It won’t wipe out the information you have on services such as Gmail, or Google Calendar, contacts and such. As soon as you log in with your freshly reset phone you will have all your information back on your phone.

Post any questions in the comments here and we will help you out.

First Look: LG Eve, Android for Everyone

Darren Humphries — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:20:25 +0000

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

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Read the rest of First Look: LG Eve, Android for Everyone at MobileJaw.

High Resolution Images of LG IQ

Mike Temporale — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:30:00 +0000

Last week I had a chance to play with the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 LG IQ smartphone. Unfortunately, the lighting in the venue was less than ideal for pictures. I snapped what I could at the best I could, but they’re not my finest device shots. Thankfully, I now have some really nice clean shots of the IQ so I’m posting them here for everyone to enjoy.

Click on the images below to view the original size image.

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Read the rest of High Resolution Images of LG IQ at MobileJaw.

Up Close and Personal with the LG IQ

Mike Temporale — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:15:00 +0000

Last night I was invited by LG to take a look at their new device line-up, which included the brand new LG IQ, better known under the code name Monaco. While the IQ is not currently on sale, it will be available from Telus before the end of the year. If you consider that it would be incredibly stupid to release a phone 1 week before Christmas and miss the majority of holiday shoppers, then you could assume that the phone would be available in the next couple weeks. LG would not confirm anything more than “before the end of the year”.

So what’s so special about the LG IQ? Well, it’s running Windows Mobile 6.5 and sports LG’s S-Class user interface, which made for a really nice and finger friendly navigation. The S-Class interface was fully customizable allowing you to change which icons are displayed along the bottom and appear in the expanded menu. LG also allows you to turn this off and use the standard Windows Mobile 6.5 interface if you would rather use that. The device has a 1500 mAh battery, 5 mega pixel camera, MicroSD, and a Snapdragon 1 Ghz processor. The finger scanner on the front of the device works as your navigation and authentication to unlock the device. When it comes to navigation, I found the finger scanner worked really well. It was very much like a touch pad on a laptop. Swiping your finger from top to bottom would cause the page to scroll. The S-Class home screen allows you to swipe left and right to alternate “desktops”.

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Read the rest of Up Close and Personal with the LG IQ at MobileJaw.

Palm and Motorola Call it Quits on Windows Mobile

Mike Temporale — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:30:00 +0000

This past week word broken that both Palm and Motorola would stop using Windows Mobile on their handheld devices. That can’t be good news for Microsoft as they struggle to regain market and mind share as new mobile operating systems are moving in quickly. But is really all doom and gloom? Sure, it’s never good to lose customers to the competition, but did Palm and Moto really bring that much to Windows Mobile?

With all the handsets created by both Palm and Moto, only 1 device ever made Microsoft’s million plus sellers list – only 1. That device was Motorola’s Q, a ground breaking device for its time, even if it had a hard time making it through a day on a charge. Just like the RAZR, Moto has tried to recapture their success with similar styled follow-up devices without much luck.

As for Palm, their users a very loyal and typically love their handhelds. However, Palm was never able to get their popular Treo handsets into the million plus sellers club. It’s no surprise that once Palm was able to release their new, long awaited follow-up to the Palm OS, dubbed the WebOS that they would toss in the towel on Windows Mobile. The new Palm Pre running the WebOS is getting mediocre reviews on the street, but Palm.afford to continue working with 2 mobile operating systems. They need to curb the cash flow and cutting the mobile license fee that Microsoft asking for Windows Mobile is one sure fire way to save a little money in the short term. Can they last purely on their WebOS? We’ll have to wait and see on that one.

For me, I’m more looking forward to what Samsung, HTC, HP, etc… are going to release next, and what LG is going to bring to the table when they get their first devices out of the gate later this year.