The LG-KU990 or LG-KE990 (known and marketed as the LG Viewty) is a high-end
mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
manufactured by
LG Electronics
LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest '' chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered a ...
, released in August 2007. It has a
resistive touchscreen
In electrical engineering, a resistive touchscreen is a touch-sensitive computer display composed of two flexible sheets coated with a resistive material and separated by an air gap or microdots.
Description and operation
There are two diffe ...
and was specially marketed for its camera, being the first touchscreen phone with a powerful camera. It was succeeded by the
LG Renoir
The LG KC910 Renoir is a high-end feature phone released by LG Electronics. The LG Renoir was the world's first full touchscreen 8-megapixel camera phone. It debuted on 2 October 2008 as the successor of the LG Viewty. Like the Viewty is incorpor ...
and later
LG Viewty Smart
LG Corporation (or LG Group) (), formerly Lucky-Goldstar from 1983 to 1995 (Korean: ''Leokki Geumseong''; ), is a South Korean multinational conglomerate founded by Koo In-hwoi and managed by successive generations of his family. It is t ...
.
Features
Camera
![LG Viewty -- Touch](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/LG_Viewty_--_Touch.jpg)
The phone's main selling point was its 5-megapixel
digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
with
Schneider Kreuznach
Schneider Kreuznach () is the abbreviated name of the company Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH, which is sometimes also simply referred to as Schneider. They are a manufacturer of industrial and photographic optics. The company was founded on ...
optics,
Xenon
Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...
flash,
autofocus
An autofocus (or AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system ...
, and a digital image stabilizer. It featured an ISO 800-equivalent High-Sensitivity mode for night scenery shots and "Smart Light" for bright and clear images in the dark. It allowed capturing
DivX VGA
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
video at 30
fps
FPS may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* "F.P.S." (''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''), an episode of the TV show ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''
* '' fps magazine'', a defunct magazine about animation
* ''The Fabulous Picture Show'', a televi ...
, and
QVGA
The graphics display resolution is the width and height dimension of an electronic visual display device, measured in pixels. This information is used for electronic devices such as a computer monitor. Certain combinations of width and height ar ...
at 120fps for slow-motion playback. According to the manufacturer, the camera's frame rate was high enough to film a
balloon
A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light so ...
bursting.
Applications
The device supported
Flash Lite
Adobe Flash Lite (formerly Macromedia Flash Lite) was a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, a software application published by Adobe Systems for viewing Flash content. Flash Lite operates on devices that Flash Player cannot, such as mobi ...
2 and
MIDP
Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) is a specification published for the use of Java on embedded devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. MIDP is part of the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) framework and sits on top of Connected Limi ...
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
2.0. There were a few built-in system applications like Office and a PDF document viewer, movie and photo editor, and Obigo web browser.
Later Releases
An updated model, the KU990i, was later released. It features a new camera module, the strobe flash is replaced by a LED, it has no image stabilization nor Schneider Kreuznach optics, although it features always-on flash mode and automatic smile and face detection. Physically, the inner camera lens seemed to be slightly smaller.
Limitations
The organizer in the phone could only store 100 calendar events and isn't officially listed on the compatible list with the popular GooSync, which helps sync phone calendars with Google Calendar (though it does work by using instructions for LG Arena). Also some public customer reviews of the LG Viewty stated concerns over poor battery life, mainly due to the large touchscreen. Also released was a variant without 3g called the KE990.
Sales
LG reported sales of 310,000 units in Europe in the first five weeks. A blog entry by UK mobile phone reseller Dial-A-Phone suggested that the Viewty may be outselling the
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
iPhone in the region, citing anecdotal reports of sluggish sales and Apple's reluctance to publish figures for the iPhone in the region as evidence. The pricing and featuresets of the two phones were used as an explanation.
LG Viewty Outsells Apple iPhone in Europe
/ref> This story was picked up and widely reported by technology news sites and blogs, however without official sales figures for the iPhone, it could not be confirmed or refuted at the time.
The phone was never released in the United States.
Specification sheet
See also
*Information appliance
An information appliance (IA) is an appliance that is designed to easily perform a specific electronic function such as playing music, photography, or editing text.
Typical examples are smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Inf ...
*LG Prada
The LG KE850, also known as the LG Prada, is a touchscreen mobile phone made by LG Electronics. It was first announced on December 12, 2006 and was created in collaboration with Italian luxury designer Prada. It was made official in a press rele ...
* LG Secret
*Samsung Ultra Smart F700
The SGH-F700, marketed as the Ultra Smart F700, is a mobile phone manufactured by Samsung. Using Vodafone as its network provider, the phone was first introduced at the 3GSM World Congress that was held in February 2007. Sales to the European m ...
*Nokia N95
The Nokia N95 is a smartphone produced by Nokia as part of their Nseries line of portable devices. Announced in September 2006, it was released to the market in March 2007. The N95 ran S60 3rd Edition, on Symbian OS v9.2. It has a two-way sli ...
*Nokia N82
The Nokia N82 is a high-end smartphone produced by Nokia, and announced on 14 November 2007 as part of the company's Nseries line. The N82 runs Symbian OS v9.2 ( S60 3rd Edition, FP1). The N82 inherits much of the Nokia N95's features and speci ...
*Sony Ericsson K850i
The Sony Ericsson K850i is a high-end mobile phone when released in October 2007. It was announced in June 2007 as the flagship product in Sony Ericsson's K ("Kamera") series, with a 5 megapixel CMOS camera sensor. The K850 was the first Sony Erics ...
* iPhone
*HTC Touch
The HTC Touch, also known as the HTC P3450 or its codename the HTC Elf or the HTC Vogue for the CDMA variant, is a Windows Mobile 6-powered Pocket PC designed and manufactured by HTC. Its main, unique feature is a user interface named ''TouchFLO'' ...
*Sony Ericsson W960
The Sony Ericsson W960i is a 3G phone that Sony Ericsson announced in June 2007, as an upgrade to the W950.
Features
The W960 is a successor to the W950, and belongs to the Walkman series of phones. Its features include 8 GB of integrate ...
References
External links
Official Website
TechCast Reviews the LG Viewty KU990 - with video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lg Viewty (Ku990)
KU990
Mobile phones introduced in 2007