LG KM570 Cookie Gig review: Live at the arena

Introduction

Cookies just won’t stay put – they need more space to do their thing. The LG KM570 Cookie Gig steps right into LG Arena territory. With looks and camera to match and a Cookie-grade price tag, this phone is on track to go platinum. The Dolby mobile logo at the back hints at a knack for multimedia and the 4GB of built-in memory means there’ll be plenty of room for your music.

But we’ll not let the pretty face fool us, the Cookie Gig has its highs and lows – here they are in summary.

LG KM570 Cookie Gig official photos

Key features:

• 3" 256K-color resistive TFT touchscreen of WQVGA resolution (240 x 400 pixels)
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with HSDPA (7.2 Mbps)
• Widget-enhanced interface and Livesquare homescreen
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with face detection
• D1 video recording @ 30fps, QVGA time-lapse and QVGA slo-mo video
• 4GB of built-in storage
• microSD card slot, up to 16GB
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Standard microUSB port (charging)
• Dolby for Mobile audio enhancement
• Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
• Accelerometer for screen auto rotate; turn to mute
• Landscape on-screen QWERTY keyboard
• FM radio with RDS and FM transmitter
• Office document viewer
• Social networking integration
• Smart dialing

Main disadvantages:

• No Wi-Fi
• No GPS
• Low resolution screen (compared to LG Arena)
• Camera has no flash or protective cover
• Records video in 3GP only
• Poor sunlight legibility
• Maximum email attachment size is 2.2MB only (both ways)
• No DivX/XviD video support
• No handwriting recognition support

So, the LG KM570 can’t quite match the LG Arena, but no mistake – it’s a king amongst Cookies. The camera has the same high-end features as the LG Arena’s, and the inclusion of Dolby mobile and some iPod trickery earn the audio player high marks.

The user interface is borrowed from the LG GD510 Pop. It’s the regular LG touch UI but with a coat of S-Class paint over it. And it works – it’s nice to look at, ready to multitask and the homescreens are full of widgets. There’s also a bit of pointless fun with Livesquare.

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig chats with other touch phones in our office

So, the LG KM570 Cookie Gig is a marked improvement over the original Cookie and the updates that came after it. But the competition wasn’t sleeping – there are several phones that compete directly with the Gig in its price range, including even the LG Arena.

Just a quick note – the LG KM570 has quite a number of aliases. So it might be called differently where you live. The Cookie Gig is also known as LG Cookie Music, LG Surf 4GB and LG Arena II.

Never mind the name, let’s see what the Cookie Gig has to offer before we pass judgment on it. As always, we start with opening the box – join us on the next page to see what we find.

Modest retail package

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig comes in a compact package that carries only the essentials. There’s a charger that uses the microUSB cable to connect to the phone. A one-piece handsfree is also supplied, though it’s nothing special.

There isn't much stuff in the box

A mini CD with the needed software and some printed manuals can be found in the box, though the phone includes an animated walkthrough for basic operation, which is more than enough to get you started.

There is no memory card in the box, but the LG Cookie Gig comes with a 4GB of built-in memory, which is enough for a decently sized music collection.

Design and construction

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig takes after the LG KM900 Arena – in fact, the front of the Gig can easily fool you. That’s a fine compliment for the young Cookie Gig – we always appreciate premium looks within budget.

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig looks good

One of the defining features of the LG Arena was the excellent high resolution touchscreen.

Despite being nicknamed the Arena II in certain markets, the LG KM570 Cookie Gig has the screen resolution of the original Cookie instead – 240 x 400 pixels on a 3” screen. That’s exactly a quarter of the pixels that the Arena has on the same screen estate. The Cookie Gig’s touchscreen is a resistive unit – the phone has a budget to meet.

The screen has decent colors and viewing angles indoors but the blacks are not solid enough, even for a TFT. It’s quite sensitive and registers even light presses. We do miss though the sharpness that the WVGA resolution brings – especially when reading text.

A WQVGA resistive display – the Cookie Gig has to stay within budget

Sunlight legibility is sub-par. The screen layers are quite reflective and it’s hard to find an angle that doesn’t reflect sunlight, obscuring everything on the screen.

Besides the touchscreen, the front panel of the LG Cookie Gig also features the earpiece, which doubles as the loudspeaker, the video-call camera at the top as well as the proximity sensor.

The video-call camera and earpiece on top

Below the screen, there are the three touch-sensitive controls: menu, call and end keys. They use the same haptic feedback as the screen and the transition is as smooth as it gets.

The three keys at the bottom

The left side of LG KM570 Cookie Gig features the microUSB port and the volume rocker. The microUSB port is used both for charging and data transfers with a computer.

On the right-hand side of the Cookie Gig is the shutter key. The keys are wider than their equivalents on the LG KM900 Arena and easier to use.

The volume rocker and microUSB port on the left • shutter key on the right side of the LG Cookie Gig

The top hosts the 3.5mm standard audio jack, the Power/Lock key and the battery cover latch. The power key is a bit too small, but comfortably raised. It’s still ok to use and accidental presses are unlikely.

The 3.5mm jack is on top, along with the tiny power key and rear cover release button

There are no controls or connectivity ports at the bottom of the LG Cookie Gig.

There is nothing at the bottom

The back side of the LG KM570 Cookie Gig hosts the 5 megapixel camera lens with no extras – no LED flash or lens protection.

The 5 megapixel camera lens is prone to scratches

The 900 mAh Li-Ion battery of the Cookie Gig is quoted at 300 hours of stand-by and 6 hours and 40 minutes of talk time. It lasted us just over two days of testing, which is about as much heavy users can expect from the Cookie Gig.

The 900 mAh battery performs pretty decently

The microSD card slot is also placed under the battery cover but it is still hot-swappable. As we managed to confirm, the LG KM570 Cookie Gig can easily handle a 16GB microSD card – you get access to the card instantaneously, there’s no initialization period.

The battery cover has brushed metal finish but it’s made of plastic – still, it’s pleasant to the touch and does a good job of concealing fingerprints, unlike the glossy frame on the front and of course the touchscreen itself.

At 11.9 mm the Cookie Gig is fairly thin, but its rounded corners slim it down even further. The glossy strip on the front and the faux brushed metal finish at the back make it quite a looker. The Blue color version that we tested looked great, but you can opt for the Prism Violet hue or the classic Silver Black variety.

LG KM570 Cookie Gig in hand • size comparison vs. iPhone vs. Samsung Blue Earth

Interface gets S-Classy

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig is dressed up in terms of software too. It borrows the user interface from the LG GD510 Pop – a Cookie interface at the core, with S-Class eye candy on top. It also comes with the proprietary Livesquare homescreen plus a handful of social networking apps.

The interface features a lot of nice animations and transition effects. However, it’s not the fastest we’ve seen – every action takes a while to complete. The Cookie Gig is not unresponsive, but it can be sluggish – it takes a second for the menu to appear, and even longer to get back to the homescreen.

The lockscreen • the three homescreens

The KM570 Cookie Gig has three homescreens but not in the usual sense of one extended desktop. It has three kinds of homescreen, though you get only one at a time and they are non-scrollable.

The first is the Widget-enabled screen that allows you to arrange several mini applications as you please.

A touch on the marker in the bottom right corner of the homescreen pulls out the Widget tray, which holds all of the currently unused widgets. You can choose the ones you want and drag them onto the screen or stash the ones you don't need back in the tray. There’s a “shake to auto align” feature, but you can use the padlock pictogram at the bottom left to lock the position of the widgets and prevent accidental rearrangements.

Widget homescreen • widgets are collapsible

The widgets available on the LG Cookie Gig include two clocks (analog and a dual time zone piece), a mini FM radio, a mini music player, a weather widget, notes app, image slideshow, a calendar, Pocket Apps, a Facebook widget and more.

There’s only one non-scrollable widget screen but the widgets have a way to deal with this – in their default state, they are quite small but if you tap them – they expand. For example, the calendar widget only shows the current date by default, but once you tap it, it expands to show the whole month.

The Pocket Apps widget is very nice and useful – it gets you access to several installed apps. We'll get to those in detail in the mobile applications chapter of this review.

The Facebook widget shows status updates from your friends and serves as a shortcut to the full-blown Facebook application. It can be collapsed to just the Facebook icon which saves a lot of space. There are no widgets for other social networks – you’ll have to use their respective apps.

The Facebook widget

Unfortunately, new widgets cannot be added. That is the main disadvantage compared to the competing Samsung TouchWiz interface.

To get to the second homescreen you sweep your finger sideways across the screen. The screen turns over like you roll a cube – a throwback to the cube menu of the original S-Class UI.

The contact homescreen doesn't work with widgets, but lets you arrange up to eight favorite contact icons instead. You can arrange them free-hand or use the shake to auto-align feature. The screen could easily have fit one contact more but there’s no way to add more than eight.

Contacts homescreen

When you tap a contact it jumps front and center and four buttons appear to the sides of the contact’s photo – call, send an SMS, edit the contact and remove from speed dial (you can also drag it back to the dock, just as you would a widget).

Finally, there’s the Livesquare homescreen, which is in essence a log of all your recent communications. They are displayed on the screen with icons for each person you've made contact with - even ones that are not in your phonebook. By having them straight on the screen, you can easily call them back without opening the phonebook or the actual call log.

You can set the background as a Zoo, a Park or pick a custom image, populated by small human or animal figures, which will represent your contacts. You can pick from several different icons and randomize the color of their clothes for even greater variety.

When you tap on a contact, the icon at the bottom of the screen starts throbbing to attract your attention – you can call a contact, view the contact info or send them a message. You can click and drag to select multiple contacts – but then the send message option is only available.

Selecting multiple contacts in Livesquare • Livesquare options

Livesquare enhances usability but its graphical implementation is really childish. While that was OK on the tween-happy LG GW520, the LG KM570 has more mature looks, despite its Cookie branding.

Speaking of icons at the bottom of the screen – there are four virtual soft keys that are there regardless of which homescreen you’re currently using. The first one takes you to the Dial pad to punch in a number, the second opens the Contact list, the third one takes you to Messaging, and the last one brings up the main menu.

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig main menu looks very similar to the S-Class launcher (LG Arena, Viewty Smart and Crystal) and is accessible via the dedicated shortcut on the home screen. There are three menu layouts available.

The first is the familiar four-row layout (called “Zigzag”) with each of the rows scrollable separately. If that’s not the thing for you, another layout puts all the icons on two pages – in essence the four rows scroll together. The final layout arranges the icons in one tall page which you scroll up and down.

If you turn the phone sideways, the menu items are all displayed with smaller icons fitting the screen perfectly with no need for scrolling (but with no text labels either).

The main menu is S-Class styled

In the Zigzag layout, you can rearrange the icons from every row by tapping and holding the desirable icon and dragging it where you want it to appear. Strangely, that doesn’t work in the two-page layout.

The three menu styles – scroll, page by page and Zigzag

The lockscreen prompts you to press-and-hold but you can also slide-up to unlock. Recent events like missed calls, new messages or emails are also displayed on the lockscreen.

The lockscreen

The Cookie Gig makes use of a task manager allowing you to run several Java and native applications simultaneously and effortlessly switch between them.

The task manager on the LG Cookie Gig is pretty similar to the one found on the Renoir and the Cookie. It's complemented by a secondary "Favorite apps" tab that hosts a number of configurable shortcuts to various applications. It offers up to nine slots for shortcuts.

The task manager and the favorite apps shortcuts

Another thing the KM570 Cookie Gig shares with the other recent touch phones by LG is the Status screen - tapping on any of the icons on the status row on top (next to the clock) opens up a screen with signal, battery and memory stats, and allows you to quickly toggle the ringing profiles, music player and Bluetooth. It’s not quite as useful as the one on Android – but as close as possible for a feature phone.

The status screen is accessed by pressing any of the icons at the top of the homescreen

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig comes with two themes for the menu – Black and White. White is more cartoonish and goes well with the Lifesquare homescreen, but with Black you get both more serious looking menu and you get to choose the complementary color – you can make it red on black, blue on black, or almost anything else, there’s a full palette to choose from.

The Black and White themes for the UI

The usual phonebook

The phonebook capacity offered by the LG KM570 Cookie Gig is up to 1000 contacts, each with its full set of details. You can organize your contacts into caller groups, and you can also assign them a personal picture and a ringtone.

There is a bunch of available fields for each contact on your list. You start off with fourteen fields, but once you enter a number or an email address, an additional empty field of the same type becomes available.

You can also add a note to a contact and when you enter a birthday or anniversary date, you can also have the phone save it to the calendar as a reminder.

There is also an option to choose the contact's Livesquare icon so it can't be mistaken with somebody else.

The phonebook • Livesquare integration

If you don't want to go through all the contacts to reach those starting with "Z" for example, you can either use the search box at the top or you can drag the side scrollbar. If you choose the search box option, you can have T9 turned on or off.

T9 might seem the quicker option but it has its disadvantages – for example, it leaves room for only one contact (with T9 off, there’s room for two) and it’s not particularly good at guessing names. For example, pressing the 3 key on the keypad (you’re working with a standard 12-key pad here), types E and it doesn’t find names starting with D or F (as it should have).

T9 is not very good at names

You can opt for displaying the SIM and phone contacts separately, as well as all together in a single list.

Advanced telephony features

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig handles phone calls very well – the voice quality is good and can be turned up really loud. The reception is mostly good, but in areas of quite poor coverage, there are some sound breakups, but we didn’t experience dropped calls.

The dialer supports both smart dialing and fast dialing. When you enter the first digit, the dialer brings up the name of the contact associated with that speed dial number (if there is one). Type three digits, and if they match any part of a contact’s phone number, their name will be offered.

Calling Duck Dodgers • the onscreen dialing pad • quick dial • Smart dial

The Cookie Gig has a proximity sensor that automatically locks and unlocks the screen. Another sensor that helps the telephony features is the accelerometer, which enables turn to mute. You can reject a call with a preset text message (and compose new reject-call messages too).

From the Common settings menu, you can activate automatic call rejection – you can set up the Cookie Gig to reject all calls, without caller ID, contacts from specific groups and so on. This is a handy feature, similar to what Nokia Eseries have.

During a call, you can unlock the screen and take down a note, check your calendar or messages, even record a part of the conversation.

The call key takes you to the call log. It's pretty standard: there are four tabs for full call history, dialed, received or missed calls.

The call log

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig scored a Very Good mark in our loudspeaker performance test.

Messaging department does the job

The LG KM570 Cookie Gig handles the SMS, MMS, and email with ease. SMS and MMS share an editor, which is the normal state of affairs.

For text input you get the standard virtual alphanumeric keypad with T9 in portrait mode and in landscape there’s the virtual QWERTY keyboard. Haptic feedback is enabled, which increases typing accuracy.

The Cookie Gig offers alphanumeric keypad and a full QWERTY keyboard

On a 3” screen, the QWERTY keys are not very big, and the KM 570 Cookie Gig hasn’t got the most comfortable virtual QWERTY keyboard. But once you get used to it, it leaves the alphanumeric keypad in the dust in terms of typing speed.

The keyboard arrangement is questionable though – or LG thinks that people use some strange punctuation in their text messages. You get a dedicated “!” and “+” but no full stop, there’s both colon and semicolon – but no comma. How about that?

Despite having a resistive screen, the LG KM570 doesn’t support handwriting recognition.

The LG Cookie Gig has excellent support for email. Setting up an account is effortless – you just type in your user name and password and the Gig takes care of the rest. You can even set up a Microsoft Exchange mailbox, which should please corporate users.

The email client is doing a great job

In case you have to setup your email account manually, there is a host of settings that you need to enter. Both POP3 and IMAP4 protocols are supported along with SSL. The email client can be set to auto retrieve new mail at a preset interval with a dedicated setting for roaming.

The maximum attachment size for both incoming and outgoing mail is 2.2MB. Such a limitation is nuisance in a modern email client and we suspect they're imposed to save network carriers the traffic hassle.

Microsoft Office files and PDF files are supported and can be viewed directly from the email client or saved to the internal memory. Unsupported file types, such as ZIP or RAR, for example, cannot be opened by the phone, but still you can save those to the phone memory if you get them with an email.

Once you've downloaded your messages, you can use the search feature to find specific emails or you can sort them by various filters such as date, sender, priority, read/unread, subject, size, etc. There is also an option for marking multiple emails as "read" or “unread.