The LG Crystal (GD900) sports many interesting features, the transparent keypad is just one of them. The smartphone makes use of the s-class surface, which is already known from the LG Arena (KM900), supports multi-touch and gesture control, and provides the most important features for telephony, messaging and mobile Internet surfing. For writing messages or other text documents there is a virtual QWERTZ keyboard on the clear and bright touch screen display which measures 3 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and shows 16.7 million colors. I had the chance to test the fashion smartphone for a few days.

My judgement of the phone: The LG Crystal has a unique body and offers a good range of features as well as fast connectivity options, but single features of the phone can be improved and control of the smartphone is sometimes a bit difficult. The LG Crystal is available at German stores for prices beginning at EUR 295.00.

The Transparent Keypad

The transparent keypad of the slider cell phone is made of tempered glass and – on the backside – of clear plastic. First, letters and numerics can only be guessed. Only when touched the characters become visible through a backlight. The keypad is touch-sensitive and can be used it either for typing or for swiping with a finger in order to scroll through items in the phone menu or on webpages. Like on the screen, it is possible to zoom into or out of images and web pages by pinching finger on the transparent keypad.

The transparent keypad adds a stylish note to the LG Crystal, however, it can have a negative input on controlling the phone, e.g. when using gesture control: Since every surface on the smartphone is touch-sensitive, applications on the phone might start by accidentally. The touch screen and the touchpad are also so sensitive that even the lightest touch is going to enter, to start or to open something. Initially, it is hard to avoid incorrect entries.

Photo and Video Quality

You would think, another strong point of the LG Crystal is its 8-megapixel camera with autofocus, image stabilization, built-in LEd flash light and video capture mode with 720 x 480 pixels. But while shutter speed is great, the picture quality of the LG crystal camera is not very good, especially among poorer light conditions. Images in grey November light or flash photography indoor snapshots are often noisy and large areas appear blurry and with wrong colors. All photo functions are selected by finger taps on a virtual wheel. Photos and videos can be edited on the phone and stored on an inserted Micro SD card with up to 32 GB. The internal storage capacity of the LG Crystal amounts to 1.3 GB. The smartphone comes with a CD with a DivX converter software for converting media files on a PC into a compatible format on the phone.

The LG Crystal (GD900) has also an FM radio and a music player. Volume can be controlled by drawing a circle on the touch screen or by using the different equalizer settings. Unfortunately, there is not a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack on the LG Crystal, you can connect your favorite headphone to the adapter cable, though.

Connectivity and User Interface

The LG Crystal comes with built-in WiFi and EDGE as well as UMTS and HSDPA support with data transmission rates of up to 7.2 mbps HSDPA for quick downloads and uploads. The web browser renders complex web pages and shows simple flash animations. Setting up an email account on the phone is not as easy as on other smartphones, the users has to enter more data by him- or herself. The email client supports SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4 as well as email push and Microsoft Exchange. A GPS receiver the LG Crystal lacks.

The S-Class user interface of LG with its spinning 3D cube is not a strong point of the phone itself, but it might appeal to the eye of the user. The four different home screens are as good as on the Samsung Omnia phones and can be customized with spinning shortcuts to contacts, images or music. However, some of the widgets are not well designed and take some time to open.

Organizer storage capacity is limited to a maximum of 1,000 contacts, 500 appointments, 150 tasks and 100 notes. For a business user, that is not enough. For better speech quality the LG Crystal supports voice codecs such as FR (full rate), HR (half rate), EFR (enhanced full rate) and AMR (adaptive full rate). Thus, for good acoustics, at least on the equipment side provided. The battery allows for a talk time of nearly up to four hours.

Product Summary of the LG Crystal GD900:
Operating System: LG OS with S-Class UI
GSM networks: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
Data transfer: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA 7.2 mbps
Connectivity: bluetooth, USB
Screen: touch screen, 3-inch, 480 x 800 pixels,16.7 million colors
Keyboard: virtual QWERTZ and numeric
Camera: 8-megapixel, autofocus, image stabilization, LED flash
Storage: 1.3 GB (+ 32 GB micro SD)
Size: 105 x 52,8 x 13,5 mm
Speaking Time: 3.8 hours