LG KS20

At A Glance:

The KS 20 is LG’s first attempt at the Windows Mobile platform, and one must say that they did a reasonably good job at it the first time out. We were fortunate enough to have access to a prototype unit, and we did have some fun using the KS 20.

In the box (prototype parts)
Handset Transceiver
Battery (standard battery)
USB Charger

Exterior
The KS 20 is possibly the most slim and pleasant-looking PDA phone currently available in the market. It reminds me of the Mio Digiwalker from half a decade ago with its glossy, jet black exterior and its flat, almost-buttonless construction. It would be really nice if LG included a slim leather case with the KS 20, but we have no idea about the accessories in the package just yet.

There is a chrome band running around the side of the phone. All the buttons and ports are all located on this chrome band, except for the navigation button which sticks out of the centre front face of the phone just below the screen.

Buttons/Screen
There are few buttons on this touch screen device. There are toggle buttons on the left side and some shortcut keys on the right to the camera and what appears to be a voice recorder application.

The screen is a vibrant 262K colour screen. It is 2.8 inches across and displays 240 x 320 pixels of information on demand. The touch response is a little slow, and you need to be rather precise about where you prod the screen as the icons are in high resolution and a little bit smaller than on larger-screened PDAs.

Software/Messaging
The KS 20, although similar in looks to the earlier LG Prada, runs on a totally different operating system. This device runs version 6.0 of the Windows Mobile operating system. Therefore, it is fully customisable just as with any other Windows Mobile phone.

Messages are either typed into the phone or scrawled into a letter recognition program similar to the Graffiti input-recognition program. The character to character time is fairly quick, but that could also be due to the slower input on the small on-screen keyboard.

PIM
The mobile versions of MS Office applications are preinstalled into the device. We are talking about the slimmed down versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. The Calculator, Notes and Tasks applets are there as expected.

The KS 20 should have 256 MB of ROM and 128MB of RAM onboard, and the user has an option to use micro SD cards for additional storage space.

Camera/Video
The KS 20’s main camera is a 2.0 Megapixel camera support auto focus. The lens for this camera is on the back of the device and the secondary camera is the one above the main screen, on the front of the device.

The camera function is similar to that of cameras found on other Windows Mobile devices. The digital zoom goes up to 4x and the flash is built into the device and can be found next to the lens on the back cover.

Multimedia/Voice
Just like with any other Windows phone, the KS 20 is able to play back a whole list of media formats as shown in the specifications section of this article. The sound is fairly loud, but slightly grainy on the higher notes.

One thing of note is the inclusion of an FM radio tuner in the device, something which is not too common for a Windows device. That is a nice touch, but it also runs down the battery rather quickly if you have the radio blaring continuously for a few hours.

Connectivity
The three main connectivity modes that are built in are regular GSM, WiFi and Bluetooth. Bluetooth is for local connections while the WiFi and GSM allow for a choice of network connection preferences.

A USB cable accompanies the device, and this can be attached to a computer to move files between the device and a suitable computer.

The nice thing is that in addition to support for regular GPRS and EDGE, the KS 20 also supports 1.8 and 3.6 Mbps HSDPA connections. Of course, you would have to be in an area with this relatively new technology, but the capability is there.

Games
Windows mobile has two games built into the device. The first is BubbleBreaker, which is a puzzle game. The other is Solitaire, which needs no introduction at all if you have been near a computer any time in the last quarter of a century.

Editor's Opinion
The review unit was a prototype device that only came with a cable that connected to the computer. We are not able to tell at this point of time what accessories are in the box and therefore it would be rather unfair to draw a conclusion at this point. However, we can say that this PDA is slim and looks really good.

Conclusion: Not a bad attempt from LG on their first try at a Windows device.

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