Fridae

Upside
The Viewty Smart uses the same 3D S-Class user interface as the Arena. We like the striking visuals and fancy animations on the Arena, so the experience is likely to be similar on the Viewty Smart. What is different is the camera interface. There's now an onscreen dial to switch between shooting modes and a finger gesture interface that lets you zoom in by drawing a circle in a clockwise direction on the display. You can also pinch and stretch to resize images, plus there's a thumbnail viewer that displays recent snaps.

Aside from a higher-resolution 8-megapixel image sensor and manual focusing feature, LG claims that its Intelligent Shot mode is a first for camera-phones. This is capable of analyzing shooting conditions and matching it to pre-programmed scene settings. Taking it a step further is a live histogram, a common feature on dedicated digital cameras, that measures exposure to guide users when snapping.

In terms of design, the Viewty Smart is a break from the earlier Viewty. In fact, it doesn't resemble the latter at all. The angular edges give the Viewty Smart a futuristic and trendy look, so it's likely to catch on with the design-conscious crowd.

We're not sure what the footprint of the Viewty Smart is, but given that it has the same 3-inch, WVGA (800 x 480) touchscreen as the Arena, we expect it to be rather similar in size. The Viewty Smart is slightly thicker (at 12.4mm) than the Arena, but slimmer than competing touchscreen models like the LG Renoir and Samsung Pixon.

On connectivity options, the Viewty Smart has HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Assisted-GPS for geotagging images. There's also 1.5GB of onboard memory and support for microSD flash media up to 32GB.

Downside
While we prefer to see a Xenon flash module on camera-phones, there have been LED offerings that have delivered decent light output, so we'll see how the LED flash performs on this LG before passing judgment. A 3.5mm audio jack would also have been a great feature to the handset.

Outlook
The Viewty Smart looks like a good addition to the current crop of 8-megapixel touchscreen camera-phones, though how intuitive the new shooting interface is remains to be seen. We'll definitely run this through thoroughly when we get hold of a unit for evaluation. Meanwhile, the phone is expected to be available in Asia Pacific after CommunicAsia in June.