LG Arena KM900 gets reviewed, called an iPhone clone
By Nilay Patel 
posted April 9th 2009 2:42PM
posted April 9th 2009 2:42PM
[Via Slashgear]
posted April 9th 2009 2:42PM
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waiting for all the anti-iPhone guys to come out and say how this is not a clone and its so hard to design touchscreen phones any different, blah blah
and know wait for all the apple fanbois to go "OMG, like it has icons in the homescreen. that is like SUCH a rip-off of the iPhone... IM TELLIN MOM... >.< "
(posted from a proudly owned MacBook Pro.) end of conversation.
Yes, it's SO hard to design a touch phone without a grid pattern for the home screen and and using icons with a different color scheme. It's almost impossible, so leave them alone. They were going to make a touch screen exactly like the iPhone but Apple just beat them to it.
/s
I think that grid pattern is not the thing (that has been around for ages). It's just that those icons look quite similar, too similar if you ask me. I don't care about iPhone nor LG Arena, though.
nope, I think the iphone is pretty bad and I wouldn't choose to own one, but this thing looks like an iphone.
At least this Arena can be thetered to a laptop and used as a modem, can send and receive MMs, has a decent camera and even a videocamera, has copy/paste option, and it looks nicer too.
Since the performance of the browser (Opera) depends on the mobile connection , and that the Arena includes also IE mobile, and that I doubt that the reviewer was such a moron as not to know these things, I am almost sure that this review was strongly biased.
Moreover I have just finished to read a review of this phone in a specialized mobile blog that basically calls the Arena the best thing since sliced bread and the LG Voyager2 even better than that.
As usual until you check it out by yourself there is no way to know how this thing or the coming Voyager2 will actually perform.
"waiting for all the anti-iPhone guys to come out and say how this is not a clone and its so hard to design touchscreen phones any different, blah blah"
As I recall when the iPhone debuted, and people pointed at how similar it was to the Prada, some Apple fans said that it was too obvious of a design for Apple not to have done it too.
Oh and when Apple dumps their netbook, can we be assured that you will hold consistent when we find that it oddly looks like every other netbook on the market?
prada *mumble mumble*
"I think that grid pattern is not the thing (that has been around for ages). It's just that those icons look quite similar, too similar if you ask me. I don't care about iPhone nor LG Arena, though."
Should they? Yes.
Still dont see why they dont hire the people from Iconfactory to make custom ones for them.
In the long run does Joe Doe on the street care when he gets this phone for free with a two-year contract? Nope.
*Joe Doe hooks up his new free LG phone to work with iTunes.*
"Oh, yeah, time for some App Store, music, video, podcast loving,... wait, WTF?"
Joe Doe is an idiot who cant read the damn spec sheet, instead of looking at icons, so he would know that he couldn't do that.
Just making a point, no matter how great the price of the phone or the service plan, people buy iPods and iPhones because it has a better ecosystem. Ecosystems sell people on gadgets and computers. Just ask the Windows fanboys. Oh, yeah, right, who am I talking to. Never mind.
this is not a clone and its so hard to design touchscreen phones any different, blah blah
@ Look_around_You
You do know that Joe Doe (the idiot) makes up a significant part of the consumers purchasing such phones, right? Joe Doe is not an idiot. He may not be as technically savy as you to undersatnd all thyat's on a spec sheet, does not mean he/she is an idiot. Companies like Apple cater to the Joe Doe of the world.
You know, the argument that Apple copied the Prada is completely ridiculous, as both phones were announced in Jan 2007. If I'm not mistaken, I believe Apple had been working on the iPhone for 4 years before it was announced. I'm not necessarily saying that LG was copying Apple while the iPhone was still in development, as that would be equally ridiculous. However, it is clear that this phone was made to look like the iPhone.
"Just making a point, no matter how great the price of the phone or the service plan, people buy iPods and iPhones because it has a better ecosystem. Ecosystems sell people on gadgets and computers. "
Okay, still dont know why Joe Doe bought a phone without reading the spec sheets, but if you say so.
Joe wont get Apple's app store (Damn, no fart apps), but "music, video, podcast loving" really dont depend on Apple. But that's his choice.
"Just ask the Windows fanboys. Oh, yeah, right, who am I talking to. Never mind."
Really? Because I spend my time telling people how crappy Apple products are and that you should only use/buy Microsoft stuff?
Funny how I never recall saying that to people, yet we have Apple fanboys from the Cape to Cairo who do that 24/7, yet I'm the "fanboy"
Okay...
"You do know that Joe Doe (the idiot) makes up a significant part of the consumers purchasing such phones, right? Joe Doe is not an idiot. He may not be as technically savy as you to undersatnd all thyat's on a spec sheet, does not mean he/she is an idiot. Companies like Apple cater to the Joe Doe of the world."
He is an idiot, and irresponsible when making purchasing decisions based on icons or somthing silly like box art.
Ironic isn't it? LG made the Prada, then Apple ripped off its design.
Now LG comes up with this and it is the ripoff? What the ****?
Take a look at the LG and iPhone side-by-side. And the Arena and iPhone. LG seem like more like the original ripe off artist to me.
http://www.techgadgets.in/images/Verizon-LG.jpg
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/images/thephones.jpg
@ KilgoreTrout it doesnt have an os so it doesnt use opera mobile or ie mobile
Most of the ones that were called copies just had colorful icons with rounded corners and black backgrounds. The UI elements were different. There was no dock on the bottom and there was a search bar on the top (talking about the Lenovo OPhone). Here LG has the grid separated by categories. Copying would mean both the UI elements & the theme is the same.
Mostly it's the theme that's similar to Apple (black background & color icons) but UI-wise they are different. I'm not going to say they aren't aiming at Apple (it's not a coincidence a lot of phones use similar color icon/black background themes) but to call every phone that has that kind of theme a copy is pretty annoying.
And it gets even worst some of you Apple fanboys like to call phones like the G1 a copy too, when both the UI elements & the phones are completely different. The only thing they share in common is that the G1 has a capacitive touch screen also.
No, this is truly and obviously a copy cat. This is fair game.
Calling a WinMo HTC phone or LG Dare an iPhone copy (when LG started this with the Prada) is what's stupid.
This is shameless. This is blatant.
傻逼
It's not as bad or obvious as that Huawei Andriod phone.
You're an idiot.
to be honest, if it didn't say "LG" at the top, i'd think it was a KIRF.
ha yeah I like the arena but I could kinda see that
Dolby Mobile? I'm gonna have to do some reading on that. Too bad it scored so weakly. :(
Dolby Mobile actually rocks. I heard it on another device at CES. It really lets you get a full sound experience out of such a tiny device.
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/mobile/dolby-mobile.html
I don't know why they have an on/off option for it though - if it is meant to be so good, why would anyone want to turn it off?
Maybe a battery issue.
I think it's funny that people complain about companies wanting a bite of the cake - it's working.
The same way some people want a bite of the apple-cake so they can look cool
You and all the other Apple-bashers are right on the money. We only buy Apple products to "look cool." I mean, you've finally figured it out, congratulations. It has nothing to do with their performance, resale value, or better yet, our own personal taste (maybe we just like them better - what a novel idea!). Congrats on cracking the code.
Asswipe.
It's just that once you get that Apple on the device people get so snotty and protective. We're stretching to call the devices other companies make, "copy cats," and at the same time companies that do things differently will "never learn." Don't get me wrong, I kinda want an Ipod touch, neat little device, but to me Apple is impossible to defend as an exclusive provider of all the computer hardware/software you own. There's a reason Mac's come with boot camp pre-installed.
There's also a reason you don't find any Samsung fanboy's trolling around in these comments. Having an apple on your gear "looks cool." That's my take anway...
Is it any different than saying that Windows users use it because they are "forced to" or because "they really aren't smart enough to try anything else"?
Not that those words ever came from Apple fans, right?
Go ahead and lie to us and say they didnt.
Can we please stop with this 1999 bs response of looking Hip or Cool as being the only reason to own an apple product? Especially in a community made up of geeks like engadget. Its just uninformed and stupid.
actually you don't find samsung fanboys here because 1) there aren't any, and b) you wouldn't call them fanboys. That's clearly a negative term reserved almost exclusively for Apple fans.
there's a lot to be said about a vertical software/hardware integration model...that argument has been made thousands of times (both for and against). Let's just say lots of people are discovering its benefits, so there must be some value in it - even if it's not the preferred model for the small percentage of computer users who read/post on tech sites.
I have a DJ friend that used to bash Macs and now he has one because of Garageband. I have a girl that I'm friends with who bought an iMac because of iChat. Yeah, she could have got something similar on Windows, but I think it was the fact that she understood how to use it, in under five minutes flat and then there's the built in iSight camera.
"actually you don't find samsung fanboys here because 1) there aren't any, and b) you wouldn't call them fanboys. That's clearly a negative term reserved almost exclusively for Apple fans."
Now don't be ridiculous. There are probably not very many people who get up on the soap box to sing Samsung's praise and defend them tooth and nail like good fanboy's do, but to say that the term fanboy is reserved exclusively for Apple is too much. There are fanboy's of everything, from computer companies to operating systems to video game consoles...
And to your second point, EVEN I said there is value in the company, but I'm only saying that people wouldn't defend them so aggressively if it wasn't about a little bit more than just some run of the mill value in their products. And THAT has everything to do with the logo and the (perceived) lifestyle...
It does look very similar. Maybe if the icons weren't the same colors/shades I could believe it was similar but not a clone.
Looks more like a silver-frame Instinct.
Don't like it.
I can see the clone stuff. The icons are the same, etc. But on the flipside, all cotton swabs look like q-tips, right? I mean there are just some logical paths for the design of certain items and this is one of them. Just about all cars look basically the same, don't they? 4 wheels, steering wheel, blah, blah, blah.
If it's so logical a design, how do you explain the Palm Pre? It looks nothing like the iPhone, yet it seem to generate lots of attention for its UI. Surely the Pes will fail because the only logical UI is the iPhone's UI. Give me a break you none creative types you. :) LG knew exactly what it was doing. Same with every other company that tries to ride a successful products huge wave (iPhone) with similar designs. Many of these companies are based out of China and Korea. It's in the culture.
Lot's of things Palm does defy logic, but I certainly wasn't trying to malign them with my post. I'm just saying there are lots of things we use that are made by different companies that have similar designs.
Apple invented rounded corners.
OBVIOUSLY
Ok, I'm not a fan of this LG, but I wouldn't call it a clone. The iPhone's design is generic squares and rectangles.
ACTUALLY, Apple invented the 'clone' too
So that we can put it to rest. Here is the Adam and or Eve of all of these phones. The IBM Simon.
I scored one of these from a Garage Sale, and almost everything you see on smart phones has their genesis in this device.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2246/2404322604_1e60399edf.jpg
Apple has a patent on Adam. And Eve.
No, it's Adam's Apple.
What the OS of that phone, i couldn't find it any where?