Though it already
broke cover at IFA out in Germany a few days ago, LG's just sealed the deal on its very first Android phone -- the GW620 landscape QWERTY slider. Interestingly, the "Etna" name seen at IFA is missing from the official press release, but otherwise, the 3-inch touchscreen mentioned lines up nicely with what we'd previously known. Camera specs aren't mentioned here, but as far as we know, it's going to clock in at 5 megapixels and the phone looks to be loaded with a very bone-stock Android build sans LG-specific enhancements like an
S-Class port. Interestingly, the GW620 flies in the face of LG's
super-cozy relationship with Microsoft and its commitment to concentrate on WinMo in its smartphone line, but you can tell that the company's wording in the release is very carefully-chosen: the phone is geared at "making the smartphone experience more accessible for typical users" and "young professionals who demand a full QWERTY keypad," which we guess makes WinMo a more business-savvy platform in LG's eyes. We think we're comfortable with that characterization -- for now, anyway. Look for the GW620 to start showing up in "select European markets" in the fourth quarter of the year.
posted Sep 14th 2009 2:39AM
Is it me, or does it look a bit chubby?
It's small and chubby.
lets get it out of the way now.
thats what she said.
more cushion for the pushin'
It's a shame it's stock Android, though if the internal specs are any good I guess it'll be a food option for g1 owners looking to replace their phone with something fuss free... Stick a custom rom on it...
*good option
Stupid iTouch word correction.
Your iPhone is trying to tell us to just eat this phone!
iPod Touch, sorry. Wow. Double fail.
Dude no way! A Slide-out QWERTY Android phone?? I was WONDERING when they were going to come out with one of those!!
Its the new razor, a cheap ass phone running a free OS.
HTC must be making a killing lol
Motorola a and Samsung both produce and from next month should start to sell Android qwerty sliderphones (or at least that's what they say).
The Moto droid qwerty btw looks far more promising than this LG and it has already contributed to a rise in Moto's stock prices, and even if I am 100% european I really hope that they manage to pull out a decent device and save the neck of this glorious US company.
I really like the look of this minus the purple hue on the front. It could be chubby but from those pics its kind of hard to tell.
but it looks so bland... :(
3 inches? Too small.
You know what's coming
She won't be...
That's What she ....
Uh never mind...
Ahem. -cough cough- La la la laaaa~
That's what she said.
I thought the exact same thing. Smaller than the G1's already too small screen=no purchase from me. I am still going to pick up the Sprint Hero when it comes out and live with the 3.2 inch screen, and hope other companies start producing larger screens for these android phones. Just give me a capacitive HTC Touch HD (3.8 inch screen=hell yah) and cram a Tegra in there somewhere in there to easily run the Sense UI, and there is my "Dream Phone". Anyone else with me?
Her (looking at 3 inch chubby) Who you going to please with that thing?
Him(looking smugly back at her) Me!
It looks similar to the Motorola CLIQ, but the CLIQ has MOTO BLUR on top of Android.
What about *old* professionals?
Preach it brother!....I couldn't agree more
They're...obsolete.
dun dun DUUNNNNNNNN
I assume I speak for many here: WHERE are the Android phones with fast CPUs (dual-core ARM11, ARM Cortex-A8 or Snapdragon) and graphics chips (PowerVR SGX or Tegra) ? The iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre are going to blow away everything else until other manufacturers stop being so damn cheap and use decent hardware in their smartphones! I want a bad-ass Android phone (or Winmo 7)
(BTW, I already own an iPhone 3GS. I don't discriminate by brand. I just like awesome technology)
1+
It seems like the only way to outsell the iphone is to make he phones cheap, and come out with 20 variations with little differences.. Its working for blackberry and HTC so maybe its not a bad idea.
+1
I want high-end Android! I like my G1 but I will immediately buy the first high-end, large-screen (5 inches or more), 3G+ Android device to show up sans carrier customization.
+3
I don't know why my vote counts any more than anyone else's. It just does.
I'll make my own darn OpenGL ES 2.0 game capable Android tablet/phone if I have to. I'll base it on the same hardware as the OpenPandora Project, which is also taking for-freaking-ever. I'll hack an N900 with Android if Maemo5 doesn't turn out as expected.
It's still an LG phone. No quality control. Immediate fail.
mmmm.... 5 row qwerty. That makes it worth buying right there. 3 row on the Cliq kills it for me.
Actually it's 4 rows on the CLIQ if you count the bottom row with space bar, ALT, SYM, etc. Less rows could mean bigger buttons, but less shortcuts.
If its that same 512mhz qualcom processor I will stab them in eye
Start stabbing.
I'm starting to think that maybe Google just randomly got a giant shipment of 528mhz CPUs, and then invented Android just to find a way to get rid of them.
It is HTC that has a giant warehouse full of those old Qualcomm 528mhz chips and puts them in all their WinMo and Android devices. Some other manufacturers use it too like Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Gigabyte, LG (in GM 730 WinMO phone), Motorola (CLIQ), Samsung (Android phone).
I think other manufacturers see how successful HTC is and then use that chip cause HTC does, even though it is old in technology terms.
But seriously, it is too damn slow when there are plenty of great fast chips out there like Nvidia Tegra, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Freescale MX51, Ziilabs ZMS-05 and OMAP 3.
I bet this GW 620 also has that damn 528mhz chip just like their GM 730, so I'd rather have Motorola CLIQ if going for Android phone with qwerty keyboard or HTC Hero without hardware keyboard.
I also blame HTC. They've been using that chip for ages, they feel comfortable designing around it, and they're probably going to stick with it for another year before they really move on to more next-gen type hardware.
Because HTC was the exclusive provider of Android 1.0, and most of Android 1.5's features seem to have been designed specifically to support the HTC Magic, it makes sense that they have been just as influential as Google in defining the current state of Android. Since HTC is married to those 528 Qualcom chips, that's what everybody else is going to use in order to match the status quo of Android on the market.
Plus, Android has already been tested to hell and back on that chip. If LG were to come out and say they were making an Android phone on Snapdragon or something, then they'd have to commit a rather large programming and testing team to making sure that Android functions correctly on it. Nobody is really sure yet just how well Android scales up to more powerful hardware.
In fact, just take a look around at all of those Android Netbook experiments that got off the ground in five hours but never ended up reaching a usable state. That looks like pretty good evidence to me that Android doesn't automatically scale up to high-end specs and run like butter without lots and lots of custom coding and tweaking.
'In addition to the Android model, LG announced in early September that it will be introducing a minimum of 13 new smartphones over the next 16 months that utilize Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. The newest release, version 6.5, was announced just last week."
talk about testing the water with your toe and jumping back into the pirahna infested pond. typical LG, they should just stick to featurephones
it has the complete opposite of a chin!!
A chout?
The G1/Dream doesn't look that great in photos, but in the flesh, the G1/Dream is quite nice.
So, if this device looks nice in photos, in the flesh, it may be REALLY nice.
so , in reality it will be Fugly!
what Microsoft really needs to do right now is take the Zune HD and throw a phone in it, I would SOOO buy it!!! Tegra, a amazing design, and Zune music player!
Based on what I've seen of the Zune HD's interface, it would need quite a bit of tinkering in order to add a phone. That's not to say that it's bad, it's just extremely skewed towards music browsing and has obviously been designed from the ground up to be really good at that one purpose. I don't think I'd want to check my email or send a text message using that crazy 3D twist interface. I also highly doubt that the Zune HD's OS is optimized for multitasking, which is a must for a decent smartphone.
What they'd really have to do in order to make the Zune HD into a decent smartphone is to turn its excellent media interface into a program for Windows Mobile, but then you'd end up being bogged down by Windows Mobile and nobody would like it quite as much.
I think MS made the right choice by not throwing a phone into the mix. They've designed a really fantastic looking, industry-leading media player, and they shouldn't bog it down by throwing in a phone just so they can say that they're competing with the iPhone. They'd end up with a worse product and they'd be competing in a space with much more complex user demands, it just wouldn't hold up.
I wouldn't call LG's Android build COMPLETELY stock, since this phone is missing Call and End buttons they must have at least built their own custom dialer and tinkered with the system keys a little bit.
why are OEMs seemingly backing android over wm?
They have to pay some pretty hefty licensing fees for winmo. Android is free for them to configure and distribute. Which would you choose?
I love the way LG wastes space on the blue trim around the screen instead of using it for extra screen real estate. To me this is just another boring Android slider.
Is it me or does this look alot like the Touch Pro 2? If this comes to Sprint this would def be something i would look at.
I was really looking forward to the supposed 18+ android devices that were supposed to launch before the end of the year. Where was the side-note stating that all but two of those devices would only be launched in Europe? When will any of these phones be arriving in the US?
Anybody else notice that the main button is not the Home button!?!
At first glance it looks like the same combination as the Cliq but its not!
Maybe the middle button is the Call button, if so, where is the Menu button?
Yes! The screen is too small but it's still very nice and it's great to see manufacturers rebelling against Google and putting all those buttons Google demands hidden on the QWERTY versus the G1 and Magic.
I really don't need call and end buttons on my touchscreen phone, thanks.
Huge screen bezel = FAIL!
Looks like a nice phone.. Would like to see the better interface on it though.
Does this mean this could be the first Android phone for Verizon?
"we guess makes WinMo a more business-savvy platform in LG's eyes. We think we're comfortable with that characterization -- for now, anyway."
I'm going to interpret "business-savvy" as "brainless idiot who thinks Outlook=email", and thus take no offense.
touch pro 2 copier with android instead of Winmo come on LG be more original n not copy from phone manufacture: Emperor HTC haha