LG Arena KM900’s Wacky Cubic UI Fiddled With on Video

Leaked photographs and vague marketing language hadn’t yet provided a clear idea of how LG’s new part-iPhone, part-Compiz UI actually works, but now a demo model has popped up on Swedish TV. It’s weird.

The parentage of the so-called S-Class UI is even more mixed than previously thought; shades of TouchWiz are apparent, as are influences from Android, HTC’s old TouchFlo cube and of course, the iPhone. The effect is confusing, but mostly pretty.

The cube has been touted as a central feature, and rightly so. It is highly responsive, and at such a distant zoom level provides an easy, quick view of your various home screens. The end result is not unlike the virtual desktop cube that many Linux distributions now include by default, but appears to perform well on the device. The same can’t be said of the clunky gallery application and cluttered contact list, which don’t move with the same immediacy as the cube and app launcher elements.

It’s hard to get a sense of how well a UI works without actually using it, but the KM900 looks like it’s shaping up to be a strange (albeit pretty) stew. [DN. WebTV via Engadget]