LG GW620 Android Phone First Impressions

 title=Yesterday afternoon I got sent LG’s new GW620 – the company’s first Android-based handset. I’ve had nowhere near enough time to formulate a proper opinion of the phone, but here are some first impressions:

 title=

The Hardware

Build quality, from early impressions, is pretty good. The 3-inch touchscreen is pretty to look at, while the plastic battery cover is surprisingly silky smooth to touch. The qwerty keypad slides out with a satisfying thwunk, and the buttons – while nowhere near as comfortable as the buttons on a Blackberry Bold, are responsive and well spaced.

The touch sensitive home and back buttons on the front vibrate a little when you press them, but I’ve found it’s a little too easy to bump them accidentally, even in the short time frame I’ve had with the phone.

The Software

The GW620 is running Android 1.5 (or Cupcake), rather than the 2.0 software seen in the likes of the Motorola Droid (which we hope Australia will see sometime soon). That means there’s no universal search, or any of the other really cool advancements listed in this post.

Like the HTC Android phones, the GW620 has been given a custom look and feel for the software from LG. It’s fairly simple, and doesn’t offer anywhere near the polish of HTC’s Sense UI, but it does keep things relatively simple. For example, browsing through the installed apps, it breaks them down into categories like Communication, Multimedia, Google Utilities and Downloads, making navigation a little simpler.
 title=

(Not quite a) Verdict

As I said before, this is a very early impression of the phone. I’ll be spending a fair amount of time with it over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for a much more thorough review.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.