There’s some interesting news appearing this morning about the new long-rumoured ‘Google phone’. According to various sources, the much talked about handset is an LG KU-580, and will begin shipping shortly.

Only available on Vodafone in Italy and France at the moment, the handset is especially designed for Google functionality, and includes Google Search, Maps, and Gmail pre-installed.

More on this breaking story at Wired Blogs, Reg Hardware and Gizmondo.

Link: Mobizines - Update All: The Devil Wears…

The guys at Mobizines have got their hands on one of the very sexy LG Prada phones - and haven’t wasted any time on making their app work on it. It’s not quite there yet, but they’re working on it!

Now - as you know the other day we finally got our hands on a brand new LG Prada phone… We’re all busying away on our next big release and we haven’t really got time to develop a whole brand new variant of the Mobizines client to work on this handset…

So imagine our surprise to find that our touchscreen client, very nearly, works on the Prada! Admittedly it does need a small bit of tweaking here and there… But our resident touchscreen guru Andre, (Big up the Dre!), is on the case.

If you’ve got an LG Prada and want to help beta test the app, drop an email to bloggers@mobizines.com (with LG PRADA in the subject line) and they’ll be in touch when it’s ready to be unleashed.

Eli Tirosh really does have the fasted thumbs in the west

Link: LG Mobile Phones Names Eli Tirosh the West Coast Texting Champion at the LG National Texting Championship: Financial News - Yahoo!
Finance

These stellar thumbs belong to 21-year-old Eli Tirosh of Los Angeles who was crowned the LG West Coast Texting Championship in front of a huge crowd of family, friends and competitors. Tirosh not only walked away with the prestigious title, she also earned $10,000 in cash and a trip to New York City to battle the LG East Coast Texting Champion on April 21 at the Roseland Ballroom for an additional $15,000 grand prize

Congratulations Eli!

I just had a note in from the delightful Gaylene regarding the new LG Shine competition.

If you’re feeling in a bit of an exciting mood, I reckon you should give it a go. If only to get your mits on the Shine. It is a gorgeous handset. If you’re feeling uninspired, forward this link to your significant other, preferably a female, who will, I’m sure, take your right arm off you for the opportunity to win one of these handsets.

It’s easy to enter:

LG Shine is giving 3 lucky winners the chance to win a LG Shine phone. All you need to do is take a photo that expresses your shining moment (any theme that is relevant to you) and provide a simple explanation attached to your photo. You can send up to 5 photos if you wish!

The 3 winners will be chosen by the amount of votes they receive, whoever has the most amount of votes and/or positive comments will be the winner. We will post each entry on the blog where users can vote for you under the comments section.

The competition expires on the 13 April 2007, 17h00 GMT+1. Winners will be announced the same day at 17h30 GMT+1.

There are several ways to enter:

1. Email your photo to us – gravenscroft (at) hillandknowlton.com (photos should be no more than 1MB in size).

2. Upload your photos to www.Flickr.com or any other photo sharing site then email us the link using the above address.

3. Upload your photos to your blog and email us the link using the above address.

This then gives us the ability to post your entry to the LG Shine blog where voters can vote for you.

View the whole LG Shine competition details.

Here are my entries. They’re all a bit geeky though. I think the concept is to find images that aren’t specifically geeky and related to the handset itself, so I’ll leave the real creativity to others.

I’d like to jump on to about 50 of these:

This is a bit arty. Here’s the west of Leicester Square as viewed from the lift on the way up to the LG Shine press launch (that I substantially missed!):

(Now you can’t tell me that isn’t a shining moment!)

Is this a cop out? That’s me taking the picture!

This is my favourite shot of the Shine that I’ve taken. I reckon it could ALMOST be a proper product shot, eh?

And there’s always time for a shot of Daisy the dog:

So that’s what that big queue of people were doing near the exit! As I walked out last night I wondered why people were queuing up to get their names ticked off some sheets. They were collecting their goody bags! I just walked straight past the thronging queues and out into the tube like an idiot!

Look at what you got in the bag:

Link: The LG Shine Blog

The party pack didn’t leave empty-handed, each guest was presented with a fabulous goody bag, filled with a collection of must-have gifts including:

- LG Shine phone
- Godiva chocolates
- John Frieda hair products
- Boots No7 make-up
- Fudge hair products
- Claire’s Accessories phone products

Ok, on reflection, I think I’d have been interested in the Godiva chocolates and, well, I am already a huge fan of the LG Shine having had one to test, so you know, I’m not too disappointed.

Talking frankly, I don’t know what I’d have done with John Frieda hair products, Boots No7 make-up (although I understand it’s good stuff). The Fudge hair products? Well, maybe if there was some wax, you know, could have been useful. Aaaaand oh, well, Claire’s Accessories phone products — that must be little mobile thingys.

What do you call them? You know, the things that hang from your handset. Charms?

Very cool!

I’m back from the LG Shine launch. What a time.

There’s a lot to report. A ton, in fact.

I took a lot of pictures; and alas, my N93 ran clean out of battery! That’s a first.

So I’m going to sleep; then blog………..

Here’s ShinyShiny’s Suzi reviewing the LG Shine:

Was just talking to Stefan at Ring Nokia and he suggested I ask LG about qwerty devices. I shall.

I’m delighted to bring you this exclusive in advance of the LG Shine launch this afternoon. (You will need a bit of salt — perhaps just a pinch, for this post.)

Bending space, time and several currently unproven molecular continuum theories, David Blaine revealed today that his first mobile phone was an LG Shine. Whilst the rest of us had to wait up to 20 years from the advent of the modern mobile phone industry to even consider owning LG’s latest good-looker, Blaine, answered SMS Text News chief blogger Ewan MacLeod’s question, without even being asked it.

MacLeod described receiving the answer earlier this evening.

“I was just sat on the train coming back from Hartlepool when I developed a sudden urge to find out what David Blaine’s first mobile phone was,” explained a semi perplexed MacLeod, “I normally ask most people this question, because it’s rather interesting and it usually prompts further open-ended discussion.”

“I was busy reading the buffet menu when,” he pauses, uncharacteristically staring strangely into the air, “… When I, well I… I just ‘felt’ the answer. It was almost as though David was sending me the answer unconsicously.”

MacLeod, who has never met David Blaine face-to-face, and who didn’t ever throw eggs or Big Mac meals to starving Blaine whilst he was performing his stunt suspended above Tower Bridge a few years ago in London, was at a loss to explain how he found out the answer, “Especially,” he continued, “because I hadn’t even asked him the question. Spooky.”

The answer? Well, in MacLeod’s vision, David was shown holding LG’s newest handset, the LG Shine, and explaining to the gathered press that he had actually owned the handset since 1995. Some members of the press were shown in the vision looking rather skeptical, given the handset is only officially launched in the UK tomorrow, and, well, although it’s been out in the Far East for a while, was certainly a glint in the milkman’s eye in 1995. Blaine silenced all further comment with a stare and an ‘evil eye’ whilst muttering the words, ‘Time travel, you fools.’

All is explained with the video below…

And for some more magic, it’s time to turn to stage hypnotist, Kenny Craig…

More on the LG Shine and Blaine later!

I will be live blogging from the LG Shine launch tomorrow. I’m not quite sure how I’ll do that yet. It might be a series of photos, I don’t know.

I’ll have loads of questions for the assembled LG people.

I’ve some meetings in the morning so I think I will be in shocking-pinstripe-mode. So if you’re going, look for the chap in the three-piece sporting an Apple Mac, an enquiring look and an aversion to £4/meg data rates (how that manifests itself in physical form, I’m not to sure). That’s me though. Do say hi. Do ask for my business card, so that I can give you one. It’s double sided. Dead proud of that. Did it myself with Goodprint. I didn’t put my photo on it. Sensible policies for a happier Britain.

I’m hesitant as to whether to take my laptop along and do some blogging *there*.

Or whether to pop out to an internet cafe and knock them up that way.

Or whether to leave it ’til the evening.

Decisions, decisions.

Expect, if at all, mountains of gossip and comment. Hmm. If I take my laptop I could perhaps do some Q&A’s live. Could be useful.

Link: The LG Shine Blog

LONDON, 1 February 2007, David Blaine, the world famous illusionist and endurance artist, has signed a deal with LG Mobile which will see him become the face of LG Shine, the next model in LG’s ultra stylish Black Label series.

The launch of LG Shine will see David Blaine return once again to London, where he will perform in the same theatre (Cirque, formerly The Hippodrome) that the legendary Houdini cemented his fame in the world of illusion 100 years ago. David Blaine’s visit will also mark the first time the magician will directly interact with British fans, as he mingles with guests demonstrating the very reason he was crowned the King of Cards.

Ok, so my mission, right, is to find out what David Blaine’s first phone was.

I managed to ask the CEO of Nokia what his first mobile phone was at Nokia World, so I think it’s only fair I should try and see if I can get that info out of World Famous Blank-Looker, David Blaine.

It’s this Wednesday I think. I’m thoroughly looking forward to it. I shall me taking the LG Shine along to show it off to all and sundry…

The LG Shine has this little 30 second MP3 on it called ‘Good Morning’.

It’s wicked.

I videoed it playing on the Shine so you could hear it. And, I also moved my Nokia N93 around to the tune. So the video below is PURPOSEFULLY shakey, right?

Good mornin………….

I’m going to try this as my alarm tone tomorrow morning and see how happy and shiney it makes me feel at 7am.

When the LG Shine phone arrived on Saturday morning, I’d already been without power for 24 hours and all my other phones were about to run out of juice. So instead of sitting and peering at it from a review perspective, I stuck in the sim and started using it.

They weren’t messing around with the packaging either. When you walk into the mobile store and ask for an LG Shine, you are not going to wilt at the sight of the shitty box. No rubbish here. Have a look:

(This is a review handset so I imagine there would be some manuals of some sort when you open up the box here).

I can’t think of a handset available on the market today that looks as good as the Shine. If the Shine was an actress, it would be Sienna Miller in Layer Cake. This handset looks gorgeous just sat on the desk. It feels even better bringing it out of your pocket.

Let’s have a few more shots of it:

Slide the screen up (or the keyboard down) and:

The back of it:

Lovely lines:

Gaylene, on behalf of LG, had emailed me a few links to various other blog reviews of the Shine (for example, TechDigest), however — and I write this with the greatest respect to the chaps at TechDigest — I didn’t look. I didn’t do a Google, I didn’t look up the specs, I didn’t check out the LG main site for more information. I wanted to be influence free so that when I opened up the new Shine, my first impressions would be my own.

The only external influence was the LG Shine blog site that (at the time of writing) contained no information about the handset itself (that’s coming soon) with the exception of a rather funky looking handset picture.

Why’s it called the Shine? Well you immediately understand when you unpack it and notice your ugly mug (or, in my case, gorgeous, toned, chiseled features) staring back at you. The entire front of the handset is mirrored. Interesting.

It’s a good mirror! Here, is my hand:

(I hadn’t removed the protective plastic cover at this point)

Fits nicely in your hand:

That’s your camera, music, volume and power/USB lead:

I stuck in the battery and my T-Mobile sim in the back.

Holding it in my hand, I did a once over and wondered how to open it. Does it flick open, I thought? Or, is it like the sliding LG Chocolate? (A handset I’ve seen used, but never held myself.) I had a look to see if it flicked up, Star Trek Communicator-like. Nope. Definitely a slider.

The numeric keypad slides down just like the Chocolate.

How do you turn it on? I hunted briefly for an ‘on’ button until I realised it was on the keypad.

BRRRRRRINNNNG. The LG Shine makes a satisfying switch-on noise and immediately that mirror changes to show the handset’s screen. Very neat indeed. Really, really funky. Mega funky, in fact. So the screen is a mirror and the mirror is a screen. Nice.

There’s a little LG animation and you’re immediately into the standby screen. There’s a nice little scroll bar at the bottom of the screen together with option keys that make it easy to navigate about the menus.

The menus are something else. Being a regular Nokia user, I’m indoctrinated into their rather … sparse … user interface. Sparse compared to the LG Shine. GORGEOUS menus. Lovely little sounds all over the place.

Open the handset by sliding it down and the phone beeps a little hello. Close it and it provides a satisfying closing beep. Click around the menus and you get little beeps and nicely sounding chirrups all over the place. I didn’t find them annoying at all.

The form factor of this handset is just wonderful. To put this in context, I am normally walking around with a Nokia E61 in my right hand pocket and, more often than not, a Nokia N93 in the left hand pocket. So walking around with a handset that is half the size, weight and whatnot of my usual… well, it’s a slightly liberating experience. I kept on wanting people to phone me or text me so I could get out the Shine and ponce about with it. It generated strong desire to use it.

As I’ve said before, the menus are divine. Lovely animations, nice sounds, super rendered graphics. I’m going to try and get some sort of application to nicely capture the screens — or see if Gaylene and her colleagues can send me over some screenshots. I don’t think my Nokia N93 will do them justice.

That afternoon I had arranged to take Natalie, one of my normob friends (’normal mobile user’ — i.e. not a geek) out for lunch. For simplicity we opted for Caffe Uno in the High Street. After chatting about normal things for a while, I got out the Shine from my pocket and plonked it on the table. Her eyes lit up. As did the girl behind us, and the girls sat on the opposite table. All of them were checking it out. Not me, alas, just the handset.

Natalie recently churned from Vodafone and went to o2 because they offered her a slightly cheaper price plan and an LG Chocolate in Black (”I really wanted a pink one, but the black one is fine”). So Natalie is now and accomplished LG user and was, within seconds, flying through the various menus on the Shine, whilst i had a close look at the Chocolate.

It’s easy to see the appeal of the Chocolate with it’s sexy touch controls. The menu structure was readily familiar. I put the Shine next to the Chocolate to compare. The Shine is slightly wider and slightly heavier, on account, I think, of the metal construction and possibly a more powerful battery.

Natalie had a little sock for her Chocolate. She uses that to keep her handset clean of finger smudges and the like. What does she think of the Shine? Well, she reckons it’s absolutely wicked.

Would she have one tomorrow?
‘Yes, definitely’

What’s your favourite feature?
‘The mirror in the screen — plus it looks sexy’

We did some experiments with the camera. She reckoned that her Chocolate took ‘darker’ pictures that the Shine. We sorted this one out by her taking a picture with the Chocolate then bluetoothing it to the Shine. The photo was brighter and clearer on the Shine display.

There are no doubt quite a few differences in the specifications, however I don’t yet have those, so in terms of Natalie’s response, I reckon the most discernible difference is the mirrored screen and the titaniumy metally look.

Judging by the covetous and admiring glances from around Caffe Uno, the LG Shine is shortly about to become the next must-have handset. Guaranteed. Legions of Chocolate handset users will soon be presented with their upgrade path.

Now, the mirror is a brilliant addition. Not only is it absolutely appealing from a show-off perspective (”Look, the screen is in the mirror..”), it is, I imagine, rather useful for checking out your makeup. I’m no expert when it comes to makeup so I defer to Natalie’s ‘Oh yes, definitely useful’ summary of the mirror.

The Shine is no ‘multimedia computer’: It’s not about to rival the Nokia N95 with all its gizmos, memory and jack-of-all-trades functionality. Instead, I reckon the Shine will be quickly accepted as one of the best high fashion, uber-cool, no-nonsense handsets on the market. It’s got a good 2 megapixel camera, what looks like rather good battery life, gorgeous interfaces, a good looking MP3 player and of course, a legion of existing Chocolate fans.

What’s more, it’s been designed by people who clearly have a life, who like a bit of fun, and who’ve injected their passion into the Shine. For instance, there’s a wickedly good MP3 track included on the handset by the name of ‘Good Morning’. Play it and you’re greeted by a funky choir singing GOOOOOOD MORNING to a rocking beat! That is excellent.

I know Sony Ericsson have one or two similar default sounds, but they haven’t, to my knowledge, gone as far as LG. Heh. Fantastic.

One thing that really surprised me: I was talking to Natalie about how she gets her photos on to her computer from her Chocolate.

‘I just plug it in’

Right, but do you mean you bluetooth them?

‘No, I just plug it in with the USB cable and it comes up in My Computer’

Oh. Wow. Really? What? No software to install?

‘No. Just plug in the cable. I took the phone and cable over to my dad’s and put the photos on his computer.’

Gosh. Smart. I was imagining all sorts of paraphernalia required to get my LG Shine to communicate with my computer. Not a bit of it. You just plug it in. Heh. I like that a LOT.

So that’s all very well but what about Apple Macs? Well, I didn’t expect the LG to work with the Apple at all. Did I read the manual to determine if the Shine was compatible? No. Heh. I just stuck in the supplied USB cable and waited.

Within 2 seconds, Apple’s iPhoto had loaded, prompting me to click ‘import’. And there were the photos that I’d taken from the Shine.

That is just pure brilliance. Note: You can’t do this with a Nokia N93. You can’t just plug it in. In fact, you can’t plug the N93 into any Apple. There’s zero support. So ultra kudos to LG for sorting that support out. I imagine it’s either been standard or is now standard across their handsets.

So how does it look sat on your desk?

That’s not an LG supplied photo. I took that one! Doesn’t it look gorgeous?

I’m going to stop there for now and write some more after I’ve used it for a little while. If you’ve any questions, mail me or add’em in the comments.

I had a note in from Gaylene of Hill and Knowlton who’re managing the new LG Shine Blog.

Gaylene asked if I’d be interested in checking out the new LG Shine.

I didn’t have to think twice. You bet.

Have you seen it yet? It looks like a simply GORGEOUS handset. We’ll see how it operates — my last LG (the first Three handset I ever owned was an LG) had a rock solid interface that, although being used to Sony Ericsson and Nokia, was very straight forward to use.

I’m really delighted to see the mobile manufacturers engaging with the community. First that I can remember, I think, was Nokia last year doing it with the N-Series, and then, more recently, mobile operator Three’s X-Series blog launched and actually delivered on its promises to address issues and concerns (i.e. Frank Sixt, Three CFO, actually responding to issues and thoughts on the X-Series blog), well, it’s beginning to get rather exciting.

Back with LG, I am particularly enamoured at the fact they’re opening it to anyone in the UK, France or Germany to get the opportunity to actually check out the new LG Shine.

I tell you what’s quite exciting. It’s attention. I quite like having my attention drawn, particularly when people email me to check out X or Y. The mobile industry is huge. Huge. So as well as sitting back and thinking, ‘right, I want to document this or that,’ I find it refreshing to be engaged and to have my mind opened and expanded. It’s sometimes a bit of an arse staring at the wall.

You see, like many, I generally lavish attention on what’s in front of me. Not through any design per se. It’s just, well, you oft write about what you know, or see. I wrote recently about (annoyingly) discovering an alt-tab function on the Nokia S60 OS — because I was sat on the train and found it.

I haven’t written much about LG. Ever. That’s quite simply because, well, no one’s emailed me before from LG, none of the SMS Text News readers have emailed me much about LG, and because I generally have neutral-to-positive views on them. I admire their handsets when I see them around. I think the Chocolate was a total masterstroke and from having used an LG 8180, I know of them to be generally well built handsets. So having the opportunity to a) check out the handset and b) ask questions of LG via Hill and Knowlton, who, one assumes will be reactive and happy to assist, well, that is rather good.

If you have a mobile blog based in the UK, France or Germany, and you’d be interested in checking out the LG Shine, do drop them a mail via the LG Shine Blog.

Whilst I was checking out the blog by the way, I was surprised to come across the LG Chocolate Blog. The team have been blogging there about the Chocolate handset since April 2006! I didn’t know! I’ve added both to my RSS.

‘Rise and Shine.’ Heh. Love it.