Mobile Phone News:

Smartphones are big business, and there are more and more of ‘em coming out every month. But what I always like is the fact that for just about every type of smartphone, there’s a feature phone that mimics it, whilst being (obviously, since it’s not a smartphone) nowhere near as good.

Think about it, there’s touchscreen feature phones (compare the Samsung Tocco to the Samsung i8910 HD, and see, despite the similarities, which is better). There’s kind-of-touchscreen-enabled phones with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard (that’d be the kinda-touchscreen-enabled-but-only-for-the-dialler LG KS360).

According to Unwired View, there’s a phone, now, that apes the look of the Blackberry range of phones, and the HTC Snap, all in one go: the LG GW300.

What we have here is a phone that’s clearly designed to tap into the massive messaging boom that phones like the Blackberry range have brought about. People are starting to open up to the fact that QWERTY phones, by their very nature, are better for messaging, since you can type quicker. The days of purists who’ll only use alphanumeric keypads, with T9 turned off, are hopefully numbered, which hopefully means that people sending text messages will soon start using ‘English’ again.

But I digress…

Clearly what we’re looking at in the LG GW300 is an out and out messaging feature phone, and going by the bright blue bits on it (a similar design ethos to what they did with the KS360), this phone is clearly being marked out as 4 da kidz, innit. Of course, it will most likely find a market beyond that, since I reckon I know a few people who want the extra features it has (QWERTY keyboard, dedicated Facebook and email clients, funky colour scheme), but don’t want to get a smartphone like the HTC Snap (which has got very similar, if a lot more conservative, looks), either because they see it as too complicated, or too dear.

So, do I reckon the GW300 will sell? Yes. Is it a well-made and surprisingly decent phone for what it is? Yes.

Will I get one? Not a chance in hell.

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