LG KF750 Secret review: No secret, all guts

Display for a rainy day

LG KF750 Secret has a 2.4" display of QVGA resolution. Picture quality is excellent, with pleasing contrast and brightness levels. As already mentioned, brightness can be automatically controlled thanks to the built-in ambient light sensor.

The glossy panel over the display is in fact tempered glass - that's a hardened glass with increased impact and scratch resistance. It probably won't do much good if you slide the KF750 along your floor tiles, but it should protect it from the regular daily tear-and-wear.

The display has its ups and downs

The bad news about the display is legibility under direct sunlight. The glossy front surface may be nice looking but it renders the phone impossible to use outside on a sunny day. Even the LG KU990 Viewty performs much better in this aspect, and you know we weren't really pleased with it either.

Keypad up to the task

The keypad of LG KF750 is quite pleasing. It has ample and well defined buttons with enough space in between, so mispresses are quite unlikely. The press feedback is also good enough.

On the other hand the keys are too flat so, until you get used to this, you will have some problems locating them by touch only. We bet however that once you get used to it, you will speed your way through endless lines of messages and notes with the LG KF750.

We are pleased with the keypad ergonomics

The KF750 keypad has nice and even backlighting. Topped with the touch pad illuminations, the Secret has awesome looks in the dark. The backlighting is also strong enough to make sure usability won't suffer in dark environments.

LG KF750 looks marvelous in the dark

Telephony

The LG KF750 Secret offers smooth and problem-free performance when it comes to the most essential element of a phone - making calls. It offers good reception and in-call sound, with pleasing voice quality on both ends of a call. Besides, the phone has nice interface and dialing a number or a contact from the phonebook is quick and easy.

LG KF750 Secret automatically looks up for contacts, whose numbers contain the digits you type

We also put the Secret to our traditional loudspeaker test. Here is how it ranks against some of the other handsets exposed to the same challenge. As you can see, it performs greatly, stacking just below the top of our table. You can find more information about the test itself and the whole list of tested devices here.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
LG KF750 Secret	75.6	72.7	82.8	Excellent
Nokia 6500 slide	74.2	72.8	78.2	Very Good
LG KU990 Viewty	72.0	68.8	77.8	Good
Samsung E250	71.9	64.7	69.8	Average
Nokia N82	70.2	61.2	65.9	Below average

Eye-candy user interface

LG KF750 Secret features the regular LG user interface. It scores high on visual appeal and user-friendliness. The menu looks are widely customizable making the fast and responsive device a pleasure to use.

The standby screen has information about the current time and date, as well as the typical status readings. It shows signal strength, the active profile and the battery status. In standby mode the touch pad features 4 shortcuts, which can be customized to best suit the user's needs. Each of those is attached to one of the directions, while the center is responsible for entering the main menu.

The stand-by screen can show the calendar or a map of the shortcuts icons

The menu structure of LG KF750 Secret is straightforward and easy to work with. Except for a few strangely placed settings, everything else makes perfect sense. The different files and features are exactly where you would expect them to be, even if you don't have much experience with LG handsets.

The touch pad is the main option for navigating the menus. There are even settings for the haptic feedback and illuminations. As a whole, the feedback was good enough, albeit a bit delayed at times.

You can also use keypad shortcuts, with alphanumeric keys linked to icons in the grid (depending on the menu). We didn't have any trouble navigating the phone for the time of our review.

Touch media scores a point

A really cool part of the LG KF750 Secret interface is the Touch media menu. It is enabled by pressing the dedicated key on the right side of the handset. It is the only menu where you actually get to use the touchscreen capabilities of the KF750.

We simply can get it why LG decided to limit the functionality this way. We guess that they should have re-redesigned the whole UI so that it can be thumb-optimized but still it's something within their powers. With all the hardware at hand it just doesn't make much sense.

Touch media menu

Back to the point - the Touch media grants you instant access to the music player, picture gallery, document viewer, FM radio and the M-toy application. Those are all features that can be launched via the regular menu but when accessed with Touch media they have different interface. It is optimized for easier touch operation. We have to note that the touchscreen only reacts to finger-touch so it's fool-proof against accidental presses in your pocket.

Touch media music player, gallery, games and radio player