LG KS20 review

Managing your files

The built-in file manager of the KS20 is the standard Windows Mobile variety. It does a good job finding the files you are looking for. The file manager can create new folders, copy and move files, set tracks as ringtones or simply send files to other devices.

The File Manager offers all the basic functionality

The Picture gallery of Windows Mobile is an application called Pictures&Videos and, as the name implies, you use it to browse the multimedia files in question. As far as pictures are concerned, you can zoom in and out, as well as preview them in landscape mode. The files are shown as either thumbnails or as a plain list. There's a shortcut that allows you to turn on the camera directly from this application. You can even do some basic editing on the images. The Windows Mobile image gallery is far from perfect, even mid-range feature phones now have more advanced image galleries. We sure hope to see some improvement from Microsoft in that department. You can always find yourself a nice gallery application though - the PocketPC platform is so expandable.

Browsing images as thumbnails • opening an image • zooming in

The multimedia player of all Windows Mobile devices is the preinstalled Windows Media Player. Besides music, it allows watching video and streaming TV. You can sort tracks by artist, album or genre and you can create custom playlists.

Sorting tracks in the Music Library • playing a track

Audio quality

Generally the audio quality of LG KS20 is below average. We definitely recommend you listen to music at about 75% volume level. Below this sweet spot the noise levels are too high and above it the distortion levels are too high. As you can see in the table below, the intermodulation distortion is high enough even at the recommended (optimal) level. The frequency response graphics clearly indicate the poor performance at trebles and basses. You can find more info about the test itself here.

We installed a TCPMP player and the needed codecs to play DivX and XviD video files. With the 400 MHz Qualcomm MSM 7200 processor, playing movies at near-VGA resolution on the KS20 is impossible, unless the GDI mode of the player is used. Obviously the lack of a video driver for the embedded video chip in the MSM7200 chipset will be plaguing LG users much like the HTC ones.

In this mode the dropped frames are considerably less and the film is watchable. Of course, it is best if you play PPC-optimized QVGA clips but who will spend the time nowadays to convert countless films for the sake of watching them on a phone?

Playing an XviD movie on the LG KS20

Midway zooming on a near-VGA video clip is also usable (barely)