LG KM555E Review

A sleek looking feature phone that will fit under anybody’s budget

I’ll begin by saying the LG KM555E looks very sleek. It almost begs to be picked up. It’s very thin and light. At first glance, it would seem that the device’s build quality is surprisingly good for a budget device. But once you pick it up, you’ll realize that the chrome border is actually just chrome painted plastic. The back battery cover looks like its brushed metal but it’s really also just plastic. That being said, the build quality is not bad. It certainly looks and feels more expensive than it really is.

The 3” resistive touch screen dominates the front face of the device. There are 3 buttons along the bottom of the screen. They neither are physical buttons nor are they capacitive buttons. They appear to be an extension of the resistive touch screen, so they do require pressure to be applied. The buttons are for call, end, and one that brings up a task manager/favorites popup.
On the side there’s a volume rocker and a flap that covers the microUSB slot for charging.
On the other side, there’s a camera button and a button that takes you do the media player.
On the back is a 3MP fixed focus camera with no flash.
Nothing on the bottom other than the mic.
On top, there’s the power/standby button and a 3.5mm audio jack (a very welcomed addition).
LG includes a stylus, but there’s no way to store it in the device nor is there a way to dangle it externally. This is an odd decision. Does LG want you to carry it around in your pocket where it’s bound to get lost? Luckily, you won’t be needing the stylus much unless you use Asian text recognition.

The UI is simple and finger friendly. The home screen has 3 “sides”. One is for widgets such as a notification manager, clock, calendar, music player, etc. It’s possible to download more. One is for your favorite contacts which you can arrange as if they’re tiles. The last “side” is interesting but a bit gimmicky. At first it appears to be empty. But once you start making or receiving calls, this particular “side” gets populated by your recent call history entries. They are shown as cartoon animals or people (depending on the settings you specified). If you tap on them, you can choose to call or text them.

The programs menu is organized by categories. You swipe the rows to see more of each category. Alternatively, you can flip your device to landscape to view all of them at once.

The camera is unimpressive. But since it is fixed-focus, it takes very quick pictures.

Text entry is done via a T9 style soft-keypad. Alternatively, you can switch to landscape and type using a Qwerty style keyboard. It works well, but the resistive screen means you can’t type at full speed with 2 thumbs.

Conclusion: If you have a bit more to spend, the LG KM900 is a better device. It has a capacitive screen, 4GB internal memory, and auto-focus camera with flash. But if budget is tight and you are willing to overlook those 3 things, this is a decent choice.

Positives:
+3.5mm audio jack
+compact
+looks great
+inexpensive
+WiFi

Negatives:
-resistive touch screen
-occasional minor lags in the UI